(Full) Week One: Intimacy with Christ

The week began on Monday with my first day of work at Adventure Landing theme park as a member of "park services." The job was just about what I thought it would be with less down time than the manager seemed to imply. At my job, which I work from 10-4 every weekday, I clean trashcans (of which, there are countless at the park), check and clean bathrooms every hour, clean up messes left behind by guests, take out the garbage, and a number of odd jobs to help keep the park looking nice and sanitary. It's a tedious job to be sure, but it's nice to know that I'm doing something other than sitting around the dorm.

Monday night we had what we call a "rally night," which is basically a night where we sing worship songs, hear from a speaker, and then sing another worship song (for those who are not aware, this is just like a typical Thursday night back at UNL except we call it Nav Night). The speaker for this week was Mike Jordahl. For full disclosure, I am a huge fan of Mike Jordahl. When we went to something called a Laborer's Retreat back in February, he was the main speaker and spoke passionately (and relevantly) on being disciples who make disciples. Ever since I had heard he was coming to JAX, I was very excited. Little did I know that my team would wind up eating dinner with him just hours before he was to talk to us (but that's another story).

Mike did a great job of illustrating to us what intimacy with Christ looks like. The quote that I really liked is that we want to know that God is as real "as our right hand." He highlighted things that we as Christians do (such as comparing ourselves, maintaining our pride, having hard hearts, and a few others) that keep us from developing a relationship with Christ and knowing Him personally. My team left that night with a lot to talk about.

After a somewhat eventless Tuesday, Wednesday we had a workshop night where Mike spoke again along with his wife Nancy. We worked through questions to try to figure out what things in our lives were preventing us from having a close relationship with Christ and what things were going well.

Thursday night we had Bible Study. My team members had a great conversation focused on how we were going to be accountable to each other so that we could grow together. We also spent Thursday night asking out a group of girls to a date night where we would play cards, Family Feud, and enjoy some ice cream.

Which leads to today. We finished our awesome group night, got to eat real steak (YES!), and will soon be going to bed. Our team is scheduled to do beach evangelism on Sunday, so tomorrow will be a free day of relaxing and probably eating at a local place called Angie's Subs (which is famous, obviously, for their delicious sub sandwiches). Sunday will be the day I experience ultra contemporary service at Beach United Methodist. I'm a little anxious to be truthful because I'm worried if the pursuit to be contemporary will go too far, but I'm hoping for the best.

Thank you guys again for all of your prayers. It rained on Monday, so the threat of fires was greatly diminished, and our prayers were answered.