“We should do this more often”

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:28:48 -0500

the power of god unto salvation
We started this semester with three weeks of prayer in our several small groups. In one of these prayer groups, we had a new student name Sue who has no Christian background.

It would seem that God put His X on her back last semester when He put her in the same dorm room as a Chi Alpha student.

She has been sharing interest in Christ and coming to our Chi Alpha Live events. A couple weeks ago, she came to a prayer meeting that we had in David's dorm in Southwest. At this prayer meeting, God really showed up. Students went around and shared what God has been sharing with them.

Amber (a freshmen this year) feels called to pray for three weeks and start a Bible Study in her dorm and Pam feels called to partner with her.

Cory believes that God has been challenging him to step out in faith regarding moving in the spiritual gifts. During the meeting, Cory believed that God was had a word for Amber concerning her Bible study. It turns out, that what he said was exactly what God had been not only telling her, but also Shane.

Over the course of the night, the spirit of God came down in power. It was clear that everyone there had a unique experience with God as the Holy Spirit was working through the Body of Christ. Even Sue said, "We should do this more often!". This statement was a relief because after what had happened through this meeting, part of me thought that we had totally freaked her out. Instead, she met with God. I guess experiencing God in prayer meetings is the new ‘seeker sensitive’.

Check it out at
umasschialpha.com

Shane and I have often asked how we can train and minister to our students on their schedules. Here is the first of many tools I will be working on to answer this question.In the last couple months, one of my projects that I have been working on is a tool that we are planning to use to target specific areas of spiritual growth in our students. They will assign partner to work with them as they fill out a test that will target areas in their lives that they could use targeted growth. They will then be given automated emails with assigned action steps that will guide them (along with their partner) to walk through a practical plan of spiritual growth. Through this tool, we will better be able to not only see the overall spiritual health of the group, but also target areas where our individual students can grow.

We’re Having a girl!!
It is awesome to see the growth that God had made not only in ministry over the last couple years, but also in our personal life. In the past Three years, we have fallen in love, got married, bought our first house, made our house livable and are now having a baby girl!

Karis Eirene Johnson
(Charis + Eirene it’s Greek for Grace and Peace)

Campaign karis
God has been so faithful.
We have been praying and planning for this phase in our lives and I want to give you a chance to be involved. As you may already know.
I can work with students here at UMass because my paycheck is made up of the financial partnership of people like you. As my greatest supporter, Beth contributes to about 60% of our ministry and personal income. In June we will welcome our new Baby into the world and I am wanting to be able to give Beth two months off. Ideally, in order to do this, we need to raise about $3000 to make up for her contribution. I am trusting God and appealing to you in whatever God puts in your heart to do. Also, please keep all three of us in your prayers this spring. :)

the power of prayer

Last semester, we had two students turn their lives to Christ. Pray for Alexis and Mary-Ashley.

Pray for Seeker Sue and Eric.

Pray for the guidance of God for Amanda and Ian as they are praying about giving a year to Chi Alpha after they graduate.
(more details about this in the next newsletter)

Pray for our winter retreat. We will be speaking on the topic of Intimacy with God.

In our small groups, we are going to be going through evangelism training. Pray that He will guide our students in a new confidence in sharing their faith.

About me

“We should do this more often”