#STP14Convinced

I’m a communications major.

Social media is inherently part of my degree.

Social media is also almost always part of my jobs and internships.

So it was no surprise when I was told part of my job as the STP communications intern is to update and manage the Summer Training Project social media accounts.

Pause for a plug.

Here are the links for our social media sites! Check ‘em out! Like or follow!

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/comstp

Twitter

https://twitter.com/comstp

Moving on.

As some of you may know, hashtags (#) are becoming a big deal on every social site. What started as a Twitter feature is now a substantial part of other sites, including Facebook and Instagram. That’s important to know, because those are the main sites our students are posting to this summer.

Although it’s easy to get too caught up in technology and sucked into social media in an unhealthy way, there are good and helpful things about these online tools. One example is the hashtag.  

If you search a hashtag on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you can see every picture, video and status that has been posted with that particular hashtag. The feed that comes up is a compilation of everyone’s posts. No longer do people need to search high and low for posts related to topics of interest. The hashtag does it for you.  

In an effort to use this convenient feature, we have established a hashtag for our students at Project this summer.

#stp14convinced

This is the hashtag for STP 2014.  Go ahead, look it up! Every few days I search the hashtag and it’s always fun to see what students are posting. I’ve seen everything from encouraging Facebook statuses about things people are learning about Jesus to artistic pictures on Instagram of the many adventures students have during their free days.

A lot of the students here talk about how hard it is to keep up with all their friends and family back home. Social media is obviously not an ideal or adequate replacement for a phone call, but it can help supplement since students are able to quickly post several updates throughout the day.

I hope all the friends and family back home find this source helpful! The students at Project enjoy using the hashtag to find each other’s posts and look back over the weeks to see the fun that has happened in South Carolina, but we also want this to be serving those who aren’t at STP.

Dozens of posts come in every day, so keep checking in!

What's a Theme?

Every year the Summer Training Project is structured around a theme and corresponding Bible verse. Past themes have included Known, At All Costs, Awake, and Exiles. So what purpose does the theme really serve, and what is the theme for STP 2013? Great questions. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you in suspense or keep you guessing. The theme for Summer Training Project 2013 is ….

….FREE!

Yes, “Free.” The book we are digging into this summer is Galatians, written by the Apostle Paul. We want to explore what the Bible says about living in freedom because of the gospel of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. Our theme verse, Galatians 5:1, says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” So…what does that mean?

Christ did not die on the cross, taking on all our sins forever, so that we would feel burdened or shackled by anything. Because of Christ, we are guiltless. We don’t need to work for our salvation; we could not possibly do anything to add to the finished work of God himself dying on the cross. This summer, we want to explore what it means to live in light of this Biblical truth.

The CO staff has created a calendar of daily Bible studies for the next two months. Galatians, a book broken into 6 chapters, has been broken into nine weeks worth of daily devotions, including one memory verse per week. Needless to say, students will have plenty of opportunity to mull over and deeply engage what the Lord has to say in this book.

In addition to Bible study, the theme each summer acts as a framework for the four weekly trainings. These include Theme Training, Evangelism Training, Bible Study Training and Life Training. So far, we have had a Theme Training titled “The God who is Free,” an Evangelism Training called “Free-King Out!” and “Free Time” as our first Life Training. See a trend? The theme will be pervasive in all trainings this summer.

There are so many things we would love to be set free from: anxiety, pain, fear, burden, stress, peer-pressure, addiction, brokenness, grief – the list goes on. This summer, we are praying the Lord works in our hearts to set us free from these things as we learn more about who Jesus is, what he has done for us, and what that means on a daily basis for believers in Christ.

Final Theme Talk - Exiles

For our final theme talk, Andrew Knight shared about trusting in the to gospel to not miss opportunities to advance the gospel back on the campus. [display_podcast]

We've All Gone Home

This morning all of the staff and students woke up at 5:15am to head back to Minnesota and Michigan. We woke up, ate breakfast, prayed, and hit the road by 6am.Last night we had our final meeting where Andrew Knight shared with us about not missing opportunities to spread the gospel back on the campus, but by faith trusting God to do big things through our lives. That talk will be available online next week. At the meeting we also revealed the project video and t-shirt. The video will also be available online next week. In the coming weeks, we will put some quotes from students about all that God did in their lives this summer. Thanks to all of you who followed our blog all summer and prayed for us down at Myrtle Beach.