One of the greatest things about Summer Training Project is the opportunity to be saturated in gospel truth daily, especially in our Theme Night Talks. Last Monday night, Mike Parrett, Regional Director of Campus Outreach St. Louis, shared about the reality of sin in the world and in our lives. He talked through the tragic reality that sin makes the world not run as God created it to in order to help us understand just how much we need Jesus.
“If you want to think sin is just doing bad things, then it will be very hard to go to Jesus.”
His argument: everyone can be a good person if they try really hard to, but that doesn’t mean they are saved from sin. Sin lingers on. Sin is both an intruder and a parasite along with being disobedience against God. Like being stuck in quicksand, we literally cannot get ourselves out of our sin. We need Jesus to come and yank us out. There is no other way.
While sin made us exiles from the garden and from relationship with God, Christ restores us and makes us exiles in this world for the Kingdom of God. What an incredible turnaround made possible only through the blood of Christ.
Having the opportunity to have impactful gospel talks both at project and at our churches, many students including myself have been taking advantage of them and inviting coworkers in to join us. It has been so encouraging to see all the students on Project being intentional about creating meaningful relationships with each other and with their coworkers while down here.
There has been a coworker from my Walmart that has been engaging with us with interest in gospel conversations and even attended church with us on Sunday. He then also came to this Monday’s theme night talk as well! Since then, we have been able to have great conversations with him, and he has asked us many questions. Please join us in praising God for this opportunity and praying that he would receive the gospel and repent of his sins, and that we would be bold, intentional, and loving in our conversations with him! Please also join us in praying for this week’s prayer focus – that we would continue to be blessings to our workplaces and would have the boldness and opportunities to share with more coworkers the good news of the gospel.
Some Fun Things
Last week’s social was the Boat Social! For this social, each team decides on a different theme that they choose to bring to life. They each make a boat using plywood, cardboard, duct tape, and plastic wrap that must float and go across the pool twice in their performance. For this social, teams are truly brought together and the different skills sets and personalities of each member really shine. While bonding and building community, we also get to have fun, be goofy, and not take ourselves too seriously together.
For the performance, different people are given different roles. The goal of the performance is to act out the plot through song in under 10 minutes. This year, the themes were The Little Mermaid, The Greatest Showman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tangled (which came out in first place and also happened to be my team).
The night was full of laughs and amazement as each team creatively gave their all to their performances. People walking by even stopped to watch our performances.
Last Saturday our encouragement for the week was cereal and cartoons after work. Sitting down together after an exhausting day to watch Phineas and Ferb and eat cereals from our childhood was a great way to end the week and lead into our restful Sunday. Overall, it has been another full week of fellowship, growth, and feeling the Lord’s mercy!
All-Project Picture!!