Fusion 2011

This past weekend was the New England Annual Fall Retreat, Fusion. It was held in Hull, MA as it has been for the past 4 years with Matt Christenot and Tony Merida was the speaker. The topic this year was "Contend...Engaging an Inclusive World with an Exclusive Gospel", to encourage and equip the students to share the gospel with their families, friends and anyone they come in contact with. The four different sessions were on Following Jesus: 3 Crucial Questions, Making Christ Known in a Diverse City, Adoption: the Highest Privilege of the Gospel, and Love: the Final Apologetic.

Some of these sessions stood out more to some than others, but some of the things that stood out in my mind was: when sharing the gospel we need to remember to keep the main things the plain things and the plain things the main things. It doesn't have to bee too complicated. He told us a story, which I can not get out of my head, about how a christian gave a bible to Penn of Penn & Teller after a show and explained the gospel to him. Penn later said that he respected the guy because he shared his faith and said "how much do you have to hate someone to not share with them." That quote just hit me. How much do I have to hate someone to not share with them, even though I don't even know them. One of the final things that had an impact on me was the entire session on adoption and how it is an expression of the gospel. For many this was also impact-full because they had never heard of or thought of adoption in this way and they really enjoyed it. Tony also talked about how adoption was ever God's Plan B. This just made me think about what a sovereign and glorious God that we have. This just made me think about why don't we think in this way and plan on adopting as part of our family because that is how we came into God's family. Listening to this session made me just want to adopt (eventually, Lord willing) that much more. Tony has written a book called Orphanology, which I am excited to read and educate myself more on this topic.

This weekend was a great opportunity to grow our relationships with the students and begin building connections with the freshmen. From where I stand, I could definitely tell that the students who went made deeper connections and are pleased that they went. Of all the games we played this weekend, Pirates Monopoly I believe was the most popular and intense one played. Saturday was a gorgeous, warm (surprisingly) day so I decided to go for a walk on the beach and ended up going for 2 hours. It was a much needed time of peace and relaxation.

As usual we had to take a group picture on the beach and decided that this year we should take a leader's picture too. Well it got a little out of control as usual and we ended up with some funny pictures. 

 

One of the great things about these retreats though is that we also get to see our friends from around New England and hear about all the things God is doing on the college campuses. Two new couples have joined our collegiate team here, one in Worcester and another at the University of Rhode Island. It was also great to hear how Itamar's group at Becker is growing and God is answering our prayers. We have been praying with her that the Lord would provide a nursing student who wants to see the gospel spread on campus, but also as a way to connect to other nursing students. Well God answered her prayers and brought a freshman nursing student to the collegiate group. Below is a picture of most of the collegiate workers in New England.