Friday, February 20, 2009

from the PhD application (part three)

4. TO WHAT AREAS OF SERVICE HAS GOD CALLED YOU AND WHAT ARE YOUR MINISTRY GOALS?


Over the past ten years, I have really felt God’s call to the area of student ministry. I can not seem to get away from my passion for students, even when I have tried. There is a connection I feel for students, for their culture, and their hurts, from one extreme to the other. When I pursued the undergraduate degree in youth ministry from Charleston Southern University, my ideal job would have been to travel all around the world speaking to students (whether in churches, schools, big events, etc.). When I began seminary and throughout seminary, the possibility of teaching youth ministry really touched me in very special kind of way. In my past almost nine years of ministry, God has allowed me to do a myriad of ministries all relating to students in some facet. I have had the opportunities to serve an internship under a Music/Youth Minister, do some travel speaking to student groups (football teams, D-now, youth nights, etc.), in addition to Singles (mostly college and young adult) and Student Minister positions.


Currently, as a resort missionary with the North America Mission Board and serving on the associational staff, I work with youth ministers and directors and assist them in their mission trip in my mission field, Myrtle Beach, SC. Our summer missionaries are high school and collegiate students who sacrifice ten weeks of their summer to serve the Lord sharing Christ’s Message and Love. I travel a good bit educating people that missions is possible (at all ages) and I attend a few mission conferences on college campuses encouraging students to be involved in mission work. I have the opportunity as a young adult to reach out to students in over seventy churches that make up our association with the platform of missions, in addition to speaking to the over five hundred students we have each summer four nights a week in our services.


I have written a number a number of times that my passion is threefold: youth/college/evangelism. This passion has been and continues to be evident in my pursuit of God and in Him allowing me to serve Him in ministry. When I came to serve in Myrtle Beach, my vision has been this: “To empower, excite, and equip local churches to do the Great Commission through the Great Commandment”. This has been my focus in all audiences of people that I have spoken to in my time as US/C2 resort missionary, whether that be a Wednesday night youth group, WMU ladies luncheon, associational meeting, men’s breakfast, missions celebration week, or a pre-project weekend for summer ministry leaders. This vision and my three-fold passion come hand in hand—loving people and sharing Christ with them.



5. GIVE YOUR EDUCATIONAL GOALS. WHAT IS YOUR REASONS FOR PURSUING THIS DEGREE?


For much of my life, I thought college was an absolute, and then through much of college, I knew seminary was even absolute. Then to the end of seminary and with the hope of graduation, I was really excited about getting on the field and closing the study books for a time. It was been an amazing experience to serve Southern Baptists as a missionary appointed by the North American Mission Board. Further, it has been incredible to serve a two year appointment with an extension in this resort ministry field, Myrtle Beach, SC. I have learned numerous elements, concepts, and valuable tools to reach unbelievers with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Halfway through my appointment, I began to realize (yet again) my desire to help assist in the training of future ministry leaders and servants. Each summer, I immensely enjoy leading summer ministries through our summer program and teaching them ministry development through their experience in resort missions here at the beach.


Even with a un-desirable verbal score on the GRE this past Friday, I fully believe that God has led me to apply for a PhD. Many have encouraged me, and affirmed me in this time commenting they could see me in this particular role/ministry. I intend on using this PhD to attain a teaching position on a Christian College campus to help empower, excite, and equip men and women(in certain positions) to be pastors, leaders in this world, and specifically student ministry ministers and leaders. I want to use this PhD to reach students with the same vigor and influence that those like my parents, student minister, professors, and Godly adults had on me.


This PhD is far beyond me by any imagination. Honest, the thought of PhD scares me. I have wrestled and thought about this decision for a very long time, but time and time again I really been moved by the Holy Spirit that this will not be mine, but His. If I was to walk across the stage in the chapel in a few years, I would know without a shadow of a doubt that this degree would be by His grace and favor alone. I want to use this for His glory and to continue making Him known in my life, in the community around me, the among the globe in the places he Has allowed (and will continue to allow) me to go, and for the furthering of student ministry leader development in the years to come.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

from the PhD application (part two)

3. SHARE ELEMENTS AND FACTORS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED YOUR SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. TELL ABOUT YOUR CALL TO MINISTRY.

My Spiritual development has been influenced early on through Christian parents, Christian education, and the involvement in a local church. I learned as a middle and high school student more and more about what spiritual faith looked liked in a practical way through my student minister at church, Danny Wilson. It was very common growing up that everyone said that I would become a preacher one day. To this day, I reflect back on his counsel, friendship, and commitment to me as a student that has helped me to be a man of service and real faith for Jesus Christ. He modeled for me a Christian marriage (in addition to my parents), an authentic walk with Jesus, and the importance of excellence in ministry. He took me places, showed me trust, and at times allowed me to have responsibility in different aspects of our student ministry.

In the Summer of 1996 (after my freshman year in high school) I attended a World Changers mission project in Charleston, West Virginia. It was during this week that I really felt God’s providential and guiding hand on my life and surrendered to the ministry. Some call it ministry leadership, others call it full time Christian ministry and service… call it what you will, but it was there that God got a hold of me and to this day, I have never been the same. It was as clear as it could be, and it was here that I knew that God had set me a part to serve Him vocationally as a minister.
In college, I pursued a Youth Ministry major because I fully believed that my call to ministry was to help students (middle school, high school, and collegiate) know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and to guide them in a real and growing relationship in Jesus Christ. Throughout much of my experience in college as youth intern, summer missionary, singles minister, student revival/d.now/bcm speaker, and as student minister, I have had countless number of people in my life affirm and encourage my call and passion for ministry on numerous occasions. I enjoyed ministry both in the church and on my Christian campus where unbelieving students went to school. Over these years I have learned much from those of whom I worked and studied under (i.e. Pastors, Youth Ministers, Professors, Campus Ministers, Missionaries).

In my seminary time, I learned a lot about sacrifice and surrender. Hurricane Katrina taught me a lot of people and a great deal about myself. I really began to learn that everyone has a story, but the greatest story I have tell is the most important thing in my life, and that is a relationship with Jesus Christ. My life verse has been for a couple of years now 1 Corinthians 10:31, when Paul stated, “Therefore, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God”. I believe and will go to my grave confessing that my life should be lived for the Glory of God. Before all people, at all times, and in all things, my life should worship Jesus Christ. I have had men and women who loved God in my life model this passage for me, and so I want to model this cry of Paul’s for generations to come.

Friday, February 13, 2009

from the PhD application (part one)

1. EXPLAIN YOUR CONVERSION EXPERIENCE. INCLUDE YOUR AGE, THE CIRCUMSTANCES, ETC.

At a very early age, (in addition to local church involvement) I attended a non-denominational Christian school, and every summer I grew up going to children’s camp at Bonnie Doone Plantation (owned and operated by the Charleston Baptist Association) in Walterboro, South Carolina. I accepted Christ Jesus as my personal, Lord and Savior one night at our camp chapel at the age of eight. That night, I will never forget. It was this night that I responded in faith to my Savior, Jesus Christ. I knew I was a sinner in need of forgiveness. I believed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on a cross for my sins and I confessed my sins to Him. I committed my life to Him that night, and I have never been the same since then.

About a year later, I (along with my brother) was baptized on the last night of our church’s revival. I understood that baptism was an outward expression of an inward change—a relationship with Jesus Christ—but the fear I had of water kept me from immediately getting baptized. With a desire for God to use my life in extraordinary proportion and realizing I experienced salvation at the age of eight, I rededicated my life at the age of thirteen. It was here at my first youth camp, the summer after my seventh grade year in a new public school that I began to realize that salvation in Christ was a daily commitment to a daily relationship with my best friend, Jesus Christ. Jesus became for me more than a religion, but an intimate, growing, vital, and real relationship that would cultivate into daily study of His Word and a continued commitment to church and service.


2. DESCRIBE YOUR FAMILY BACKGROUND

I have grown up in a loving, Christian home. My father and mother are examples of Godly faith and perseverance. My father and mother has been active in local church work throughout their lives individually and their marriage together. My father has found his employments, whether he was a insurance salesman, shipyard pipe fitter, air force reserve man, or supply manager for Fort Jackson, to be his mission field. He has served his church families well as deacon, pulpit supply preacher, small group host, or Sunday school teacher. My mother has found her employment, as a public hospital nurse on the mother and baby floor, to be her mission field for over thirty years. She, as well, has been an active servant in her church families with my father, as nursery workers, vacation Bible school teacher, youth camp cook, and mission trip participant.