Fall 2018 Review to Christmas!

VWU students & Patricia Colthurst going to see the Museum of the Bible.  

I hope there is a deep sense of gratitude within you in this season where we’re remembering the humble coming of Jesus! 

I want to say thank you for your support of Life in His Name.  We have nine students and a few others signed up to travel with me to Puerto Rico during Spring Break.  Nicaragua is still unstable, so we’re going to serve with the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico doing hurricane recovery work.  Your support is helping students to get there and for the work itself! Gracias!

This semester I’ve been more aware of the amount of hurt and fear that many students carry with them each day. Broken relationships, betrayal, break-ups, health crises, financial uncertainty and high-levels of anxiety seem to be everywhere. If God really became a human being, which I’m betting my life on, all the solutions to these problems are found in Jesus!  In his life, his teachings, his miracles, his death & resurrection and his Spirit with us today!

I am very thankful for the Marlin Ministry Lead Team, eight students that work closely with me to help advance the ministry of Christ on campus.  Emily Testroet ‘19 has been serving as a ‘Boyd Fellow’ within my office, an intern role.  She is heading into student teaching next semester, so both Justin Robins ’21 & Jason Brugman ’21 will be stepping into that role!  I’ve partnered with the two of them this semester in leading 3 discipleship groups on campus this semester!

I also started a weekly spiritual conversation group with the faculty and staff this semester. It gives us an opportunity to know and support each other on a much deeper level. It is an encouragement to them to live out their faith on campus, influencing students! We are using the book: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pieter Scazzero; I highly recommend it!

A couple of highlights: We had a solid turnout for the movie ‘Tortured for Christ’, the story of Rev. Richard and Sabrina Wormbrand and the persecuted church in Romania under the Soviet Union.  (Founders of Voice of the Martyrs)

We hosted Chiereme Fortune ’13 and her musical group: Girls and Guitars, for a night of worship, spoken word & prayer. They also led worship at SOAR on Sunday including Chiereme giving the message – powerful!  (@becomingthewoman)

We hosted Pastor Thelma from Nicaragua for a week at the University. She traveled with our 2016 VWU mission team in Nicaragua. While here, she spoke to two different Spanish classes, a women’s Bible study, and preached as well.

May Christ's Kingdom come in and through us and may we do His will just as the angels are living it out!

Greg West

Christmas 2017

Merry Christmas! 

I hope this letter finds you hopeful and grateful as we move through the Christmas season.  I love this quote by W. J. Cameron: "There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries." 

So we are celebrating another anniversary of the coming of Christ into his world!  The Apostle John put it this way, “He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him” (John 1:10 NLT).  More than 2,000 years have passed and still today, many do not recognize him!  Our great desire is for college students and everyone to ‘recognize him’!  When we do we’re welcomed into his family and experience the new life, the abundant and eternal life as a gift!  This is the joy of Christmas! 

God continues to do great things in and through the students in Marlin Ministries!  It is a great privilege to build up young people in the faith.  The conversations, the insights from the Scriptures, students stepping up in leadership and hearing how God is at work among our alumni are all great sources of encouragement to me personally.  There have been numerous times over the semester where I’ve been able to share the story of Jesus with a student who is unfamiliar with the story and in a couple cases, the students have never heard!  Wow, to share the greatest story ever told is a phenomenal delight.

If you have been at one of our Christmas worship gatherings or Life Groups, you may have heard me share my favorite Christmas Carol.  It is Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, written by Charles Wesley.  As I write this, there are students next door are singing it, getting ready for our annual caroling of the campus!  When I was in college the words to this marvelous hymn became reality to me, as I understood them for the first time!

 

Mild He lays His Glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the new-born King

I had recently received Jesus as my Savior and my Lord as a junior at Old Dominion University.  In that moment, this song that I had sung every Christmas without understanding and without the life of Christ in me, gave me understanding as to what had happened in my life!  The eternal Son of God willingly set aside the glory of heaven and the glory of the presence of his Father.  He came to earth!  And his purpose in coming was to raise us, to give us a second birth! 

This Christmas know that you are loved with an everlasting love!  And the proof is the life of Jesus.  I want to challenge you and your families to read or reread the Christmas story in the Gospels.  You can cover this in just five chapters: Luke 1 & 2; Matthew 1 & 2; John 1.

Consider well Christ this Christmas, his birth, his teachings, his example, his claims & promises, his death and his resurrection and finally consider his LOVE for you and all of us . . . then act!

A blessed Christmas to you all,

Greg West