| Big Transitions…
As we embark on this new journey – shifting focus towards the marketplace, new community discipleship houses, & providing an outlet for missionaries – Jesus has already been confirming our direction! -As you can see in the “Must Read Blogs” list to the right, the team has arrived safely back from S. Asia!
-We plan to launch a new I.G. Community Discipleship House. We are currently working with a board member & outside consultant to put together the “I.G. House” plan/guidelines. Some close friends/supporters of I.G. are looking to purchase a house in Austin to rent for this community house, a group of guys are interested in moving in, and we hope to launch in August! -I’ve already been conversing with people in different parts of the country about the Marketplace CPx Training we are developing -As I continue seeking a FT job in the business world we’ve been able to delegate/outsource much of the I.G. administrative/logistical daily operations. The I.G. Missionary Fund: Part of this transition for I.G. involves providing an outlet for in state & overseas missionaries. We seek to help those we have trained step into their destiny. For some that means moving to another country, for others it means a short term trip or traveling throughout the U.S. planting new house churches along the way. Either way, our board decided it would be an extremely wise use of resources to open the “I.G. Missionaries Fund”. God has already started using it! -Team of 7 sent to S. Asia to host CPx Training for 41 local students! -Hosted intern in Austin -Missionary on the ground in Ecuador seeking to build relationships & start a new house church! _______________________________________________________ That’s it for now! Thanks for continuing to walk with us throughout this exciting, and non-conventional transition! We are trusting Jesus, and continuing to watch Him do mighty works as we obey Him. On Behalf of I.G. & the Board of Directors, Aaron Snow |
Must Read Blog Posts… -I.G. Ecuador Missionary on the ground! -Moolala.com – Don’t Miss Out! -“Preaching vs. Good Teaching” Partner with I.G. through Prayer and Giving:
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January Update From I.G.
Jan 23
From a Student CPx Austin 2009 “grad”: Meghan-Says… (Watch Video Below)
Last August I went through a 10-day training called SCPx, Student Church Planting Experience. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and Jesus completely rocked my life during it. If you are college student, I strongly encourage you to look into this training. It is one the best things I ever did.
Why I love SCPx…
- SCPx is a hands-on training, not a conference.– I have been to many conferences. It seems that most end with a sore butt from sitting for 3 days straight and a headache from the information overload. Consumption, not always followed by action. At SCPx, you experience interactive teaching every morning and then immediately you are “sent out” into the city or campus to apply it that day! Fruit is seen instantly. No better way to learn than to trust the Holy Spirit and get your hands dirty.
- SCPx feels like family– Usually anywhere from 15-40 students go through SCPx. It is not large scale. You can imagine the deep relationships that are formed over 10 days of living, eating, praying, and loving people together. The SCPx I attended last year in Austin birthed a community that has felt more like family as we have continued to live out church over the past year. I have never felt closer to the church in Acts.
- SCPx is not just about the campus, but the nations.– After SCPx, I saw disciples made, new believers, baptisms, simple church lived out, and signs and wonders on the UT campus. But God also broke my heart deeply for the nations. Because of the church planting training I received at SCPx, I felt equipped and empowered to go to South Asia in January of this year. Now, some of the other SCPx “grads” and I will return there to train young people in the same way to reach their country!
- SCPx fosters an atmosphere of freedom.– God showed His power by healing me physically and setting me free of a life-long battle of allergies and asthma during those 10 days. Also, many bondages and sin struggles I had carried for a year were broken off of me at SCPx. This is because, more than church planting curriculum, SCPx is about knowing how much God loves us and our identity in Him. Then we were freed to love people radically. I have heard many SCPx “grads” say it was as if they received “permission” to live in freedom and walk in radical obedience.
- SCPx is a challenge.– This is the disclaimer I give to students interested in SCPx… this training will challenge you. It will challenge you physically. It will stretch you. It will cause you to trust the Holy Spirit in a way you have never done before. It will put you completely out of your comfort zone at times. It will probably challenge your theology at some point. It will confront your ideas of what “church” is. It will wreck you out in all the best ways possible. It will push you closer to Jesus and others. If your experience is anything like mine, it will be the best challenge of your life.
Meghan Strickland Testimony – Student CPx from Aaron Snow on Vimeo.
Check out this site for more info, or go to studentcpx.org for info and the registration application!
For all the Austinites, SCPx Austin is August 6-15. Registration is filling up and there are limited spots, so apply soon.
Student CPx San Diego…
Jun 24
We are ultra excited about Student CPx on the West Coast. We are working with our close friend Brian Orme to host SCPx in San Diego in a few weeks! If you are on the West Coast, know anyone in that area, or just cannot make it to one of the other SCPx locations this summer then make sure you GET REGISTERED for SCPx in San Diego by July 9th! Check out a quick promo video for San Diego…
Student Church Planting Experience UC San Diego from Brian Orme on Vimeo.
Jaeson Ma Says…
Jun 16
If you have a heart for the nations then go ahead and start pursuing that heart right here in the states! Start this beautiful journey to the nations by getting some of the “best cross-cultural missions” training in existence!
Click Here to find out some more info about Student CPx! From there you can select a city near you!
Summer Is Here!
Jun 10
…And you know what that means…things start to get a little crazy around here for us, and our partnering organizations as we come together to put on Student CPx trainings in 4 cities! That’s right, we have SCPx opportunities this summer in San Diego, CA. Austin, Tx. Phoenix, AZ. & Pittsburgh, PA. Intentional Gatherings is responsible for hosting two of these four (San Diego, and Austin). If you, or anyone you know is interested in some incredible cross cultural disciple making/church planting training then SCPx is a MUST!
“Student CPx will be a potent force on the university campus. This endeavor merits our prayers and support!”
– George Patterson, PhD, author of Church Multiplication Guide
“The hottest mission field in the Western world right now is the college campus. If this is an indication of what is to come, we will see another Great Awakening. Everyone should be praying for this emerging movement to spill over into all the domains of society. Come join the party.”
– Neil Cole, Church starter, author of Organic Church
To find out more information about a particular city, click the city’s link above. To register for Student CPx Click Here!
"Dessert & Coffee Party"
May 21
Orlando & Austin…
Feb 3
As you know we have planned “iSCPx” (Intro to Student Church Planting Experience) in 13 cities across the nation during the Spring. We’ve already made it to SoCal, and I will be heading to Orlando this weekend to be with our team there for “iSCPx Orlando”! The following weekend we will be here in Austin with our awesome group of “SCPx grads” from last summer. They will be helping me host “iSCPx Austin” here on UT’s campus! See http://studentcpx.org for info about the other cities! God is moving across the nation!
(Details for “iSCPx Austin” below)
"iSCPx"
Jan 21
“iSCPx” (Intro to Student Church Planting Experience) will be held in about 13 cities all over the country between now and March 2010. Brad McKoy from the Student Church National Elder team as well as myself will be in San Diego and Los Angeles this weekend to host the first “iSCPx’s” on the USCD & UCLA campuses. I am also responsible for Orlando, FL. (along with our local contact and friends, Thomas & Lian Day), and Austin, Tx. Here’s some more info. about “iSCPx”:
Imagine a geographic area so strategic, in one square mile you can influence the nations. Imagine a place where the future leaders of the world live together in temporary communities, open to new spiritual realities and worldviews. It’s a reality – the university campus.
Now imagine 2,600 university campuses across the U.S.
Now imagine millions of students gathered on universities across the world.
If we reach the campus, we will change the world.
How can we reach these strategic training centers of the world with limited staff and budgets, not to mention declining overall Christian population from year to year on most college campuses?
What if students could do all the works of ministry? What if, — instead of planning a weekly meeting – campus ministry staff could mobilize and mentor students to start 25-50 simple churches across their campus?
A shift has begun across several campuses in the last few years. Churches and ministries have begun sending out students to make disciples on their campus. The result has been a growing movement of student-led churches.
Students preach the gospel and make disciples. They hold 24-hour prayer vigils for the nations. They baptize other students. They pray for the sick. They branch out to unreached people groups and start simple, reproducible churches in dorms, apartments, and fraternities – any area students do life together.
We see college campuses as small nations, composed of multiple unreached people groups. Together with mission agencies and a growing network of friends across the world, we are working to mobilize a student led church planting movement that will influence every university in the world to reach the nations for Christ.
iSCPx is a four hour seminar that will introduce you to the movement.
You’ll be invited to help mobilize student churches on your campus this year.
Does your heart beat for the nations, yet you feel called to the college campus? You are not alone!
Learn the History.
Catch the Vision.
Join the Movement.
To register in a city near you go to http://studentcpx.org
Most of you already know that we will be moving to Austin, Tx. in the next few weeks to extend the work of Intentional Gatherings in a new city. Leaving Las Vegas will be such a bittersweet experience for us – just as it was when we left Ft. Worth two years ago. We left our physical & spiritual families behind shortly after getting married to move across the country. It was quite the adventure. While God has wired, and called us to go to new cities every couple of years to start new communities of faith & see new disciples made it is still difficult to leave behind the close relationships that are built in each city. We are sad to part ways with so many close friends, but extremely excited to step out in obedience by “starting over” in a new city…
Many people look at us cross-eyed when we explain how God has called us to move to new places to start new works every few years. It is not the norm for Christians in America to pack up and leave behind friends and family regularly & voluntarily. We appreciate all of you who have loved and supported us throughout the difficult transitions. We could not do this without you. It is taxing to build Spiritual family for two years, and then leave that family to go start a new one. We just have to trust that Christ is building His Church & doing His thing, simply desiring our obedience. It is encouraging to know that we will have Spiritual Family spread out all over the country down the road…
To our spiritual family within the “university crest church” community: we love you guys so much. God has taught us a lot through doing life with you guys over the past two years. I pray that each of you have been sharpened & discipled to a deeper love and understanding of the kingdom, and your role in it. May each of you go on to make more disciples in Jesus’ name wherever life takes you. Do know that just because we are moving does not mean we are exiting each others lives.
To our spiritual family within the “hudgin’s, robbin’s, & snow’s church” community: I have never experienced anything quite like what we have walked through over the past 6 months with you guys…it was like “organic/simple church” on speed. We all sensed God pushing us to pursue Him & one another. We knew we only had 6 months to do it. There was no time to waste. God did some miraculous things in the past half a year as we walked in obedience together. He worked sin out of our lives, healed brokenness in our marriages, taught us patience & grace, and most importantly that pursuing Biblical community with other believers is and is supposed to be “simple” – not easy – but simple. While I wish we had pursued this much earlier on in our two years of knowing you guys I feel the timing of everything has been perfect, and God ordained; He knew what He was doing. My prayer for each of you is that you will pursue the types of relationships we have experienced with one another over the past 6 months for the rest of your lives, wherever you go. I know we will.
(From left: The Hudgin’s, The Snow’s, The Robbin’s)
I will continue in a couple of days with what I feel is one of the most important lessons we’ve learned as an organization during our time in Las Vegas…
What: UCLA Greenhouse Story 1 – Student Edition
When: November 20-22
Where: UCLA in Kinsey Room 1220B
Cost: $35
REGISTER AT: http://cmaresources.org/greenhouse/ucla
FREE Housing for out-of-towners: If you need some, contact Myles Hamby: myleshamby@gmail.com
From Myles Hamby, UCLA Passion Church Student who attended Student CPx: Concentrate in Las Vegas in Jan. 09′:
“Greenhouse Conferences have been happening all around the world for the last 10 years and have been challenging Christians to ask the QUESTIONS: What is a church, anyway? How can we do church is a way that more effectively reaches the lost and fosters better community amongst family? It challenges people’s traditional paradigms about what church is.
The conference also equips believers with practical, biblical techniques for planting organic churches and reaching the lost. The key to these techniques is their reproducibility. These principles can be used in ANY cultural context in ANY place in the world.
My heart was to see a “Greenhouse Conference – Student Edition” at UCLA. Neil Cole’s teachings have changed my life and fundamentally changed the way I reach out to people. I’ve seen these principles be VERY effective in his life and in my life too. So I wanted to host a Greenhouse at UCLA to equip Christians at UCLA and other college campuses with these practical evangelism techniques and to get them thinking differently about the way we do church.”
If you live in the SoCal region you don’t want to miss this incredible opportunity.