September 2013

How are my donations used in Christian Challenge?

- You are creating a position in ministry that would not be there without you. 

- You become part of a team that reaches students for Christ who are not being reached by a typical church. 

- You allow there to be light on five spiritually dark campuses of more than 70,000 students!  

What type of donations are the most helpful?

- A regular monthly donation helps provide a consistent salary for this huge ministry task.   

- One prompted by God. He is the Provider, and He does so through His people. 
         
- One which you want to see make a difference all over Arizona. 

Easiest Way to Give…Online: Automatic giving through your bank's online bill-pay or through NAMB's giving site, Kintera (See link --> )

Full swing at Grand Canyon University 

This may be one of the most crazy semesters of the seven years of collegiate ministry we’ve been in. We came straight from a packed summer into new campuses and new staff. 

We have had more resistance from administration about setting up a Christian Challenge here than any other campus I’ve been on. It is not the Southern Baptist school that it used to be and it is attracting a different type of student. 

However, God has been at work on our campus. Several of our Christian Challenge leaders from other campuses have transferred to GCU, so the easy part was setting up a worship band and finding teachers. We have so many solid leaders at the campus that we have to rotate our teaching schedule to give everyone a chance. This is a real testament to our strategy of reaching all 23 campuses in Metro Phoenix. It is rare that we lose a student because they transfer to a school where there isn't a Christian Challenge. This year I got a student that came from a friend named Chris (he was in my youth ministry,  I discipled him in college, started a Christian Challenge Club at ASU-Poly with him and he is now a pastor). 

 We've already taken a retreat and we are working on partnering with the church next door to the campus. One of the leaders is considering switching his major from Criminal Justice to Christian Studies because he is praying about going into the ministry. Please pray for wisdom for him.

With all the students we have now, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but I have loved being with this batch of students. This is a new era. I loved the group of student leaders that we started Christian Challenge at ASU Downtown with and the second group of leaders, and I am really excited about what God has already done in this time. 

One of our students posted on Facebook about how he was  excited to prep for our Bible study and that God was speaking to him through the passage.  

 The Need for Christian Challenge on GCU

College life on a Christian campus isn't always as Christ centered as students hope that it is. One of the girls came to our first Bible study and talked about how she came to GCU so that she wouldn't be around all the temptation. Within the first week she saw all three of her roommates drunk and they were inviting her to drinking parties.

Another student was asking for advice about how to deal with a girl who was texting him who was interested in him. He had heard that by the second week of school that she had already slept with three or four guys and wasn't sure what he should say to her. 

One of our student’s roommates came home drunk after the non-Christian one convinced the Christian one that going to a strip club would be a good idea. 

It’s great that there is a school sponsored worship and Bible studies in the dorm, but they are going to reach a certain type of student. We are reaching a different type of student. We have already been connecting really well with freshman and it’s been amazing being with the students that have transferred from our other campuses. Here’s a Facebook quote from one who is on my leadership team. “The fellowship and family that comes from Christian Challenge has been phenomenal these past two years. Glory be to Christ for using it to bring me closer to Him.”

Pray that God will let us reach these students that are not being reached.

Powers Update

We had a busy summer with Bryan speaking at/planning one youth camp and leading Christian Challenge students (who led the youth) at Zona Youth Camp.  There was also a ton of planning for the school year. 

We were so thankful to get to go on a vacation. Some generous friends let us stay in their house in Pinetop for a week. The kids played outside all week long! 

             Church College Party 

Dallas is back in school, 2nd grade. And the twins started PreK Four at their Christian preschool. God has blessed us with free Christian education, thanks to ACSTO and you and amazingly some State program for preschool! We are amazed by His provision and are so thankful for their schools and teachers! 

How God Used You; 

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Two new campuses!

- Making disciples 

- Great worship community

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- Family member who hurt her leg very badly

- Brian A. at ASU Downtown

- Sean at Chandler Gilbert CC

- Aaron at Central Arizona College 

- Sarah Support Raising 

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- We need a new roof and new AC unit. 

- Orphans in Mexico 

- Chandler Gilbert Community College and the church partnership

- Healing with losing Madison 

- Us to train our boys up in a Godly way. 

- Our support ($706/month left to raise!)

- Sanctuary Church 

- More salvations

How can we pray for you?

May 2013

Girl accepts Christ!

One of our girls at ASU Downtown asked me to baptize her which is always exciting. She is one of our freshman student leaders who Brian and I have been working with. (Brian is one of our new staff who will be taking one of my campuses, more of that on the reverse page.) Catherine has grown so much this year and used her baptism to reach out to the campus. 

She invited all of her friends, some from our Bible study. Van was one of the girls who had been coming off and on to the Bible study for a semester after we had given her a Bible when we found out that she was seeking. 

In a perfect partnership, we baptized Catherine at our church, Corona, and Van heard the gospel there from our pastor and she committed her life to Christ. Now it is on our end to disciple her, which Catherine is going to take the lead on. 

I know every Bible that is opened, even if it is years later, that we hand out makes a difference because God’s Word does not return void. It is nice to see such a fast return on investment though. Van was just a girl that Catherine told me about a few months ago. Then she was just another non-Christian student with one of our Bibles, then God got a hold of her and now she is a believer.        

Campus switch up!

For the last year, I have not had a single campus focus, but a regional multi-campus focus. My main campus has been ASU Downtown for several years which has been amazing, but now Brian (also from Kentucky) has joined our staff and he will be stepping into this ministry so that we can start Christian Challenge on more campuses and focus on the region. 

I have another staff member who is coming in for Chandler Gilbert Community College, who I will be training there in August and I will be keeping Mesa Community College, one of the largest community colleges in the nation and Grand Canyon University where Steven, one of my main disciples, will be leading with me. 

 We will be adding Phoenix College to the region where I will be training Aaron in August as well. We are also praying for a start up at South Mountain Community college. 

Spreading our focus puts free Bibles and the gospel in front of the 350,000 college students in Metro Phoenix , as opposed to just the students at a single campus. Over six years, we have gone from 2 campuses to 16. I feel like I’m just now getting a little bit of a handle of the regional director role versus being a single campus minister. Pray for the new guys I’m training and for our new campuses and for me as we prepare for another August!

Powers Update

The twins were sad that school was over (Dallas was okay with it.). All three got great reports from their teachers. Dallas was awarded Bible Achievement Award and the Certificate of Christian Character: Reverence.  We are very proud of all three! I’m looking forward to a slow-paced and relaxing summer  …we’ll see if that happens (not likely!)! 

Dallas did basketball at the YMCA and little league baseball with his cousin, Owen. That was a lot of work with the little brothers, but my (Jamie’s) dad helped drive him and watch the twins during games. 

We’ve also had a bittersweet event happen. Our best friends (we met in seminary eight years ago), Steve and Lindsay Hallam and their adorable kids, Grace (6) and Noah (5) moved to serve God in Alaska. We miss them already, but are so thankful that they are where God wants them and that their support raising is going so well! You can read more about them at: http://chillingwiththehallams.blogspot.com/ .

How God Used You; 

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- New campus!

- Making disciples 

- Great worship community

- Van accepts Christ

- Catherine’s Baptism

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- Van’s discipleship

- Brian at ASU Downtown

- Sean at Chandler Gilbert CC

- Aaron at Phoenix College 

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- We need a new roof and new AC unit. 

- Our potential staff member who would be at South Mountain CC. 

- Cesar and Andrew at MCC

- Orphans in Mexico 

- Chandler Gilbert Community College and the church partnership

- Healing with losing Madison 

- Us to train our boys up in a Godly way. 

- Our support

- Sanctuary Church 

City Impact

City Impact

We just spent a weekend in Tucson helping five church plants with 160 college students. This was the culmination of hours of planning and monthly meetings in Tucson for a year. 

I got to work with a church planter who I have done some work with in Mexico. His church (that is three years old) is working on planting another church in an area of Tucson with no Southern Baptist churches. 

We went through this area with a team of 20 college, broken up into groups of three, doing surveys and praying for the residents with them. As we pulled up there were about ten Jehovah’s Witness’ ready to go through the same neighborhood that we were. We jumped a few houses ahead of them and just starting going. They were there first, but we had the Truth, so I really didn’t feel bad about taking the neighborhood from them. They ended up getting frustrated that we were there and they just left! 

The prayers that we had with the residents were awesome. My group was bilingual and ended up praying for several of the people in the neighborhood in their first language, Spanish. 

Overall, the whole weekend was amazing. We had at least 19 people accept Christ this weekend as well as two people saying they would have a church in their home. God was moving!