Disciple Making in Arizona

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

February, 2016

Salvation!

Early this semester I met Brandon while I was talking to another student. I felt a need to engage him as he had a fresh tattoo only days into his freshman year, while wearing camouflage, which he has wore in some way every day since. He just seemed like someone who I would enjoy connecting with.

As we started talking over the next couple days, we connected on fishing, outdoors, similar senses of humor and I steered the conversation to the spiritual. He had a curiosity about it and I wasn’t sure where he stood, but I offered to meet with him one on one and discuss Scripture, whatever area he was most curious about.

He seemed embarrassed to admit that he really didn’t know anything and had never really read the Bible, so I suggested that we go through John. As we started working our way through, he would ask questions like, “Is Gethsemane a place or a person?” This was really refreshing for me to walk through someone who was so new.

By the time we got to chapter three, I talked about being born again as a new creation. After working through the chapter I told him the old creation is like a hammer, it’s designed to put a nail in the wall (sin nature). The new creation is like a saxophone, you can use it to put a nail in the wall, but that isn’t what it’s designed for, it’s meant for something different (serving Christ). Then I told him he should pray and figure out if he was a hammer who wanted to be a saxophone or a very new saxophone.

He came back the next week after going through chapter four and said that he was a hammer who wanted to be a saxophone. He prayed to accept Christ right there in the ASU Downtown dining hall.

We have now gone through sixteen chapters of John and he is preparing to go back to New Jersey for the spring semester because of his mom’s health. Please pray that he will be like the seed in the parable of the sower that produces 100 times what was sown. It’s a little scary the release him so soon knowing how common it is for birds to steal or the weeds to choke out the seeds, but we are working hard to get him into another ministry with his camouflage Bible we gave to him.

A New Opportunity

With Brandon leaving, we have another student who knows more about Scripture, but is less willing to follow Christ now. We have built a relationship with him over the course of this semester and as we were talking about Brandon leaving, I told him that my Fridays are opening up to disciple another guy now and told him that I would love to go through some Scripture one on one with him.

He is thinking about it, but I’m pretty sure he will be the next Brandon. He needs Christ and prayer and discipleship. Pray that he will really desire a relationship with Christ because I think he is close and God has moved already.

Powers Update

Giving that doesn’t cost a penny…

AZ Partners: Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a dollar for dollar tax CREDIT) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family (even if it was already taken out of your check). You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas, Hendrix and Colton Powers at (Please email for school)____ school. for the Original Tax Credit and Hendrix and Colton Powers at (Please email for school) ____ school. For the Overflow Tax Credit (Dallas is not eligible). You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Pls. call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org . Donations for 2015 tax year are not due until April 15, 2016!

God has led us to send our children to Christian school and where He leads, He provides. Thanks to donors for us to ACSTO, Dallas’ kindergarten, first, second and third grade were paid in full and we praying for fourth to be as well! Praise the Lord, the twin’s Kindergarten is paid for! Thank you for your help. This school has been AMAZING! The boys are learning and growing academically and Spiritually.

So again, it’s money that has to be paid either way. It can be paid to the State or donated to a School Tuition Organization and used for Christian education. The tax form(s) used to get the credit are available at ACSTO.org.

Please tell us if you do, because we would like to thank you and they cannot tell us who donated (Taxpayer Privacy).

Thursday, March 19, 2015

March, 2015

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.

WinterFresh

We now have another avenue for our college students to pour into and lead high school and jr. high srudents. We have been serving at Zona Youth Camp for a long time now, but we were blessed for the first year to help with WinterFresh.

This is a youth camp held up in Prescott over a weekend and it blew me away. We were able to be a part of reaching out to the dozen students who gave their life to Christ, lead Bible studies, assist youth pastors… everything the camp was doing, we had our 20 Challenge students serving.

Maybe the proudest moment I had was when the staff member who was going to do the game for 400+ people was unable to make it due to a car accident (he was okay) and a student of ours stepped up to lead the entire thing. He delegated out the jobs to his peers and the youth had no idea that we were on plan B (that was planned in just over an hour).

He is one of our star students who will be coming on staff with us, but it was exciting to see how the years of discipleship and leadership development had paid off. I was waiting nearby to jump in and lead if there was a problem, but there never was. This will inevitably be an annual mission trip for our students. On a heavier note, one of the youth pastors who was there passed away only a couple of weeks after taking his kids to the camp and serving with us. He was a Godly man and leaves behind a wife and 20 month old son. We were able to collect over 500 dollars for them at the worship service following his passing. Please be praying for Raquel and Joshua.

Baptism

We just wrapped up All Area Worship and had an amazing night. We had our first ever baptism where we were able to bring the whole ministry together. It was amazing to hear his testimony of salvation and how Christian Challenge had impacted his life.

It was a large gathering and the baptism was pretty high above the stage, so it was hard to get a good picture, but it left a lasting impact on our students.

We were very excited to be featured in Portraits Magazine again! (Portraits: http://www.azsobaptist.org/portad_page.shtml )

Powers Update

Huge Support that doesn’t cost a penny…

AZ Partners: Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a dollar for dollar tax CREDIT) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family. You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas, Hendrix and Colton Powers (you can put all three) at ____ School. Please email jamiempowers@yahoo.com for school name.). You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Pls. call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org . Donations for 2014 tax year are not due until April 15, 2015!

God has led us to send our children to Christian school and where He leads, He provides. Thanks to donors for us to ACSTO, Dallas’ kindergarten, first and second grade were paid in full and we’re praying for third to be as well! We Praise and Thank God! Thank you for your help. This school has been AMAZING! Dallas is learning and growing academically and Spiritually. Next year he will be in 4th and the twins will be in Kindergarten.

So again, it’s money that has to be paid either way. It can be paid to the State or donated to a School Tuition Organization and used for Christian education. The tax form(s) used to get the credit are available at ACSTO.org.

Please tell us if you do, because we would like to thank you and they cannot tell us who donated (Taxpayer Privacy).

“Bike Outreach” to invite students to Challenge

How God Used You;

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Making disciples who are making disciples

- Great worship community

- Students’ roommates getting involved

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- New Salvations!

- New freshman leadership

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- The international athletes who need Christ.

- The rugby team

- Orphans in Mexico

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

- Our support

- Challenge Church at GCU and at ASU Poly

- More salvations

How can we pray for you?

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Merry Christmas! End of the Semester Update

Please consider this ministry for end of the year giving and AZ residents: if you're thinking about taxes, please see the last section for a way to donate instead of pay your AZ taxes and get dollar for dollar credit. It is a HUGE way to help us that doesn't cost penny. See below or contact Jamie.

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.

Discipleship

There have been so many amazing things happening this semester with students having their lives changed. T came into our ministry really unaware what it meant to be a believer. She is now being discipled by Jamie who has taken a bigger role in the ministry. Talia said that while she was a Christian before college, she is just now really seeking to follow Christ. Another student told Jamie on a Women’s retreat that she’d like to be baptized. Jamie’s Community Group is growing and she feels such purpose being used by God.

Justin, a new freshman, is being discipled by one of my disciples. He was the textbook example of working together. One of the youth pastors we work with brought him to Zona and we were able to have a hand-off where he wouldn't be one of the 90% who dropped out of church. He is now one of our leaders, playing drums for worship. He is also known as Uncle Justin in our house because the boys have grown really close to him. (He’s over a lot.) He was the first freshman that I can remember who gave us a Christmas card where he thanked us for being such a big part of his life.

I have another student I am discipling who is walking away from homosexuality. I have another that I spent a semester with who is now moving to accept an internship to help a church planter out of state focusing on collegiate ministry. Another we walked through a seriously broken relationship, another just reached his 100% in support to do ministry with us.

It has been going so well here that we were actually invited to participate in the ground level on a national discipleship push which we attended in Atlanta. It was an honor to be grouped in with some people I would consider rockstars of collegiate ministry. My conviction to disciple was strengthened and I’m excited be involved in God’s ministry He has given me.


It has been my goal for some time to disciple 12 men as to follow the methods of Jesus, and it has been difficult to get there but I am getting closer. Please pray for this milestone in our ministry and that I can continue to disciple students who will be ones who will disciple others who disciple others. I am praying that the spring semester is the time I’m going to reach my goal.

God at Work

Part of the reason it’s hard to pick what to put here is because it’s been too long since our last newsletter (sorry!) but the bigger reason is God has done so much this semester.

It has been a conviction to bring more excellence to our worship music, which we have done and I feel like we are making strides to becoming something that we can be proud to say that we are honoring God with.

We also took a group of students through the New Testament in a weekend. We read aloud for two days straight through nearly the entire New Testament. It was an awesome experience to kick off the semester.

Our outreach efforts have been awesome as well. They aren't exactly traditional, but they have been effective. We sent people on campus wearing hotdog suits inviting students to worship which has brought us some recognition on campus and people show up. We have also started a Biker Gang. We send people on campus on wild looking custom bikes and it breaks down walls for us to talk to students and allows us to cover more ground across the whole campus. Six new students came the first week of the Biker Gang!

I feel like we have opened up a can of worms though because as we’ve grown, we have more to do, which has been a great problem to have, but we still need prayer to pursue excellence and rest.

Powers Update

Huge Support that doesn’t cost a penny…

AZ Partners: Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a dollar for dollar tax CREDIT) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family. You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas Powers (if donating in Dec. If donating after Jan. 1st, it can be for Dallas, Hendrix or Colton Powers). You'll need school name, but we don't want it on the blog. Please email Jamie.You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Pls. call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org . Donations for 2014 tax year are not due until April 15, 2015!

God has led us to send our children to Christian school and where He leads, He provides. Thanks to donors for us to ACSTO, Dallas’ kindergarten, first and second grade were paid in full and we're praying for third to be as well! We Praise and Thank God! Thank you for your help. This school has been AMAZING! Dallas is learning and growing academically and Spiritually. Next year he will be in 4th and the twins will be in Kindergarten.

So again, it’s money that has to be paid either way. It can be paid to the State or donated to a School Tuition Organization and used for Christian education. The tax form(s) used to get the credit are available at ACSTO.org.

Please tell us if you do, because we would like to thank you and they cannot tell us who donated (Taxpayer Privacy).