biolachristianministry

[biolachristianministry]

Preaching Pressures

It’s Sunday morning in the Students Building at the Richfield Community Church. Our worship band is finishing their set, as I take one more glance at my sermon notes I’ve been prepping all week. 

I know the passage well, but will I be able to present it in a way that connects at all with these students? Did I spend enough time on this? Did I pray enough? Did I focus on the right themes? Are my illustrations going to land? Is my PowerPoint going to be helpful or distracting? Am I going to say “um” too many times again? Is this darn ear-piece microphone actually going to stay in my ear?  

The song is over, time to take the stage. “God, please speak through me!”

A Instagram post from my student ministry featuring a quotation from one of my messages. Crazy!

My first semester here at RCC is almost in the books, and now I find myself reflecting on one of the biggest parts of my internship, preaching. 

Like a lot of ministry, preaching has turned out to be hugely challenging and rewarding for me thus far. Here’s a couple points on either side... 

Preaching is the best!

Preaching gets you into the Bible like nothing else. The connection you feel with passages that you preach is so deep, namely because preaching forces you to dig into the context of a passage and into the practical application of it. Of course these are things you might normally do when reading the Bible, but the fact that you’re preparing a message for students that you love brings a whole new level of determination to deeply understand the text.

Preaching is an incredible privilege. I’ve had so many moments this semester where I’ve stopped and realized how crazy it is that I am literally shaping my students’ view of God. Each concept that I unpack on stage is contributing to how they view their Creator. If what theologian A.W Tozer says is true, that “what we think when we think of God is the most important thing about us,” then think about how huge of a responsibility it is to faithfully unpack the Bible as I preach. So thankful for such an opportunity.

Preaching is a beast!

Preaching takes a LOT of preparation. Oh my word is this true! Perhaps it’s because I’m still a beginner in a lot of ways, but I find myself spending 8-10 hours preparing for each message I give, and sometimes more! I have such a hard time deciding what I want to say, how I want to say it, and whether or not I’m accurately interpreting passages. I’m constantly second guessing my decisions, and regularly find myself scrapping everything and starting over. 

Preaching is vulnerable. What do I mean by this? Well, I mean that to get up on a stage in front of a crowd of students and leaders and bear your heart for the Lord requires a lot of vulnerability. The fear of how people will judge you is real. The fear that you’re getting things wrong is real. Or at least, this fears are real for me! Learning to not let these kinds of fears hold me back in preaching has been a central struggle for me. 

So as you can see, preaching is one beautiful beast of a privilege for those of us pursuing ministry. All in all, I’m thankful for how it’s shaping and sharpening me though, and I’m determined to keep growing this gift with each message I give!

[biolachristianministry]

Programming Pressures

6:40pm on a Wednesday night. I’m reading over the rundown for the night one more time. Students will be walking through the doors soon. Details and logistics and questions and reminders and announcements and hopes swirling around in my head. Just as I hear the first group of students walking in, I spew out a slightly exasperated prayer, “Lord, please use tonight!”

Hey ya’ll! Checking in at week 8 of internship at Richfield Community Church in students ministry. It’s been a sweet ride thus far, although I can admit that I’m currently learning how to cope with one of ministry’s most constant strainers, programming pressure. 

I’m in charge of planning our Wednesday program (which is called Awaken), and while its been a real joy to grow in my abilities as a leader and strategic planner, I can also admit that it’s sometimes made it harder really receive from God myself, and even distracted me from being present with the students. 

This tension is a common one for anyone in ministry, but thankfully with the help of my youth pastor and a couple mentors I’m learning to not be so consumed by the task of planning through delegating tasks more effectively and I’m striving to invite God into the day to day moments of stress. Scripture like this releases peace into those moments...

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble” - Psalm 46:1

One of my Christian Ministries classes during sophomore year taught me a simple truth I’ll never forget. 

Don’t just ministry for God, do ministry with God. 

There’s a big difference! If I spend the whole week focusing on how to make Youth Group amazing for God, I’ll end up feeling like He’s my boss, far away in his office, ready to critique my work. When I focus on doing all that I for my internship with, I see His loving presence and sure hand guiding my efforts. This is the God we serve. He is a very present help indeed!

So, that’s how I’m doing. Stressed. In process. Grateful. Hopeful. And God is with me in all of it!

P.S. - Here’s one more picture that illustrates how crazy Wednesday nights are!

[biolachristianministry]

Jesus Use Me!

Hard to believe I’m almost a month in my internship at Richfield Community Church, but here I am and Jesus is continuing to surprise me. Responsibilities are picking up, relationships with my students are deepening, and my passion and vision for this student ministry keeps growing! 

There is one specific part of my internship experience I wanted to share with you guys for this post. Last week my student ministry took a break from our normal Wednesday night small group nights and attended the Jesus Use Me youth night in Yorba Linda. The night was centered around getting churches from all over Orange Country to prayer one simple prayer; “Jesus, use me!” 

The night included powerful worship sets from David Gaulton, a convicting message drawn out of Jesus’ turning of water into wine in John 2, an offering taken up for victims of Hurricane Harvey, and practical challenges for students to take ownership of their faith through serving those in need.

For me, the night was a huge win for a number of reasons

Our students got to see beautiful picture of the Church outside of our youth group. I could see our students interacting with and praying next to classmates who go to different churches, which I loved. I’ve found that experiences like that can really open a students’ eyes to the fact that there are other Christ-followers in their schools and hopefully allow them to embrace their faith outside of just church!

I got some real quality time with my senior guys’ Core Group! We went out to eat before the event, which was a blast. I’m really starting to see some of my relationships with these guys deepen, and thus I’m seeing more and more opportunities to engage with them about Jesus. Plus, getting to all stand together and worship in such a powerful environment was special to me. Let’s just say that if they didn’t know I was a really loud, mediocre singer before that night, they certainly know now! On a serious note though, I’m so excited to challenge these guys to love Jesus more!

Our students were reminded in powerful ways that the overflow of their relationship with Jesus should be faithful, dynamic obedience to God. My prayer throughout the night was out of Isaiah 6. I prayed that just as Isaiah was compelled by his encounter with God to shout, “Here I am, Lord! Send me!,” that our students would find their deepest joy in being sent out into the world to make God known. Many of our students are somewhat comfortable at church and know most of the Christian answers, but when they are led into true encounters with God via His Word, such obedient faith must come to fruition. I’m quite hopeful that some of our students made a move towards this kind of faith at the Jesus Use Me night, and that is indeed quite a win! 

All in all, God was lifted up and our students were given a compelling picture of genuine faith. One final sweet thing about the night was the Jesus Use Me challenge. As each student filed out of the auditorium, they received an envelope with a label on it that said, “ONLY open you are willing to take Jesus challenge inside...” Each students then opened up the envelope and read aloud their own Jesus Use me challenge to complete in the next week. Such a creative way to stir up obedience in students! 

I wasn’t about to miss out on obeying Jesus though, so you know I had to grab one...

So, I’m on the lookout for someone to give to this week! Offering yourself up to Jesus in obedience really is such a joy, I’ll be sure to let you guys know how this goes in my next post. 

Peace out!

[biolachristianministry]

The Dream Team

Senior year has arrived! And with it has come a new, exciting season for me as my internship at Richfield Community Church officially kicks off.  Ahead of me is an entire school year leading in the local church and putting into practice everything I’ve learned over the past 3 years in Christian Ministries. I’m pumped! 

This journey started last weekend as I had the opportunity to head down to Huntington Beach with most of of the staff and volunteers in my Student Ministry for a sweet leaders retreat. It’s hard to express how thankful I was for this time, and how grateful I already am for this team!

Pictured above is most of the group from the weekend. What a crew! To my right is Will Robbins, our Youth Director and my supervisor. Will is one of the most loving people I know, he’s a a true visionary, and it was super encouraging to hear his powerful vision for our students throughout the whole weekend. 

The retreat featured times of worship together, talking through our year-long teaching series on the book of John, lots of time to pray for our church, us getting to practice sharing our testimonies, dynamic exercises aimed at equipping us to love on our students well, and tons of time bonding as a community over food and laughter. 

For me, the weekend was huge in terms of setting my heart on the incredible opportunity set before me this year. I get the privilege of loving on high school students, teaching the word of God, learning from guys like Will, and serving alongside this group of amazing people. 

And this is somehow counting as a class? Thank God for Christian Ministries!

One more thing, pictured below is a prayer sheet that all of the leaders filled out. At the end of the weekend we all wrote out our specific prayers for the small groups we will be leading. How beautiful it was to see how badly we all desire for our students to find their deepest joy in Jesus! Looking forward to seeing these prayers answered throughout the year!

[biolachristianministry]

Finally!!!

So for those of you who don’t know, kind of the culmination of the Christian Ministries major is this thing called your internship. 

Basically, your internship is when you get to take all of the passion, knowledge, and skills you develop during your first three years of the major (which is a LOT) and finally get to pour it all into a semester-long internship at a local church or non-profit.

It’s where Christian Ministries students get to live out the dreams that drew them to studying Christian Ministries in the first place. It’s where we move from learning concepts in class to watching God transform people’s lives. It’s where many of us get a first taste of what will become a lifelong joy in serving the Lord.

In short, it’s really quite astounding. And guess what? 

MINE IS FINALLY HERE!

I’ve been looking forward to my internship since the very beginning of my freshman year, and boy oh boy I am so excited about how the Lord has pieced it together! 

What am I doing you may ask? I will be interning in Student Ministries at Richfield Community Church in Yorba Linda, CA for my entire senior year.

I have been attending Richfield for most of this school year, and I LOVE this church community so much! The emphasis they place on growing in your knowledge of Scripture is incredible, the community is genuinely welcoming, and the leadership is committed to investing into young leaders (like me!). 

I will be getting the opportunity to start a new missions branch of their Student Ministries, preach regularly, participate in staff meetings, and lead a small group of high school guys. I’ve already been going to youth group for about a month just to get acclimated into the community, and I’m feeling more and more excited about starting with each week!

I’m also feeling almost surprisingly prepared. I was expecting to feel a decent amount of nerves heading into my internship, but the skills I’ve received in my Christian Ministries classes have definitely given me a sense of confidence. And even more so, I can feel confident looking back at the past three years and clearly seeing how God has prepared me for jumping in at RCC.

Well, I can assure you that I will be posting more about my internship in the future, but for now I just wanted to introduce you guys to what the internship is and what I’m feeling as I look ahead to finally living out my passion for ministry.

Y’all the best, TY OUT!

[biolachristianministry]

Jesus, trombones, and rap music

To me, one of the most incredible (and challenging) things about Jesus was His commitment to spending time among the perceived outcasts of society. Think about it, Christ’s time on earth was precious and purposeful, and yet He chose to willingly invest much of the bulk of His ministry to hanging out with “tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:15). 

When I see any pattern like this in Jesus’ life, I am compelled to start asking questions. Why did He do this? What did He see in these people?

The more I read the Gospels, the more I am compelled to believe that it wasn’t because He felt bad for them or because He wanted to be seen as a good person. He knew that people who were hopeless in the eyes of the world were those most poised for the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3), and so He befriended sinners everywhere He went.  

Like I said, it’s incredible and challenging stuff. God has been showing me the transformative power of such friendships in huge ways through one of my Christian Ministries classes...

Meet my trombone playing friend Carlos Martinez. I met him about a month ago at an AA meeting that I was attending for my Counseling Methods class. At the meeting I learned that Carlos was five months sober coming off of a string of self-destructive decisions. Despite these difficulties, it was clear to me upon meeting Carlos and hearing him share in the AA meeting that he was a natural leader, creative, genuinely caring, and newly hopeful. I could see that Carlos had some sort of hope in his newfound sobriety, but at the same time I heard him talk about the ways in which he still felt empty. He also shared that He wasn’t a Christian, mainly because his mother, a professing Christian, wasn’t loving towards him in his times of need. 

I felt led by the Lord to approach Carlos after the meeting and get to know him some more. It didn’t take long for me to see that Carlos was confused about something... 

Why was someone like me even at an AA meeting? 

I knew my only reasonable answer to that question. I was at the AA meeting because I believed that Jesus would have been there. I believed that the Son of God would want to be places where openly broken people were seeking hope. I told him about Jesus and about the ways that Christ had met me in my brokenness, turned me toward repenting of my sinful ways, and given me inexpressible joy in the forgiveness of my sins by His blood. 

Carlos wholeheartedly listened to me as I humbly shared, and quickly produced a response, “We should hang out sometime.” I smiled. 

A week later, I found myself driving to Carlos’s house in Placentia, CA. We ate burgers over conversations about girls. We listened to rap music and swapped opinions on Kendrick’s newest album. We went to a park and Carlos ended up dusting off his high school marching band trombone. I shared with him about the way my church community had loved me throughout my life. He shared advice with me about friendships. 

As I dropped him off back at his house after about 3 hours of hanging out, I asked him how if I could be praying for him. He took little time in responding; “Please pray that our friendship would keep growing. I never get to things like this, let’s do this again soon.” I smiled. 

I walked away from hanging out with I was overjoyed, although in a different way than I expected. I wasn’t just happy because I felt like a good person for spending an afternoon with a recovering alcoholic, and I was filled with joy because I had made an awesome new friend, a friend whose hunger for the truth and hope of Christ encouraged me. I’m not even quite sure how to articulate it, but simply put my time with Carlos helped me see the Kingdom of God in a clearer way. 

Thank you Jesus for trombones, for rap music, for Carlos, and for modeling a revolutionary way of loving people. 

P.S. - A couple of days ago Carlos messaged me and said he went to church for the first time in 3 years! We are planning hanging out next week, and I’m expectant to hear what God is doing in his life!   

[biolachristianministry]

Perëndia është duke lëvizur!

The title of this blog is Albanian for the phrase, “God is moving!” 

Why Albanian? Because Albanian is the primary spoken language in Kosovo, the southeastern European nation that I led a mission trip to this past January!

The Lord is indeed constantly moving in all of our lives and all over the world, and I have had the privilege of seeing Him move in powerful ways through this group of people the past 4 months of my life. 

Who are these people, you may ask? 

Included in this picture are a couple groups of people, all who I truly love. You have my incredible team of students who devoted their Winter Break to sharing the Gospel in freezing temperatures. You have Dave George (the missionary pictured in the far right), who hosted us and moved his entire family into the city of Peja, Kosovo in order to plant a Gospel-centered church. You also have our native Kosovar friends, most of whom are Muslims, who opened up their lives to us and our stories in deeply meaningful ways for the three and a half weeks we were in country.  

Our team’s verse for the trip was 1 Thess 2:8...

“Because we loved you so much, we were to delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our very lives as well.”

Through sharing my life with my team members, the missionaries, and our Muslim friends, I witnessed God move in unforgettable ways!

The picture above was taken upon a house visit we did to a Muslim family in Peja. This was definitely one of my favorite moments of the trip because it so represented the ups and downs of our time in country. The traditional Albanian food was amazing, the interactions with my team were hilarious, the friendships we enjoyed with Dren (far left) and Berat (far right) were meaningful, and the hospitality of the Kosovars was touching. On the other hand, the presence of the spiritual barriers to the Gospel was prevalent in a Muslim home, the cross-cultural interactions were a struggle at times, and the heartache we felt at our friends’ rejection of Christ was heavy. Through it all though, my team would come together and always be able to recognize ways that God was moving us or our Kosovar friends towards Jesus in small ways. 

And what’s most encouraging to me, is the fact that God is continue to move through the relationships we made in Peja! Just yesterday I got a long message from one of my Kosovar friends asking for prayer, and I now regularly Skype with Dave our missionary as he mentors me from across the sea. Even after our trip, the power of sharing life and sharing the Gospel in loving relationships continues to build into God’s kingdom! 

I could literally write about my experience of leading a mission trip to Kosovo all day so I’m sure you guys will get to hear more about it at some points, but for now I just wanted to encourage you guys (and myself) to continually seek and expect God to move as we share our lives, share the Gospel, and display Christ-like love!  

Shihemi! (Albanian for “See you later”)

[biolachristianministry]

I am a lamb

Hello dear friends! I hope that this blog finds you in favorable times for you and your kin. Kin is the best. 

Finals week has come upon us, and the Bible is still teaching me amazing things. For this post, I just wanted to hit you guys up with some truth from the Word!

Lately I’ve been coming back to the passage John 10:1-18 multiple times a week. The passage is about Jesus explaining how He is the good shepherd. For some reason, the language Jesus uses in this passage is so beautiful and true to me. Jesus describes himself as a loving shepherd and us as his sheep. There is a TON of truth to draw out from just about all of Jesus’s statements in this passage, but I’ll bring out a couple of the ones that ring the truest to me.

Jesus gives our identity and leads us by our name (v. 3) - So the passage says that Jesus “calls his own sheep by name.” What’s so cool about that is that sheep quite obviously cannot speak, and therefore they can’t name themselves. So, the implication is that the shepherd must name them in order that they have an identity. He literally provides them with an identity. As believers, only Jesus can give us our identity. BOOM.

Jesus came to so that we could truly live abundant lives in Him (v. 10) - Jesus talks about how the thief (symbolizing false prophets or the world) comes only to kill and destroy. So many people or forces we encounter simply want to take from us. In contrast, Jesus came so that he could give us the ability to have life abundantly. How beautiful is that? Christ didn’t only provide a way to reconcile with God for us, but He came so that even our lives on earth would be abundant. BOOM BOOM.

Jesus KNOWS us (v. 14-15) - This one gets me pumped. So in these two verses Jesus tells us that He knows his sheep, but it’s how He expands on this that is amazing to me. Read this next sentence slowly. He says that He knows us just as God knows Him. That might sound unimpressive, but think about it. The Trinity is a perfect community of love and acceptance between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The love between the Father and the Son is literally the highest form of love and knowing imaginable. In other words, God knows Jesus in ways that are more full and amazing than we can even comprehend. And THAT’S how our Savior knows us. Our shepherd’s love for us is truly incomprehensible. BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Guys, I love this passage. I would really encourage you to spend some time in it the next time you open up your Bible! Scripture is so important to our growth as Christ-followers, and it’s been super important for me as I’ve been making my way through finals week!

[biolachristianministry]

Track with me!

Hello all! My name is Tyler Jacob Martin, I’m a junior Christian Ministries student, and I’m pretty pumped about the life God has given me here at Biola. Whether you’re someone checking out Biola Christian Ministries or someone currently in the major, I’d love to invite you into my journey to give you picture of life as a Christian Ministries major through sharing about God’s work in my life!

In my two and a half years at Biola as a Christian Ministries student, I’ve learned a ton, laughed a lot, and been given the opportunity to see God work in and through in many unexpected ways. Since arriving on campus as an instantly homesick freshman from Indiana (me and my parents on move-in day above!), I’ve made incredible friends in this major, taken truly impactful ministry classes, and been equipped to lead in a variety of ministry settings. God has given me opportunities to be a Resident Advisor in the dorms, a college LifeGroup leader in the church, and a short-term mission trip leader across the globe. God has lead me and grown me through good, bad, and just crazy times!

Of course that is a super brief, vague description of my life, but fret not! I’ll be filling in the gaps and sharing more in future posts! I’m pretty pumped about getting this thing rolling with you all!

Speaking of you all (or “y’all” if you prefer), always feel free to hit me up with thoughts, comments, or questions via email ---> tyler.j.martin@biola.edu. I’d love to serve you in any way I can! 

TY OUT.