Check out some pictures from the weekend: NLCF’S 25-Year Reunion Weekend

Whew! What a weekend we had!

First of all, our staff and a bunch of our leaders did an AMAZING job pulling this off. If you were blessed by the weekend, when you get a chance, thank them!

Now to the matter at hand. The first thing to mention is that when you do a reunion and a retreat together, you can’t really do either one in as focused a manner as you could if you did them separately. We knew that, but we were going for something different. We weren’t sure it would work, but we knew where God wanted us to aim.

We wanted to feel like what we are, a family. Multiple generations, at many different points in life to be sure, but family nonetheless. We wanted it to feel like a family coming together for a holiday. That desire guided the entire weekend’s planning. Friday night started well, everyone was having a good time, but I’m not sure we had that feeling just yet. I will tell you when I think it happened. We had a moment and things were different from there on.

It was Saturday, we had just finished the Olympics, and my team had stolen the First Place Golden Boot (then had given it back to the team that had earned it). After lunch, we asked Chris and Julie Massie to share their struggles in being able to get their two adopted kids out of the Congo, and we prayed for them. That is when it happened.

At that point, the age differences melted away; the graduating year stopped mattering. We prayed for two people just trying to bring their kids home. Boom, family. The rest was different. It seems so right that this weekend that had been so heavily prayed over would get to the point we had prayed it would get to in a moment of prayer and vulnerability. It just seems, well, right.

I won’t forget that weekend and I think that is true for most of us. For those that were here, thank you for taking the time, money and inconvenience to be with us. It is always easier to just not come to things like this, but we need things like this. Things that remind us that the world we stare at every day is not the only real world and not even the most real one. For those of you who couldn’t make it, you were missed and we are saving a chair for you at the next one.

~ Jim

We have been asked a number of times about the #25blessings campaign NLCF has going this year. So, here goes.

The start of this Fall Semester in 1989, NLCF was planted. 25 years may not seem like a long time, but when you consider the percentage of church plants that make it that far, and when you add to that the fact that we primarily focus on a demographic that isn’t able to give as much (read that as on average 90% less than a traditional church), one where if someone wants to go on staff they have to first raise their entire salary like an overseas missionary. Where you regularly send your most experienced leaders to other churches in the cities where they are hired, and where you have to grow by 20-25% a year JUST TO STAY THE SAME SIZE YOU WERE LAST YEAR, well, it is daunting. To be growing and thriving 25 years later is pretty good sized miracle.

So we want to celebrate, but maybe a bit differently than the typical celebration.

What we decided to do was take this academic year and give blessings back to the Va. Tech and NRV community. And we thought that 25 of them would be symbolic.

Being a blessing to our community and university isn’t anything new here. We fully believe that we are called by Christ to be good neighbors, that the Good News should be, well, good news. That the people we are around should experience better lives because of our presence in them.

So, this year, #25blessings. We have already started and we have many more to go. Some of them are a bit expensive and some take a great deal of time. But we are committed. We have been so blessed to be a part of this amazing community for 25 years and we are excited to take a year (an incredibly busy one mind you) and focus on being grateful and showing gratitude. Taking time to slow down a bit and genuinely honor those who have been so good to us is simply the right thing to do. It will take a lot to get it done well, but it seems like a good thing to focus on.

As we are doing this, we are starting to see NLCF’ers (leaders and members) being blessed through it. Looking at our community through eyes that search for ways to bring blessing, not just to receive it. Seeing that even my everyday world needs me to be a light for Christ, not just in big and planned ways (although we have 25 of those) but in small, unplanned ones as well.

This is going to be a fun year! Would you like to join us? Email [email protected] and we will show you how you can!

Here is what Jesus said about all this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5…

You are the light of the world – like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don’t hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all.  In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” Emphasis mine.

Peace, Jim

In the Spring of 2011, I spent a semester in a VT lab (and at NLCF) for an internship in acoustics. At that point, I was playing the bass for at least 15 hours a week with the goal to be able to serve God full-time somehow with my instrument. By the end of April, my arms suddenly became very painful. I couldn’t play anymore, and I could barely keep typing on a keyboard to finish my internship.

It was the beginning of a 2-year period not being able to play the bass on a regular basis and not being able to type on a keyboard for more than an hour at a time. In the Spring of 2012, I had to do a second internship, but at that point, I wasn’t even able to use a pencil, so I started that internship with absolutely no chance to last there more than a week. But God made it possible.

As soon as I started to use my computer for work, the pain was gone. And as soon as I would go back home, the pain would be back. For months, God was healing me, just when I needed it during working hours, and then He would keep the trial going for the rest of the day. I learned a lot during those tough 2 years of the pain and the constant need to rely only on God.

But being away from music, God also gave me the time to study his Word, to study the life of heroes in the faith, and to learn a lot through a great preacher. A long story short, by the end of 2012, I strongly felt God calling me set myself apart to go study his Word in seminary. So I quit my work and I start in a few days at seminary, knowing that God led me there patiently for all the work He has prepared for me.

~ Clement Blanc

Here’s an update from alum, Kyle Lotier, as he recounts how his experience at LT (2005) left an impression that is still impacting him today…

As I write this I’m sitting in the living room of the Medair flat in Eclubens, Switzerland. Prior to heading out into the field I’m being given about a week and a half of training on everything from accounting and project management to logistics and safety and security. I wanted to give a brief description of what my job in Lebanon will be like as well as discuss what could possibly have possessed me to do something this crazy. I’m still not entirely certain what my job is going to entail, so that entry might have to wait until after the team from Medair HQ completes its initial Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) assessment later this month. For the time being, suffice it to say that I will be working in the Bekaa Valley on a household flood and fire mitigation project, and probably some other yet to-be-determined WASH activities.

The second question is actually the easier one for me to answer, since I’ve had weeks, months, and years to think about it, even if it takes me a while to get there. It’s quite a long story, but one that I hope you will find worthwhile. It all started back in high school when I went on a mission trip to work on homes damaged by flooding near Fayetteville, West Virginia…  I don’t really remember too many of the particulars of the trip, but I do remember thinking “If I could do this for a living, that would be pretty much the best job ever.” Most of my academic and professional career since that point has been part of making that dream a reality. Except at some point it became about something much more than just traveling, having fun, and helping people; it became a calling.

I remember the summer before my senior year in college. I was spending the summer in Orlando, Florida, as part of a leadership training program with my college church (NLCF) while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I still kind of wanted to do humanitarian aid or relief work, but I also knew that it would be much easier, and more lucrative, to just find an engineering job in the states somewhere; I was stumped. Luckily God had a plan, as He always does, and knew exactly where He wanted me to be. One day, on my day off, I went to the park to have some quiet time and see if I could get him to tell me what to do. For no particular reason I opened my Bible to the book of James and this is what I found:

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” – James 1:22

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” – James 1:27

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” – James 2:26

And now for the kicker, James 4:17:

 “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

I had gone to the park that day to hear God speak. By the time I left the park that day I was pretty certain He had. It hasn’t always been easy, but at no point since then have I really doubted that this was what He wanted from me and for me. There have been times when I wasn’t necessarily sure that it was what I wanted for me, but each and every time I’ve walked away I have been gently and graciously reminded that it’s not about me. It never has been.