Oct 24th Update from Mike and Corrie

Hey Team!

I wanted to take a second to tell you all about what God is doing here at GA Southern.  We've been trying to spend considerable time both reaching out evangelistically to unbelievers and inwardly through discipleship by proficiently training our students how to walk with God for the rest of their lives. 

I'll share 2 quick stories to illustrate:

Corrie has been spending a lot of time with a girl named Sarah, the girlfriend of one of our guys in discipleship. She grew up around the church, but it was mostly a cultural thing and not a real relationship she possessed with God. She came into the semester thinking she was a good person and was ok with God. Through Corrie's friendship and exposure to other godly women, Sarah began coming to our weekly meetings, our Fall Retreat, and even started a Bible study with Corrie. Just recently, Sarah has been putting together everything the Lord has taught her over the semester and realized that at the Fall Retreat she actually entered into a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Her desires are changed and the direction she wants to take with her life has changed too!

Also, I (Mike) have been discipling a large group of leaders for a couple of years now.  These men are starting to truly mature and develop as followers of Jesus and as spiritual leaders too. Two of them, Casey and Mike Rosser, are guys that I'm partnering in ministry with. We've been able to start two flag football teams in Watson (a dorm on campus) with about 30 guys coming around. God has truly blessed this endeavor. Through our ministry in Watson, one guy has come to Christ, about 15 are coming to an investigative bible study, we've discovered about 1/2 dozen Christians are there and are now learning how to study/memorize God's Word and pray with us, and a passion, eagerness, and interest to know Christ is starting to pervade the whole dorm. And the amazing thing is that God is using these two ordinary men to do the extraordinary. They are truly beginning to see the joys that come along with spiritual leadership.

I share this with you because I want you to rejoice with us in praising our Father in heaven. Only He can pull off stuff like this.  God changes hearts. God transforms lives. God turns the world upside down with ordinary people.  

Thanks for your prayers and support! Corrie and I are truly blessed to be connected to you and have you on our team!

Love,

Mike and Corrie

mingham@campusoutreach.org

Cell: 706-631-7711

PICTURES OF SARAH, CASEY, and MIKE ROSSER

Our Fall Semester so far...

Hey Everyone!

Things here in Statesboro are flying by! We already well into October and there is much to be excited about in regards to the work God is doing here.  The Fall Retreat I asked you to pray for was a huge success.  (*See the picture below*). Over that weekend, 6 GSU students professed faith in Christ and we got clarity on where many other students stood.  It was a great weekend full of energy and momentum.  We have been able to harness some of that momentum by talking with the students who came to the Retreat about starting up Bible studies.  There has been lots of interest and positive feedback.  For example, we announced to our flag football team this week (many of them were at the retreat) that we would be starting a study and were wondering who was interested.  26 men said they would want to come to a bible study.  And that is just one of the many Bible studies starting up next week! Please be in prayer for these studies!

Also, we are having another tailgate this coming Saturday.  We are playing Furman and it is perhaps one of the biggest games of the year.  The last tailgate was a huge hit.  It was one of the first events we did where we connected deeply to many of the people who came on Fall Retreat.  We are trusting God to use this tailgate in an even greater way: to build deep relationships, be a venue to talk about Christ, and to help us recruit to future events (like the National Christmas Conference).  This is going to be the biggest Christmas conference we've had in 10 years.  Some stats: 6000 college students, Chattanooga TN, speakers like John Piper.  Check out the website if you are interested in seeing what will go down...http://conationalconference.com/

Be praying for these Bible studies, our upcoming tailgate, and the very important Christmas Conference at the end of the year!  I've attached a prayer calendar we are using for the month of October with our students on the campus.  Join us in praying for God to move mightily here at GSU!  

Your life and prayers matter!  Thanks for making much of Christ with Corrie and me!

Mike and Corrie

mingham@campusoutreach.org

Cell: 706-631-7711

CO @ GSU (9.23.11)

Hey Team! 

Here's another quick update on life and ministry at good 'ol GA Southern! Corrie and I are doing well and are enjoying our 2nd year of marriage and are learning a lot as we strive to invest quality time into relationships with students.  Those we are discipling and helping to mature spiritually are doing well.  They are all growing deeper with God and are taking steps of faith by sharing Christ with their classmates and intramural teammates.  And they are helping us meet lots of new freshmen in the dorms, too. We are beginning to see lots of spiritual interest pop up in certain friends so far.  This is very exciting for us.  Over 100 people have been coming to our weekly evangelistic meeting called Proximity.  Next week, I'm speaking about the subject of belief and trust in Jesus Christ.  Please pray that some would for the first time put their full trust in Jesus that night.

We are also recruiting to our annual Fall Retreat. We are praying for over 90 students from GSU to come.  It will be in Macon on Sept 30-Oct 2. This serves as a great opportunity for us to go deeper with friends who come and it helps jump start us into bible studies in the dorms when we get back.

Lastly, I want to introduce you to a few influential guys and girls we've been getting around.  They carry so much influence with the rest of the dorm that we believe if God could save them, then they could influence the others to investigate as well.  Two men you can pray for are Akil and Alan.  They both play flag football with me and are spiritually interested in Christ.  Pray for their salvation and that they would one day have a vision and passion to share Christ with the freshman who arrive after them.  And three girls that Corrie is getting to know (and playing flag football with) would be Tori and Jordan and Hannah. Pray for these girls to come to know Christ personally and that God would redirect their entire lives to be lived for Him and his glory!

Thank you so much for your prayers and support which are helping advance God's kingdom here!

Making much of Christ,

Mike and Corrie

mingham@campusoutreach.org

Cell: 706-631-7711

 

     

Pictures: Akil                       Alan                            Tori                    Hannah and Jordan

Seeing God's hand at work!

Hey Friends!

We want to thank you for all the ways that you've been joining us in the work here at GSU.  Your prayers and sacrificial giving are beginning to bear fruit as God is moving in a big way here.  

We had our first Proximity, a weekly evangelistic meeting, this past Tuesday. We had about 90 students come and by God's grace we found a new meeting space with enough seats for 350. We are praying that vision would catch in our students' hearts to fill those seats so we can expose everyone we meet to the gospel of Christ.  For the first four weeks, we are working at Redefining basic elements of the gospel message: God, Sin, Salvation, and Faith/Trust.  We know there are culture views on these issues and we are wanting to contrast them with a biblical picture.

Also, our teams and practices for flag football intramurals have really gotten underway.  Corrie is ministering in dorm called Southern Pines.  She and a few of our students have recruited about 30 girls to play on their team! That is going to give them a great in-road relationally with lots of girls. I (Mike) have been working in two dorms known as Watson Commons and Watson Pods.  The Lord has given us about 25 guys from all walks of life.  We are splitting up into two teams so we can go deeper with each of the students.  There is a lot of excitement from these freshmen about the season and in our new friendships.  God has given us an extreme amount of favor here at GSU.  We are seeing a lot of influential men and women getting connected to us.  

Also, this weekend was GSU's first home football game and it was our first Tailgate of the year.  We were able to set up a pretty attractive event with music blaring, a TV and coach out by the grill with some SEC football on, different tailgate games for students to play, and a massive grill to cook all the hot dogs on for the 75 or so students who came.  It turned out to be a great time to connect and build deeper relationships and trust with them.  It went so well that we were able to sit with a lot of those students at the GSU game (which was lopsided at best: GSU 62-Tusculum 21).  After that about 25-30 of us went to Zaxby's and ate late night dinners and really bonded well.  You could see the trust and camaraderie growing on the faces of our new friends as we spent quality time with them.

We are praying that all these relationships would lead to them saying "yes" to investigating spiritual things with us at our weekly meetings, in bible studies, and by coming to our Fall Retreat in 3 weeks.

Prayer Requests: Join us in praying for the following...

1. For continued favor with these new students. That many would be interested in personally investigating the claims of Christ.
2. For Proximity, our weekly meetings.  That many would come with open ears and open hearts to listen to God's Word.
3. For the upcoming Fall Retreat. We are trusting God to bring 90 GSU students.  Pray for recruitment and an eagerness about our new friends.

Thank you so much for all your love and support,

Mike and Corrie

Pictures below: Some of the faces of those students we went to the GSU football game with.

Ministry is underway @ GSU!

Hey Team!

A lot has happened since we last wrote and we're eager to share it with you.  The first week of classes started with "Move-in day" in which our students were able to help freshman move in at every dorm on campus.  This led to a lot of relationships being formed quickly and naturally.  Through those instant connections, we have been able to created many shared experiences (including game nights, working out, lunches, and many other things).  One thing we are praising God for is that he has helped us to network relationally through the people we met and we've interacted with their groups of friends rather early on in the semester.  We are excited because we really want to expose as many people as we can to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week we are continuing to connect to people and are even beginning to look for ways to identify with Christ and potentially share our testimonies with them.  On Tuesday, we are hosting a campus wide volleyball tournament.  Our hopes are that this event would act as a relational spark that would allow us to deeper with our new friends.  If you could, please pray for continued favor and respect in these fledgling friendships.  We want to get to cultivate these relationships so that we can know them and they can know us, and hear about our Savior Jesus.

Lastly, one of the most exhilarating aspects of our ministry in this very young semester has been our corporate times of prayer as a body of believers.  We really believe that our prayer meetings on Sunday nights and creating a culture of dependence on God through prayer are the most vital aspects of our entire ministry.  Pray that this conviction would permeate our ministry and we would pray expectantly for God to move on our campus.

Please join us in praying for the things in bold above.  Thank you for your love and prayers. We could not do this work without your vital partnership and prayer! 

Love,

Mike and Corrie                     


                   

p.s. this picture is from our Sunday Night Prayer meeting that we had tonight!

The Calm before the Storm

The past few weeks have been very exciting as our planning for the semester has gotten underway and the time left until the start of school has flown by!

To give you a glimpse into all that we are planning, I want to share with you what is on the horizon for us.

This Tuesday (Aug 16), we are having a Leader's Retreat for all of the students connecting to our ministry. This is a time and place that vision for walking with God and reaching other students with the gospel can be cast and a plan can be forged to carry it out.  Passion can be stirred and direction given as students learn to own this ministry to their campus.  Please pray for any last minute planning that we must do for this.


On Friday, August 19th, the official move in day at GSU will be a very busy time for us.  This is an opportunity our ministry takes each year to serve the freshmen moving in for the first time and it helps us build relationships with them.  Many student leaders in our movement have testimonies that God started working on their hearts as they met a Christian helping them move in on that weekend of their freshman year.  Pray for us to have great favor with students we move in and that even these we meet through move-in day would one day be added to God's kingdom.

And just so you know, I want to share a word from God's Word that I will be giving to our students during that Leader's Retreat.  It is out of Galatians 6:14.  In this verse, we see Paul telling the church, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world was crucified to me and I to the world."  Without going into too much detail, the Lord showed me that the only object worthy of boasting in is the cross of Jesus Christ.  His powerful life and sacrificial death to make sinners right with a holy God is the only thing to make much of.  And that is going to be the drum we beat all semester: we want to make much of Christ.  And we want to experience great joy in God as we do so.  If we, as Christians, can begin to make much of Christ in every facet of our lives, we will experience great joy, we will be holy like God has designed us to be, and we will live lives that provoke spiritual hunger in people so that they can get to know this same God and Savior.

That is our desire this semester!  More to come about this vision and direction in updates to come.  Until then, pray for me and Corrie that we will:

1. Make much of Christ in our marriage.  We are praying that, in our 2nd year of our marriage, we will grow closer to one another and learn how to love each other and God better through all he teaches us.
2. Trust God with the plans we as a staff team have made.  Pray for God's blessing on them and that if He sees fit to change any of them, we would be ok with that.  
3. See God work mightily at our Leader's Retreat.  We want this time to really empower our students to own this ministry and lead in it how they see God calling them to.  Pray God would give us as a staff team wisdom as we lead that retreat.  Pray for great passion and vision for the advancement of God's kingdom to be cultivated here.

Thank you all for lifting us up in prayer.  What you do through prayer is not preparation for the "greater" work of ministry here at GSU.  Prayer is the greater work!  

We love you and are thankful for YOU!

Mike and Corrie

Our GSU staff team

Welcome to our blog

Hey everyone! My wife, Corrie, and I are starting this blog as an easy (hopefully) way to recount all that is going on in our lives and to keep our family and friends involved in it as well!  I'm not super-savvy when it comes to technology, but I hope this can be a fruitful endeavor!

The title of this blog is "Life on Life." That is exactly how we see Jesus doing ministry with his men when he was on earth. We aim to be just like him as we strive to build up men and women in their faith in Christ.  We will be updating regularly on here about how God is growing his kingdom and using our lives to make disciples of Jesus Christ who will multiply their lives into others.  The goal is nothing short of reaching the world for Christ!  It seems lofty, but with God "all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)

If you want to know more about us and the work we do, please see the complete profile to the right.  Those of you who follow the trail of our lives and stay up to date on what God is doing in and through us - thank you so much!  May you be blessed by these updates as we have been by your prayers and support!

Yours,

Mike and Corrie Ingham