Justin Kim examines Nicodemus across four parts of Nicodemus’ life, and compares this to how this parallels the Christian walk.

ACF Institute 2018: A Higher Aim

<p>Justin Kim examines Nicodemus across four parts of Nicodemus’ life, and compares this to how this parallels the Christian walk.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Christian Fellowship (ACF)

Justin Kim

To Jesus by Night

I've only been with you half the week, or the last half.

Could I ask you, maybe I can ask more of a dialogical style, we're not preaching, but a conversation.

When you go home tonight or tomorrow, whenever you do, your life is waiting there, Yes?

And it's very weird, and you've had this happen before at other retreats, that you come here and it's like, it's awesome, and it feels like, yay, and then you feel like this is reality.

But then when you go home and then you have like all the stuff that's there, then you feel like wow, this is real.

And then This Gator Wesley building was like another world.

And you need to make that transition carefully.

And 1 thing that will happen will be that people will ask you, hey, what did you go to?

Can't be like, yeah, well, we went and we just went to the swamp and took some pictures with an iron alligator and a globe and we had some haystack.

You don't want to give a duh answer like that.

You want to give them the answer that the Lord has given you, an experience.

So 1 way to do that is to share ahead of time, like now, and let me ask you the question, if what is going to be your personal takeaway from this entire week?

We've lost the art of reflection in our generation.

That we look for the tweet, we look for that 1 liner to repost, but we don't know how to articulate and to process for ourselves.

And so if it's a little bit silent, it's okay.

You know, just pretend it's like, you know, we're not Buddha.

But anyway, and then just think and what is your, and then what happens is as you hear other people's reflections, it actually sparks your own experiences in you.

And this is, it becomes a corporate experience.

But not something, what have you learned?

Not what is something that, what did a speaker say?

And I'd like to open that up to the floor.

If there's anyone, if you're introverted, let your hand go up.

I say that with respect, no, no, no, speak up, speak up.

What will be your takeaway When someone asks you tomorrow or whenever, what will you say?

I think something that's super important that I learned this week is...

Something that I've learned this week that's super important is, what is my main purpose to go to school?

Because I think that was something I was struggling with, just how can I get the highest GPA possible, how can I make the most connections, how can I network so my career, my master's or my graduate degree is the most successful, how can I set myself up that way?

But I think this week has really taught me that it's not, that is not the main reason why I'm at school.

Not that it's not important, because I think it is important.

Yes, all good things, all important things.

And my presence on campus should be about evangelism.

And if I wasn't there, I think I should be missed in such a way that people should realize that the presence of God through me is not there anymore.

I mean, I'm not even on campus and I resonate with what she's saying.

So this week I've really been convicted to change my own life.

So I came here wanting to start a campus ministry, but I feel like I came with maybe the wrong intentions.

And so I feel like God has been trying to tell me like, hey, what are you doing and why are you doing this?

And so I feel like while I was hearing all the speakers, I feel kind of unworthy to do the work because I'm not doing my part in having a close relationship with Christ.

So I've really learned that, okay, if you want to do this, sure, go ahead, because anybody can do it.

But if you don't have the right intentions in that relationship with Christ, it's not gonna be as successful, and it's not gonna be for the glory of God.

This question of why is emerging here, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, I've been really engaging mentally with a lot of the presentations that have been going on here on an intellectual level.

A lot of times in certain conferences, There's a lot of kind of abstract, conceptual, theological presentations that are given.

But here at ACFI, 1 thing I think that excels really well is this marriage of academia with biblical truth.

And so you have these, for example, Darlie's presentation, Jennifer Jill's presentation, things that are very research-based, things that are social science-based or science-based, being used to support biblical argument, being used to support our theology, and that's very refreshing to me as someone that is, I think I naturally gravitate towards those kind of topics.

And so it's kind of reinforced that hope that I have that public campus ministry is a super relevant Ministry because it really like I said it marries those 2 things together that well researched and well thought out You know really well understood academia with this powerful, godly, holy word that we have from the Lord.

And I think that those 2 things together really bring a solid argument for why it's the people in this room that will continue on this work and really be the people to finish that work.

Yeah, so I was just going to say, just all the presentations were very good, but I think the main part was that each 1 really seemed to have like a testimony or a really story behind it.

It wasn't just like a presentation and them just telling us something.

It was them and they tried it out and they practiced it.

1 that I really clung to was Cynthia's because as a senior I'm about to get out of school and my dad's really telling me you got to get a job before you get out of school, right, for an engineer that's kind of important.

And I wasn't really sure because I just did a co-op and I was like I don't really see my purpose here.

This kind of seems really, really, really boring.

And so when I heard Cynthia and how she was talking about that, I could see some parts in my job where I could have done a lot of things that she was talking about.

And I just really look forward now to potentially finding a job or whatever is next, but it was just really refreshing to hear that and be like, yeah, that is something that I would really enjoy doing.

Like reaching these W3s is something that I finally found call to.

So I'd say that throughout our walks, our lives, especially at school, like, we constantly have opportunities to share the gospel.

And I think that throughout our walks, we become better at that, become better equipped.

And I think that this week has been like an AP like in rich level course jam-packed into 1 week.

I feel like I've gained so much and feel so much better equipped to go back to my school and be able to share with other people And I think what's been really great, like what Nidal just mentioned actually, is that we've been learning through personal testimony from people.

Like we've had specific testimonies up on, like from our peers.

And we've also had amazing speakers be able to come in, like Cynthia, like Darlie.

To Jesus by Night

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