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Dear Friends, 

This blog has moved over to www.pscuga.org. Come on over and check us out!

Andy

Hebrews 12:1-2 in the morning

We have a group that gets together for Centering Prayer and running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at the PSC. They pray first, then run. Not my cup of tea, but I'm glad that they do it. I got Lauren, Mitch, and Brent to pose (or rather, I got their feet to pose) for this pic this week.

UGA and Florida?

Some of our students spend spring break at Koinonia in South Georgia with students from the Univ. of Florida. I was facebook stalking them this morning and found this picture.

Immediately, the prophet Isaiah came to mind: "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together...." Etc.

It seems almost apocalyptic to have folks from two schools with such a history of hatred coming together to do good. I guess they found something greater than football to bring them together.

spreadin' the word

Here's a pic of Betsy Katz, one of our student board members, talking to Gloria Burns (Director of Christian Education, Monticello Church) about the Presbyterian Student Center. Betsy and I went to the Northeast Georgia Presbytery meeting on February 28 to tell people about campus ministry. We talked with ministers and elders from Augusta to Clayton to Milledgeville to Dahlonega. This is a part of our efforts to let people know about the things that we are doing in Athens and to communicate better with out supporters.

Snow Days

Here's a picture from the Presbyterian Student Center on Monday. We were supposed to have dinner and worship on Sunday night, but it snowed about six inches on Sunday afternoon. Subsequently, trees and branches fell all over town and nobody had power. The power was out at the PSC from Sunday until Tuesday, but it's back on now and we're warm again. Fortunately, we had no major damage to the PSC (but we did have a close call next door at the Presbytery office--a 2.5' diameter oak branch missed the building by inches).

It was an inconvenient few days, but the snow was beautiful.

Shrove Tuesday

Man, did we eat some pancakes tonight. Brent, Cate, Mark, Meaghan, and Robert were all in the kitchen cooking and we couldn't keep up with demand. We had a great group of Episcopalians, Disciples, and Lutherans join us for our annual pancake supper. Next year, I'll make sure to get more griddles. 

To the left are Ande and Lauren. They win the "best dressed" prize. I almost didn't recognize Lauren when she came in (a big thanks to Father Dann brought Mardi Gras beads for everyone).

Now, it's time to go home and get ready for Ash Wednesday. We're worshipping at the Episcopal Center tomorrow at 5:00pm.

Transfiguration and Lent

Last night at the PSC, we heard the story of the Transfiguration as a way of coming to an understanding of who Jesus is prior to the beginning of our Lenten journey.  I shared with everyone a post by Diana Butler Bass that I found on Beliefnet entitled, "Giving Up Lent for Lent." It's a great article--she talks about both the meaning that comes in observing Lent and the spiritual oppression that we can feel. We took some time to share our past Lenten experiences, which was meaningful for the group.

This week, we'll begin our season of Lent with a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper at the PSC on Tuesday at 6:30. On Wednesday, we'll go to the Episcopal Center for an Ash Wednesday service at 5:00p.

Super Bowl Party, etc.

On Sunday, we had a great time at the Super Bowl Party on Sunday (but I probably ate too many cheese puffs).

Mitch organized our participation in the Souper Bowl of Caring.  We had a "service blitz" on Saturday in which we worked at two different Habitat for Humanity sites.  I went to Lexington with one group.  The other group went to Bogart (and got to meet some Braves' players who were there).

On Sunday, we took canned goods and monetary donations for the Foodbank of Northeast Georgia.  Today (Tuesday), we're going to the Foodbank to volunteer our time and to turn in our donations.  Hayley is organizing a regular time to go to the Foodbank on the first Tuesday of every month.

Souper Bowl Sunday

On Sunday, February 1, we will have our annual Super Bowl party.  This year, we've decided to participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring.

Bring a canned good to the party for the Foodbank of Northeast Georgia.  Hope to see you there!

Politics and Faith

Last night, I shared the workshop that I led at Montreat earlier this month entitled Apocalyptic Presidential Politics.  We talked about religious images in the presidential election.  In particular, we focused on the ways that Barack Obama was made to be either the Anti-Christ or the Messiah.  We also talked about the ways that people find identity and the ways that people conflate political and religious identities (google images for "Jesusaves" for some good examples of this).

I shared this video from a program that originally aired on CNN entitled God's Warriors.  Start the video at about two minutes in to see what Greg Boyd has to say.  This is really good stuff.

Redux: Montreat College Conference

Check out this recap video from the Montreat College Conference. I found it on Bruce Reyes-Chow's blog.


College Conference 09 from Josh Richard on Vimeo.

Montreat College Conference

We went to the Montreat College Conference this past weekend and had a great time.  We stayed in the Georgia Lodge, which is right in the middle of everything.  The theme was "Outrageous Generosity" and Tony Campolo, John Lewis, and some folks from Invisible Children were the speakers.  There were over 1000 college students there from all over.  We had small groups, workshops, concerts, and other special events that we participated in.  I think that everyone really enjoyed it.

Here's the publicity video...