When I got back from HSLT (July 28th), I had a big project waiting for me at home. My dad decided to try a new campaign this year for his fall preaching. In magazine form, he wrote a tract with 10 reasons why someone should love, follow, and believe in Jesus. The title is "Why Jesus?" The idea is that "there must be a reason" why so many people follow Him despite the fact that, humanly speaking, there is nothing special about Him (not a political leader, not wealthy, no formal education, etc...) You can see more at ThereMustBeAReason.com.
Anyway, my part was designing the magazine. This was my first real professional experience in this process. From August 7th through the 17th, I averaged sleep from 4am to about 9am, and worked nearly all day- including a 30-hour span from Wednesday morning to Thursday evening! You can see the finished project on the web here.
It was a fun process of staying up late, working a lot, and then enjoying the rest when I had the chance. I drank a lot of tea, listened to a lot of music (especially OK Go, Norah Jones, and JET) - odd mix, isn't it!? These things helped me stay awake and think and work, but it really was the Holy Spirit that inspired creativity.
Designing the magazine was fun and challenging. However, there were two more important experiences. First, it truly is neat to join my dad in his ministry of reaching students. I played a pretty key role in his ministry for this fall. I was glad, honored, and pleased to serve with him in this campaign! Second, this is probably the biggest outreach activity I have ever been involved in, and perhaps ever will (that is, until the next time we do something like this!) We printed 70,000 magazines to be distributed all throughout the campuses he will be preaching at this fall (3k-8k per campus). There is potential to reach many times more people that I ever could personally. And by reach, I may mean simply for people to consider Jesus more, and help along the process of God drawing them. "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow (I Corinthians 3:7 ff)."