Men and Women of God A Ministry Update from the Kertsons
Culture often distorts what it means to be a man or women in our society. In particular, it creates dissonances with who God says we are in Christ and how we should relate to one another within these gender roles and within male-male, female-female and female-male relationships. The heart of any relationship is Paul’s call for us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This mutual submission finds its model in the way that Christ loves the church. Unfortunately, even within the church we often failed to model healthy and mutually submissive relationships with one another, even within our marriages.
Every Valentine’s Day, we at Chi Alpha San Diego try to redeem this day our culture has created to commercialize romantic love and we teach our students how to live out honoring and self-sacrificial relationship with one another and the opposite sex. The best avenue we have found for this is men’s and women’s overnight retreats. Our men this semester talked about creating a culture of honor and our women talked about being authentic and kind (“Always honoring” and “Authentic and Kind” are two of our Chi Alpha San Diego values).
Our men ate together, played together and prayed together. One student grew up in a single mother family and told me after our retreat, “I’ve never felt this kind of love from guys before.” Another student who is a new Christian told me, “I can’t believe I have been treating women the way that I was.” He felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to apologize to a number of the women in his life.
The women’s retreat was just as good. They talked about not having a critical culture but being authentic and kind in relationships with one another and with leadership. They had some great bonding time coming to the men’s retreat and vandalizing our cars around midnight. Though, to give them credit, they did also leave some encouraging bible verses.
These retreats are so important to build community but also to teach our students how to be true men and women of God according to the biblical law of love and grace.
Keeping Up With the Kertsons
Amber and Peyton had an amazing time performing in Peter Pan and already on to their next show as part of Linus’ blanket brigade in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.
Kendra is taking some personal growth courses in the Enneagram and coaching the next two months to continue to hone her discipling skills.
All three girls made the Honor Roll and earned the Global Citizen Award for the second trimester.
Prayer/Partnership Points
Our Spring Break trips were amazing. We had 15 students go on Spring Break trips to San Francisco City Impact and Arizona State University. At ASU, we saw 5 students give their lives to Christ and get quickly plugged into the Chi Alpha community there. We also saw over 50 students prayed for and ministered to throughout the week. The SF team worked in some of the toughest parts of the Tenderloin District and had their hearts broken for the poor there.
Pray for our 8 students going to the Philippines as they prepare and continue to raise funds. Brandon will lead them on a 3-week trip from June 25-July 13. *You can give to Brandon’s mission trip through our website www.xasdsu.org/philippines.*
We had 13 new students nominated for leadership next year which is super exciting. Pray for them as they go through the process and for us as we discern if they are ready for leadership.
