The danger of other vines

We were sweating and fighting off mosquitos, but we were determined to get the fence rebuilt in the back corner of my yard. First we had to clear a nasty looking quagmire of various vines, including sawbriars, poison oak, and poison ivy. My Dad had on long pants, a long sleeved shirt, a dust mask, gloves and protective goggles. I was wearing the same, minus the long sleeves. Dad warned me. I told him I knew the difference between the sawbriars and poison ivy and that I would be all right.

You can probably guess what happened. I ended up with severe poison ivy stripes on my arms where the vines had wrapped as I had pulled them up.  My trunk was covered in welts.  I was scratching and taking ibuprofen for weeks. 

This week in our teaching series at Crossroads, we come to John 15 where Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardner...you are the branches, if a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit....apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:1, 5)

When Jesus announced he was the "true vine," the disciples understood immediately that they were the "not-so-true vine." They understood that Jesus was fullfilling one of the great promises of Old Testament scripture.

In the Old Testament, God repeatedly called his people Israel a vine. In Psalm 80 he calls them a grapevine that he uprooted from Egypt and replanted in the promise land. Isaiah 5, Ezekiel 15, and Hosea 10 each show how God's vine was meant to bear fruit, to be a blessing the nations.

However, in each instance the people became untrue to the Lord by trusting in other things, and ultimately just trusting in themselves. So, when the disciples heard Jesus say I am the true Vine - they would have thought of the terrible judgment their people had suffered because they had been untrue vines.

Next Jesus taught them that the whole Christian life comes down to this.  Forget trying to be your own succussful vine.  HE is the vine.  Abide in Him. Apart from Christ, the disciples could do, and surely we today can do, nothing.

But being our own religious vine is not the only danger.  

How might we abide in other vines? Maybe our roots are tapping into our career success in order to nourish our identity? Maybe we are abiding in a lifestyle of comforts or control in ways that we should be depending on Christ?

 This is one reason I am burdened for Georgia Tech students. These students are bright and capable, which often supports the notion that is okay to do a lot things apart from Christ. Jesus shows us that fruit apart from him will not last.  In fact, any branches that are not in Him will be thrown into the fire.  That is stark. 

The lesson of the vine is also a powerful portrait of the Gospel. Jesus, the only truly fruitful vine to ever live, was cut off by the Gardner and thrown into the fire. Now, the branches that had been abiding in other vines can be grafted into the true vine and experience a new fruitful, eternal life.

Recently, the students in our ministry here at Tech are learning to abide in Christ. On their own they have organized two weekly prayer meetings on campus. They are reaching out to their friends and are beginning to see fruit in these relationships.

I am confident that upcoming posts will include stories of evangelistic fruit as our students and staff seek to uproot themselves from false vines so they can remain more fully in Jesus the true vine.



And, after a few more Saturdays working in our backyard, my Dad and I finished rebuilding our fence. I thought my poison ivy would never heal fully - thankfully it did.

First Week

The first week of Fall Semester 2010 is almost in the books.

Highlights:

1. WOEP '10 - GT style acronym for Week Of Extraordinary Prayer. Students organized a 24/7 prayer chain for GT and our minstry for the week before school started. The GT Crossroads staff team joined in the effort and spent a lot more time than we usually do praying together for God to loved and enjoyed at Georgia Tech this year like never before!

2. Sunday - Leaders Ice Cream and Prayer at the McEntyre home - It was so fun to have most of our returning student leaders over to our home the Sunday before school started. Students chatted about their summers. We shared our burden this year for prayer and to be faithful in reaching out to our campus this year.

3. Monday Wednesday Freshman Welcome and networking - it is always fun to meet the new GT students. I have met students from Ohio, California, and Cumming, GA to name a few.

4. Thursday New GT Alumni Support - I (Trent) had the pleasure of meeting again this week with one of our distinguished alumni, Steve Zelnak. I met Steve a couple of years ago when I was asked to give a brief presentation to the alumni foundation board meeting. He is very involved in GT and encouraged us by offering to speak at our weekly meeting on Sept. 23rd. Come out and join us that night for a great talk on leadership.

5. Thursday pm First Crossroads weekly meeting - Thursday nights we gather for worship, teaching, and fellowship. We had a nice turnout of new and returning students despite meeting outside...it having just rained. We introduced GT to cookie dough pancakes. Student leaders, Isaac and Matt, manned the griddles and I dropped generous amounts of toll house cookie dough into the pancakes. The combo is rich, piping hot, and not good for you.

I spoke last night on John 13:1-17. It is the upper room scene when Jesus washes the disciples feet. The first things I noticed about this passage was how amazing a demonstration of servant leadership this is. Jesus the creator and sustainer of the universe, the Lord of all, stooping to the role of foot washer. Then I started to think about what is signified in the act of washing. Long story short, just before I was to give the first week message I realized that Jesus's washing his disciples feet was a radical pointer to what he was about to do. He was about to lay down his life for his friends so that they could be washed of the guilt of their sins and restored to a real relationship with God.

Trent McEntyre with his daughter Samantha

6. Sat Scavenger Hunt and Cookout - Saturday afternoon our staff member Greg and a great student named Palmer set up a fun photo scavenger hunt and cookout on campus. One of the scavenger hunt teams "randomly" asked a former mission team member of mine to snap a shot of their team in a pyramid in Centennial Park. My olderst daughter Samantha was part of the fun. She continues to convince us that she will be a Georgia Tech student herself one day.

Becca Gartrell and some of the Crossroads student women leaders

GT Crossroads director presents reflection at Student honors luncheon

I believe one of the keys of effective campus ministry is being part of campus life. One way Crossroads can participate in the academic life of our campus is to give reflection speaches for events like graduation. In the past, these reflections were called invocations. It was customary to have a minister open these events with a prayer. It is understandable that most universities have replaced opening prayers with secular reflections.

Here is the text of my most recent reflection at the Georgia Tech Student honors luncheon:

Greetings, students, faculty, alumni, and friends of Georgia Tech. On behalf of the Georgia Tech campus ministries I offer this brief refection:


We live in a world where men and women strive for many different awards. What determines the kind of legacy that they leave?


I recently reflected on the story of Alfred Noble who made great success and fortune for himself with his scientific mind. His proudest invention he first called “safety powder” but later derived a new name for his powder after the Greek word for strength, “dynamite.”


Alfred’s success continued. Later, Alfred’s older brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper printed a scathing obituary, not of Ludvig, but of Alfred Nobel, who was in fact alive and well. The writer was allegedly confused about who had died, and he used the obituary to write a condemnation of Alfred's life and work. “The merchant of death is dead" the newspaper proclaimed.


Alfred Nobel read the obituary about himself and was so upset that this was to be his legacy that he rewrote his will to establish a set of prizes celebrating humankind's greatest achievements. He left 94 percent of his assets to create and endow five Nobel Prizes.


There's also now an annual ceremony at Harvard to award the IgNobel Prizes. These prizes parody the Nobel awards and are for achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."


Recent Ignoble science and technology awards have gone to veterinarians in France "for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat" The Ignoble awards ceremony always concludes with the proclamation: "If you didn't win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!"


You are here today because you have won a prize for your hard work and achievement. The Georgia Tech community is thankful for you and the example you have set. We are hopeful for the potential, noble legacy you will leave in the world.


We have great hope for you, the recipients of hard earned awards, because, if you can succeed here at Georgia Tech, some may say you can succeed anywhere.


Still, I encourage you to receive these rewards and set your sights on new ones with humility, courage and wisdom.


Today, we will gratefully offer you our encouragement and applause. As you celebrate today, consider how your success can be a blessing others and bring wonderful solutions to many challenges in our world.

(Pictured below - three students involved in Crossroads that were receiving awards at the luncheon.)

Coming soon - stories

God is wonderful in that he does big things through his little people. We are very excited about what he is doing to reach and send some incredible leaders for His kingdom.

We will use this blog along with our regular newsletters and other communications to spread the word about some the great stories that are taking place at Georgia Tech and beyond.

The next event we have coming up is a graduation party at our house for a few students and their family and friends. Pray that it is a warm and joyful celebration of their very hard earned degrees!

Trent