Vision and Mission update

Since many people may only know bits and pieces of our vision and mission for ministry at Stanford with Kingdom First, we wanted to share it with you and ask you to pray about how God might want you to partner with us. We are looking for people who will come alongside of us and champion the work that God is doing in the lives of many Stanford students.

Vision (our desires and goals): 

In summary, it is our vision that every student at Stanford would have an opportunity during their time on campus to meet Christ, and as many as are willing to accept Him would have resources available to them as they pursue relationship with God.

Our desire for students is that they would be RECONCILED to their Creator, RESTORED to wholeness through walking with Jesus and through interdependent connection to His Body, EQUIPPED with the tools they need to live Kingdom First, Christ centered lives, and SENT OUT to bring Jesus and His Kingdom into the spheres where they will lead and influence.

Fall Update

Another school year has begun and the first few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and excitement. There are a lot of new freshmen who have gotten involved, as well as a surprising amount of new upper class as well. It has been exciting to see a packed house on Monday nights for our weekly meeting called Cross Training, and a lot of new students getting involved in small group bible studies. More importantly than an increase in numbers, there seems to be a greater hunger for Christ amongst new, old, and not yet believers, as well as a greater sense of need for Him. I feel like God is stirring in many non-believers hearts at Stanford right now, which is really exciting. I have had a lot of spiritual conversations with non-believers who are seeking God, feeling a heightened awareness of their emptiness, brokenness, sin, and their desire for something more than what the world offers. This is clearly the awesome work of the Holy Spirit! There are also a number of non-believers coming consistently to Cross Training to check things out, and we are praying for them to fall in love with Jesus and give their lives wholeheartedly to Him.

Because we have been sending out more frequent e-newsletter updates, I have not been updating this blog as much recently. If you want to see some of our recent newsletters from the end of spring/beginning of summer, you can click here, and see what has been going on.

It has been an awesome summer so far! There is quite a contingent of students that have stuck around for the summer, and we are having some really rich and fun times. We have continued to have weekly Cross Training meetings, small groups, and one on one meetings, while also leading some fun hiking excursions, having summer bbq's, and hanging out doing fun, random things since students have a little more time on their hands. As a staff, we have also been setting aside a lot of time to prayerfully revisit and revamp our vision, mission, and overall approach to ministry for the upcoming year, as well as plan some new initiatives we want to do this year. These times are proving very fruitful and getting us really excited for the fall.

Freedom Run

Our first ever 5K Freedom Run followed by an abolitionist rally took place on April 25th in Menlo Park in conjunction with MPPC’s Compassion Weekend. We were more than pleased to have over 600 people turn out for it!! The purpose was similar to the Freedom Summit, while we also engaged in a symbolic act of running for freedom. One powerful moment was seeing more than 600 people walk to the start line in complete silence as we took a moment to pray for the victims of human trafficking.

Spring Quarter update

This quarter has been quite amazing so far to say the least!! While Trent and I were welcoming our first baby girl, Elliana Corinne Wiesen, into the world on Monday, March 22, a group of 13 students were in the Amazon jungle of Peru having the time and mission trip of their life. Every single student who went on the Peru trip said it was one of the most incredible, life impacting, community building, eye opening, Spirit filled and God inspired trips of their lives, and they did not want to come home. While Trent and I were sad to miss this amazing trip, we were obviously having an incredible adventure of our own!

Our sweet baby Ellie

the mustard seed power

I got really excited today just in thinking about how huge of an impact that even one Stanford student surrendered to Jesus can and will have on the world. At first I was saddened to think about how hard it is for a Stanford student to be set free from the values of the world system and to surrender their lives to Christ, aligning themselves with His values. There is so much pulling at them, so many promises the world is making to them, and so many enticements of wealth, fame, power, etc. Then I thought about some of the students we have seen fall in love with Jesus over their years at Stanford, and the beautiful freedom they have joyfully entered into. I get so excited thinking about what the Lord can do through even one surrendered person. Look at how dramatically the world was changed through the handful of disciples! Our God does not need vast numbers. His Kingdom will advance, and He will use those who are in love with Him and who are surrendered to Him. We desire to see students discover the life that is in Jesus, the adventure He has in store for them, and for them to wisely spend their lives on things that will last for eternity (and we desire this for ourselves too!) We are praying for God to bring the hungry and thirsty students our way. The good soil who will produce a crop thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. Those with ears to hear.

Lots of Changes

There have been some recent, fairly significant changes within the staff of Kingdom First Ministries. Steve Stenstrom (founder of Kingdom First and our former "boss" and co-worker) has taken a new position as the President of Pro Athletes Outreach, a conference ministry for pro athletes, namely football and baseball players. Steve and Lori have been involved in PAO for twelve years, and Steve will be an incredible addition to their team. He is very excited about it, knows this is where the Lord is calling him, and we are also really excited for him. He started this new role on February 1st.

What this means for us is that Trent is now the official director of Kingdom First on the student ministry side, and my brother David is the director of Kingdom First on the 2nd mile side. We are so thrilled to work with David and his wife Tiffany. They will do an incredible job at running 2nd mile, and we are very excited for their partnership in student ministry as well. David actually spoke at the last Cardinal Life we had, and all the students really loved him and were greatly impacted by his talk. In addition to that, David and Tiffany come to Cross Training each week and are both very passionate about and gifted at men's and women's ministry. Steve and Lori have taken a seat on the board of directors of Kingdom First, and we now have the responsibility of overseeing and leading the direction of Kingdom First on the student ministry side. We are very excited to take on this new role, and we also know there will be new challenges which will cause us to grow a lot. We will miss working so closely with Steve and Lori, but we know they will still be involved, and we are still going to have Cross Training at their house every Monday night. One of the main responsibilities that we will be taking on with Steve leaving is raising the full budget for Kingdom First, while David and Tiffany will fundraise for 2nd mile. We know this too will be a challenge, but we are trusting the Lord for provision and to grow us in wisdom and knowledge in this area. We ask for your support and prayer as we enter into this new role.

We are also due to have our first baby, Elliana ("Ellie") Wiesen, on March 23, so there are a lot of changes coming up! We are so excited to meet our new baby girl and are praying for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. We invite your prayers for all of these things.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these new changes. You can email us anytime at nwiesen@gmail.com or trentwiesen@gmail.com. Love, peace, and grace to you all! We hope 2010 has been a great year for all of you so far!

This is me at 37 weeks pregnant!