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!

Following a small group time recently with a bunch of guys, a freshman on the track team commented to me (Trent), that the message communicated during the time (shared with 10 other freshman) was the “most powerful message he had ever heard”. He continued that he felt “unable to not change his life as a result of it”. This is a testament to the type of hunger that we are seeing for Jesus here on campus. Students are really taking seriously the teachings of Jesus, trusting Him for the ability to obey His commands and surrender their lives to Him.

Another freshman guy, who identifies a time during small group this fall as the moment when he began to walk with God for the first time, spoke of the incredible transformation that he has already experienced as a result. “Its crazy how much I have begun to care about people,” he said. After a pause and with a smile, he remarked, “I never used to care about people at all.” God is changing lives, little by little, like yeast being worked into dough. There is nothing better than watching as the bread begins to rise…

Our vision for ministry:

Our vision for students is that they would be RECONCILED to their Creator, RESTORED to wholeness through walking with Jesus and being involved in community, 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. We desire for students to really see and come to know Jesus as the Treasure of greatest worth, and for their minds to be transformed and aligned with the Word of God. We believe that obedience, surrender, and a life of true Kingdom significance flows naturally from intimacy with Jesus and a renewed mind and heart.

A few prayer requests:

A group of 13 students are going to Peru for a spring break mission trip led by Emilee, who works with us, and her husband Michael. It should be an incredible experience and we invite your prayers for their work and time there.

We are putting on a "Freedom Run" in conjunction with Menlo Park Presbyterian Church's Compassion weekend at the end of April to raise awareness and help fight human trafficking. It will be a 5K run followed by speakers, educational exhibits, and opportunities for people to get involved in some of the groups who are fighting human trafficking. Please pray that the planning goes well and that God fills people's hearts with compassion, creativity, and generosity to fight this massive global injustice.

Cool Story

We had a girls night the other night, and one of the freshmen that is really involved in Cardinal Life came and brought a friend named Katie, who is not a believer, from her dorm. We baked, played games, and had a fun time together. As Katie was leaving, she told my friend Jessica, whose house we were at, that this was the most fun she had ever had and was so excited to meet this group of girls. She came to Cross Training two nights later with her friend, and when I came up to her afterwards, she was literally glowing and talking a mile a minute. "I am just so excited to have found this community! I have never met people like this, and I just feel so loved and filled with joy being here! I think I am a Christian but I don't really know. I am just really excited I found this group." I was obviously very happy to hear her saying these things, so I asked her if she would like to meet sometime one on one because I was pretty sure she was not a believer, but it was obvious the Lord was moving. She emphatically said yes. So we met a few days ago, and the first few minutes of our meeting were classic and roughly went like this:

Winter quarter update

Winter quarter is in full swing, and it has been an awesome quarter so far! We feel like we have renewed vision and passion for what we are doing, and a big part of that came from the Passion conference. There was a group of about 15 of us there, and it was really bonding, fun, and impactful!! I think a lot of us were impacted most by John Piper's talk one night, followed by a Hillsong concert, which was an incredible time of worship. John Piper's talk spoke straight to my heart, reminding me that God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him, that my joy is made complete by forgetting myself as I am captivated by His beauty and glory, and that my purpose on earth is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever. The Lord alone satisfies! Something clicked in my heart when I heard that talk, and it made me realize how often we buy into lies that other things will satisfy or bring joy, wholeness, and fulfillment. Like when Isaiah says, "Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare," (Is. 55:2). It is amazing how you can think you really believe and know something, and then He sinks it ever deeper into your heart to where it almost feels like you are learning it for the first time again!

Cardinal Life Video

I can't believe we are already half way through fall quarter! God has been doing a lot of really awesome things.

Here are a few highlights:

• We have a lot of freshmen and new students coming consistently to Cross Training, which is our weekly meeting where we cook dinner for students and have a time of worship and teaching. It is starting to feel tight even in the Stenstrom's house. Better yet, most students who come to Cross Training each week are plugged into a small group and/or meeting with one of us weekly. We have roughly 75 students plugged into small groups, not counting the 30 or so guys (mostly baseball and football guys) that Jim Stump meets with one on one each week and has small groups with. Jim is a great ministry partner to have! He has been doing ministry at Stanford for over 35 years and has quite a legacy here. It is also neat to see a lot of the juniors and seniors taking leadership in different ways, reaching out to freshmen, and some helping lead a small group.

This is the sermon we watched at Cross Training last night. It was given by Trent's pastor from home who found out a few days before giving this message that his five year old daughter has stage three cancer and a tumor the size of a nerf football in her abdominal cavity! It is one of the most incredible and powerful sermons I have ever heard, and I would invite you all to watch it! He portrays a beautiful, worshipful heart in the midst of a huge trial, and he is an example to me of someone who treasures Jesus above all else.

When My Heart Is Overwhelmed from Reality on Vimeo.

Fall is in full swing and it has been joyful, chaotic, and life giving! There are lots of new freshmen which has been really exciting. We had a packed house for our first Cross Training of the year at Steve and Lori's house, and our first on campus meeting the following week was also buzzing with the excitement of a new year and new people. We are excited for this upcoming year and all that God has in store. I also got to lead a student to Christ the first week, which was so awesome!

In the midst of the chaos of a new year starting up, meeting with new students, planning fun activities, and figuring out small groups, book studies, one on one meetings, and what to do for Cross Training each week, we have been reminded of our desperate need and desire to be truly plugged into Jesus. He has blessed us with a very fresh perspective of the reality that it is all about HIM and that HE is to be our greatest love and treasure above all other things in life, including above ministry! We truly believe that our impact on the Stanford students will be much greater if we are plugged into Him, rather than operating out of our own strength. I am reminded of that daily!

Summer is winding down and we are getting really excited for all the students to return to campus. It has been a really rich summer! We had about 30-40 students around for the first two months of summer, and then summer school and a lot of internships ended around mid August, football players went into "hell month" of training where they are not allowed to leave campus, other sports got a few weeks off, etc. However, as some students left, others arrived for preseason training or other reasons, so we still have had a good amount of students around, which has been a blast! There have been ample opportunities to go do fun things, fellowship and worship later into the night at cross training, have bbq's, and enjoy some down time with one another. But of course we miss the students who are not here and the flurry of energy during the school year.

DREAM #2: ONE YEAR INTERNSHIP FOR GRADUATED SENIORS

VISION IN A NUTSHELL: A one year internship for graduated students, which would prepare these interns to be sent out into life beyond college as well as increase ministry to Stanford University. These students will live in community (ideally in a house or apartment complex near campus) while they work part time, focus on spiritual growth, serve somehow in ministry to the campus and surrounding community, and discover which vocation they want to pursue and how they want to pursue it. Overall, the goal of this year long internship would be to strengthen and equip these students to be sent out into the world with a solid spiritual foundation, a strong Christian world-view and Kingdom perspective, relational tools and various life skills, and a clear vision and plan of what they are going to do next. This is all relative to how they are uniquely gifted and passionate about ushering in God’s Kingdom. Additionally, the goal of this internship would be to dramatically increase the ministry to Stanford students because of the increased amount of “staff” and the amount of life changing experiences and activities that students could be invited into.

WHY WE WANT TO DO THIS: We feel there is a gap/need for a ministry focused on walking alongside students transitioning from college to the world after college. We believe students need a space where they can learn healthy rhythms of life in accordance with Kingdom values (while working and engaging with the world around them), develop a Kingdom perspective for work, relationships, and life, and explore their passions and gifts so they can very thoughtfully and prayerfully step onto a particular trajectory for the next big stage of their lives. As it pertains to ministry needs to the campus: In general, we feel that ministries at Stanford seem to do an incredible job of helping to transform the minds of the students as well as providing a structure where community and growth can happen at set times every week as their lives happen at a very fast pace. However, we desire to offer more to students. It is our opinion that what the students need most is a community where they can “come and see” the Kingdom of God being lived out (not just talked about), with the invitation to join in.

If you are interested in helping out with this vision in some way, please email me at nwiesen@gmail.com.

DREAM #1: FREEDOM CAFE

We have been praying a lot about some exciting dreams that we have had for several years now. We see God starting to work in cool ways to possibly start moving forward with certain aspects of those dreams, which is very exciting. One of the visions is to start a Freedom Cafe, and the other is to start a 1-2 year internship for students after they graduate. We have had a few promising meetings in the last few weeks with some key people regarding the Freedom Cafe, and it has given us a lot of excitement and optimism that it seems there is a very good chance it is going to happen! Let me explain the Freedom Cafe in this post, and then I will write about the internship in a later post.

In general, the idea is to launch a for profit business under our non-profit umbrella to support the work of the ministry. The current business idea is a "Freedom Cafe" close to campus where students and others would be inclined to come and study, hang out, and get filled physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It could also be a place where people learn about, rally around, and fight against various injustices around the world, especially human trafficking. We envision creating a warm, cozy ambiance so that people feel safe and can find refuge, love, and peace there. We would offer a variety of different community gatherings certain nights of the week or month, like poetry reading or poetry writing and sharing, Bible studies, book studies, Cross Training (which is currently our weekly student worship gathering), concerts, various classes, and other creative things to cultivate community, love on people, and lead them closer to Jesus. We could also have a "kids playing" section with one or two students watching the kids while moms get a coffee break, read, or talk with other moms. We definitely feel like this cafe would prove to be an incredible extension of our reach to the campus and surrounding community. We hope to launch a one to two year student internship for graduating seniors as well who would be committed to working/serving in the cafe for a portion of their time. I will share the vision of the student internship in next post!

Our greatest heart's desire for students is that they would truly love Jesus and that their hearts would be transformed. We do not just want a community that knows how to act and speak in the "right Christian way". We want a community of broken, honest, pure hearted students who are truly being made into the image of our Savior. That is who Trent and I want to be too!

I think there have been three theme verses for Trent, me, and our students this last year. The first verse is the first beatitude in Matthew 5, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". There is so much to say about this simple but deeply profound verse. Poverty of spirit is a recognition of spiritual bankruptcy and leads to true dependence on God. The road to poverty of spirit is marked by suffering, God allowing us to see the sin and filth in our hearts, and coming to the end of relying on self. It is a narrow road, but it leads to life. Yes it leads to life!! God has been blessing us by making us more poor in spirit, but the road there has been painful and hard at times. The result has been greater intimacy with God and dependence on Him for the strength I need to be holy, to not sin, to obey His commands, and to love Him and others from my heart. It is baffling how much I subconsciously think I can depend on myself and my own strength for all of those things. Entering the Kingdom does not come by being self sufficient, but by being dependent on God, which is the opposite of what our culture tells us we should be.

The second verse is Isaiah 26:8, which says, "We trust in you by obeying your commands. Our heart's desire is for your name's glory." The second half of the verse is incredibly convicting and powerful to me. How often do I honestly desire for God to get all the glory and not myself? How often do I want His will to be done at the expense of my own? Because His will being done is equated with His Kingdom coming (in the Lord's prayer), I cannot usher in His Kingdom if I am living by my own will and for my own glory. God has been slowly helping us die to our desires to get the glory, but this will be a life long process for sure! What a freedom it is though!

The third verse is 1 Samuel 16:7 when God says to Samuel, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart." This verse is actually quite frightening to me because we cannot fool God regardless of how "good" or "righteous" our outside appears to be. How often do I care more about what is in my heart than what I do on the outside? If I "perform well and righteously" in a certain situation, am I still concerned with what was really in my heart? Or am I just proud and happy to receive the praise of man? Because I truly believe that I will stand before Jesus one day and give an account for my life and what was truly in my heart, I am motivated to tend to my heart, to seek transformation of my heart, not just my actions. The beauty of a transformed heart is that a simplicity takes over life, which is really just transparency. A good tree bears good fruit naturally. I do not want to be a Pharisee, yet this is easy to become if I don't care about my heart, engage in spiritual disciplines, and seek God more fervently behind closed doors than in front of others.

This narrow road of dying to ourselves leads to wholeness, freedom, and fruit as we get to participate in God's story. It is all about Him!

Our 7 day backpacking trip with students was incredible! The weather was much better than expected, which was a huge blessing because it was supposed to be rainy with thunder showers 5 of the 7 days, with a high of 40! It ended up raining a little bit one night, and then it was mostly sunny and pretty warm the rest of the week! It was so beautiful, as you can see in some of the pictures right below this post. You can also see that there was still quite a lot of snow, but it ended up being a fun challenge.

The group bonded and got along incredibly! It was a pretty mixed group in the sense that a lot of the students going did not know each other extremely well. One of the coolest parts of the week for me was hearing everyone's summarized life story around the campfire at night times. People were really honest and I feel like that was a huge source of bonding among the group. It was also nice to be away from civilization, phones, technology, email, etc for a week. It is amazing how much peace we all experienced. And because we had quite a bit of down time, we all got to spend a lot of time with God and one another in His glorious creation which was literally breathtaking at times and filled us all with so much joy and praise!! While we did not want to leave, I must admit that I was very excited to take a shower, sleep in my bed, and eat some good food:) We were all extremely smelly after not showering for seven days, but it was an incredible experience that we all embraced and grew from!

WOW!

2 of the students climbed the big peak behind and left of us

The lakes were still half way frozen over

We made a huge bonfire one of the nights

Gorgeous sunset one night!

One of the students, Doug, standing in a HUGE GORGEOUS meadow

Lots of snow when we came over the Donahue pass!

Group shot at the top of Donahue pass

Climbing up the pass in the snow

Group shot

All the girls minus one

Thousand island lake