Steve is a full-time campus minister for CCO at Penn State who specializes in reaching out to students who are culturally distant from Christianity.  Steve has been successful in forming relationships with these students and engaging them in Bible study in interesting ways and nontraditional places. He maintains a blogsite called the SENTintel where he posts articles and materials on missional campus ministry. He is also the founder of Commontary, a free online Bible commentary with user-contributed content.

Steve’s message runs about 45 minutes. We have broken up the video into five segments of about nine minutes each. Here is the first segment:

Additional segments continue below.

On Sunday, June 13, Michelle McCotter spoke at University Bible Fellowship  and gave a brief update about IV at Penn State. After her report, Ruthie — our current Seed President — offered a prayer for Christian unity on campus.

Anyways, here’s Shai Linne’s retelling of the greatest story ever told:

Intro
Each of our lives is a story,
And with each new person we meet
We become a part of their story, and they become a part of ours.
The God who created the universe has somehow woven together
These billions of stories into one story,
Which is the greatest story ever told.

Verse
Alright, check it: let’s go back in time, brethren,
Divine lessons always keep your mind guessing,
The glory of the Triune God is what I’m stressing,
The origin of humankind was fine, blessings
Were plenteous, God is amazingly generous,
Crazy benefits in a state of innocence,
God told the man what he could taste was limited,
Not long after came our nemesis in Genesis,
He scammed well, man fell, damned to hell,
The whole human race, he represented it,
Fooled by the serpent, man through his work,
Woman through birth, even the earth ruled by the curses,
But instead of a wake, immediately,
God said her Seed would be the One to crush the head of the snake,
Yo, wait, what’s this? Whoa, a gracious gift!
In Jehovah’s faithfulness, He clothed their nakedness,
This was so they would know their Savior’s kiss
And bliss, but first, many growing pains exist,
Suffering in the worst form, ugly deeds,
Eve’s firstborn seed made his brother bleed,
Indeed, things got progressively worse,
Every section of the earth’s been affected by the curse,
And though God’s judgments against sin were gory,
Praise the Lord! It’s not the end of the story.

Chorus
It’s the greatest story ever told,
A God pursues foes whose hearts turned cold,
The greatest story ever told,
Restoring all that the enemy stole,
The greatest story ever told,
The glory of Christ is the goal, behold,
The greatest story ever told,
It’s the greatest…

Verse 2
Next scene: man’s sin was extreme,
God gets steamed, man gets creamed,
The Lord is so Holy that He drowned them in the water,
Fire in the valley of slaughter, Sodom and Gomorrah,
But at the same time, He’s so gracious and patient
That from one man He created a whole nation.
Eventually enslaved by the mentally depraved,
They cried out to the only One with the strength that He could save,
He brought them out with signs and wonders, satisfied their hunger,
Then He appeared on Mount Sinai in thunder,
Where He laid down the law for God-ruled government,
Commonly referred to as the Mosaic covenant,
Sins imputed, so for man to know he’s unrighteous,
God instituted animal sacrifices,
This was to show our constant need for atonement,
And when it came to sin, the Lord would never condone it,
And when His people disobeyed and went astray,
He raised up prophets and kings to lead them in the way,
But they would get foul with their idolatry, wet and wild,
Prophecy sent them into exile
To take their punishment like a grown man,
Then with His own hand, He placed them back in their homeland,
And while in their forefathers’ land they dwelt,
They awaited the arrival of Emmanuel.

Verse 3
After 400 silent years filled with sighs and tears,
In Bethlehem, the Messiah appears,
God in the flesh, second Person of the Trinity,
At thirty, begins His earthly ministry,
Baffling cats with accurate, exact facts
And back to back miraculous acts,
A stumbling block to the self-righteous,
But the humbled, His flock, said, “There’s no one else like this.”
He came from heaven to awake the numb,
Demonstrated His power over nature, son,
A foretaste of the Kingdom and the age to come,
But the reason He came was to pay the sum
For the depths of our wickedness, our wretched sinfulness,
Bless His magnificence, He’s perfect and innocent,
Yet He was wrecked and His death, He predicted it,
Next, He was stretched, paid a debt that was infinite.
He said that He finished it, resurrected so the elect
Would be the recipients of its benefits,
Through faith and penitence we get to be intimate,
His grace is heaven sent, it never diminishes.
Now the Holy Spirit, indwelling, is the evidence
For heaven’s future residents who truly represent
Jesus, the Author, Producer, Director and
Star of a story that will never, ever end!

[I couldn't figure out how to embed it, so clicking on the image will open another window.  If your internet connection is not fast, turn off the HD option while viewing.]

This one is a message on integrity, given by Tim Conway. Integrity, or lack thereof, is a big issue today. God calls us to have integrity, that a yes means yes and a no means no. That when a person makes a promise, whether it’s a written contract or a simple verbal agreement, that person holds true to it, regardless of any sacrifice required. And when a person is alone with nobody around to see, he/she acts the same way as if the whole world were watching. Why? Because God is always watching.

This video is also a prelude to my book review on Truth and Transformation: A Manifesto for Ailing Nations by Vishal Mangalwadi. I just have to finish the book first xP.

This video is Paul Washer, one of my favorite preachers, speaking about repentance.  Many Christians delve into the Gospel to learn more.  They learn that a true Christian repents.  He doesn’t just feel sorry for the sins he commits, but turns away from his sins.  And so born-again Christians try to repent, only to find that it’s hard, it’s difficult, it even seems impossible.  And these born-again Christians become discouraged and may question whether they truly are born-again Christians.  This video addresses those Christians.

And Merry Christmas! :]