Well, I haven’t posted in about 3 months. Let me catch you up on all that has gone on (my excuses for not blogging).
College Ministry
August and September are always incredibly busy around churches, but especially busy for college ministry as the new school year starts and ministry begins anew. This year our leadership team added Tyler David as a college resident. He brings fresh passion and ideas to our team as my good friend Todd Engstrom transitioned out of college ministry to continue benefitting the church as Pastor of Missional Communities.
Transitions amongst a team are always difficult, but God has been faithful to grant us unity and help us work together well. This past semester has been amazing to watch God move through students to see a number of their fellow students come to believe in Jesus and begin following Him with their lives.
Testmasters PE Exam Review Course
At the end of September and through most of October, I started preparing for Professional Engineer’s exam. It’s an 8-hour exam that I must pass to become a professional engineer and be responsible for stamping plans as final and become liable to get sued (woohoo!).
To prepare for this exam, my company pays (reimburses when I pass) for a Testmasters review course. The review course consisted of 3 consecutive weekends (Thurs-Sun) of class all day long. So I would work Mon-Wed and have class in San Antonio from Thurs-Sun. Needless to say, it was trying for all around the Gentry home. But I got through it and took my PE exam on October 23. I’ll find out the results around Christmas time because it takes 60+ days to process a scantron apparently.
New Braunfels – My Spiritual Birthplace
One benefit of going to San Antonio on weekends was staying with and reconnecting with old friends. Kimo Aleman and Justin Smith are two guys I met working at T Bar M Christian Sports Camp and they opened their homes for me to stay closer to San Antonio for the review course. It was quite refreshing to catch up with old friends and here about what God is doing in their lives.
While I was there, I went to visit T Bar M. It’s my spiritual birthplace. At that camp when I was 13, I was praying to God when I felt Him asking me to give Him my life and to follow Him forever. I could no longer take the label of Christian, but only live it at camp, God wanted my whole life.
So I went back and it was completely empty since it’s not the summer and I enjoyed just walking around and remembering God’s work in my life through the many summers there as a camper, an all-star (work crew), and a counselor. If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to remember often God’s work throughout your life. It’s quite refreshing.
BYX Retreat – A preaching first…
The weekend before my PE Exam, I spent in the middle of nowhere Texas, 2 hours west of San Antonio with the Christian faternity BYX chapter from A&M. They asked me to be their speaker and I spoke 4 times in 2 days. It was one of the first opportunities I’ve had to preach and especially to preach that much. My topics were the following:
- Knowing and Enjoying the Gospel – It is often assumed Christians know the gospel, but knowing isn’t enough. You only give your life to things you enjoy. The gospel is most enjoyable and deserves your life.
- Gospel Repentance – When we recognize sin, we either ignore it or beat ourselves up over it. We rarely acknowledge our wickedness, get to the root of why we do it and then embrace the work of Jesus on the cross and in the ressurection to give us forgiveness and victory.
- Gospel-led Community – Fighting for your brother’s love for Jesus as much as your own.
- Gospel-led Mission – The gospel saves us to send us out on mission. If we aren’t evangelizing, we don’t believe the gospel.
It was an amazing time with a good group of guys from A&M including my brother-in-law, Dan. I loved it and God did great things.
To be continued…with pictures…
Well, I caught you up through October. Next time, I’ll include some pictures of the family and finish the fall review. Probably next week some time…or in 3 months…
