It was a dark and rainy night…
But it turned out to be an amazing night. Joel’s been bugging me for a while to check out “The Dive” at KSU, which is run by Campus Crusade for Christ (CC4C). It was about 20-30 people when we were starting our KSU Bible Study, but now they’re almost 200 people, meeting in a really cool auditorium.
I met Rick, the paid staffer running the ministry. They apparently have 5 additional staffers, Rick said. (That’s what we need!) He was familiar with Xenos and my brother Den, and he likes us.
They’ve placed our group on their Web site:
It was their meeting that arrested my attention. It was energized by excited and driven Christians, student-run from beginning to end. These were people willing to take a chance to serve the Lord by standing up there on stage to jam, act, teach, testify, MC, and more.
No, it wasn’t a well-polished production, and mistakes were made as expected from undergrads – but what carried the meeting was their determination to serve, their imagination and creativity and variety of gifting at work.
Boy, I was zapped by it. I got the fever! We should and could hit that campus with all our Xenos muscle like CC4C is doing. It rocked my world when it suddenly hit me we were loaded with powerful gifting, opportunity and spiritual muscle in our college group. For several years the Lord has been quietly building a repository of spiritual critical mass down there, and we could tear up that campus!
Shock and Awe!
Inspired, I started quickly jotting these “Deep Thoughts” on my Palm – when suddenly, over the loudspeaker I hear, “KEITH MCCALLUM!”
What? I look up, surprised, and behold! An auditorium of eyeballs were peering at me, and my buddies 
are all pointing their fingers at me and saying, “Go on up there! Go on!”
I figured out the MC had selected my name (at random, supposedly) from a bucket of visitor names (we graciously filled out visitor forms earlier, as asked), and I was now the big “prizewinner!”
So there goes a grey-haired old man followed by 400 student eyeballs and 200 smiles or smirks as I take a deep breath and boldly stride up there to claim my prize. It was a gift certificate for a Starbucks coffee.
Whoopy.
“Here, sit down,” the MC said, “Tell us all about yourself – Do you ever go to Starbucks?”
“Sure, all the time, whenever I’m tired or need a cup of coffee,” I stammer. ()
“Well, I see here it says you’re a graduate student, right?” he said, holding up my Visitor Form where I had circled the “Graduate” option.
“Um, no, not really,” I said, and looked out at the masses (oh boy, now they’ll think I’m just a lying scumbag…) “Well, see, what I thought it meant was to circle the highest level of education completed or something like that…”
“So you’re not a student?” the MC asked, looking surprised at me.
“Well, no, but looking now at this place, it’s all starting to come back to me now…” I said. “And it’s not a pretty picture.” 
“Well, what are you doing here? How did you get here?” he asked, clearly teasing me. (Should I tell him we’re spying?)
“I was just tooling around here and there, and those guys right up there come up to me…” I said, pointing at Joel, Alex, Joe, Jake and Eric, who start waving their arms wildly so everyone sees them, “…and they say, ‘come on with us, Old Man, and check out this place!’ So, they drag me along, and here I am.” 
The MC stares at me incredulously for a moment, then with a smile, “Well, that’s great! Thanks for coming!” Everyone claps, and I’m released to go back to my seat.
“Why didn’t you tell them you were from Xenos and something about us?” the guys ask me later.
Good question, but I had a good answer: “And tell them we’re checking them out, and, ‘Hey, by the way, come on over to our place instead!’” I said.
“Hey, c’mon everybody! The party’s at College Avenue!’” Jake said.
“And besides,” I added, “what a let-down if they found out their ‘grand prize’ went to some old Preacher Man instead of some worthy seeker…”
Everyone thought that one over for a minute, then: “They probably thought you were some street bum we dragged there and now they’re praying for you,” someone else said – I think it was my kind friend Alex.
Well, I didn’t really lie to 200 people. Truthfully (in a very general sense), I was just doing my thing and these guys kept bugging me to check it out…and that’s the scoop!
BUT THERE’S MORE…!
Angry
