To be transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that we are enabled and compelled to love God, love one another, and love our campus.
Alumni update
December 2009
Dear Alumni, parents, friends, and other supporters,
The advent of finals marks the end of another semester at Penn and of another semester of the Lord providing opportunities to grow in our relationships with Him, fellowship with one another, and in serving our campus and community.
Of course, this semester included all of the usual staples: small groups, large group, and a retreat. Across the small groups, we studied the Gospel of John, Galatians, Hebrews, Acts and Messianic Prophecy, and other topical studies of Scripture. Dr. Townsend, a professor at the med school who has served as an elder at a local church, also continued his lunchtime Bible study on the Gospel of Luke on Fridays.
In large group, we had a variety of speakers on various aspects of the Christian life. We started off the semester with a mini-series on faith, hope, and love in the Psalms. Another speaker spoke on sharing our faith in a relevant way with people from a Jewish background, and Kent Smetters, Wharton insurance professor, closed off the semester with sharing his testimony and facing the issue of contentment in the Christian life.
In November, we had our fall retreat, and we were very privileged to have John Piper speak. Actually, we watched some clips from one of John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” conferences and Mike Ambroso, a Penn grad student in Physics who is newly married to PSC alum Kathleen Ambroso, led discussions on the content and shared from Scripture and his own life about how to make finding our joy in the Lord a daily reality.
The Lord also provided a few interesting opportunities to serve during the semester. In October, PSC alum Bobby Fijan helped us organize the Harvest Moon Dance, continuing our new tradition of visiting a retirement home downtown each semester. It was a good time to continue developing relationships with the residents and to share the love of God with them.
In early November, we also participated in Liberti:Fishtown’s fall service week. We went up to North Philadelphia and cleaned up a curb of a street where people dump a fair amount of garbage. The hope of this service was to reinforce Liberti’s work in reaching the neighborhoods of North Philadelphia.
This update of course cannot really convey the work God is doing on an individual level in our group, but we would simply ask that you would continue to pray for Penn that group would do His work through all the churches and Christian ministries here.
In Christ,