The Timely Update

So another update. I'll start it off with the unfortunate news, I didn't go skydiving this weekend. The weather was bad so the skydiving place canceled. It is now scheduled for next weekend. But it wasn't all bad this weekend as we went to the pump track every day this weekend. But now onto the more serious stuff of the week.

This week the speaker was Marty Emmett. He spoke about Identity. There are two main statements that I took away from the week. The first is “you will only be as transformed as you are transparent.” This means that you can only change as much as you are vulnerable with God and the community you are living in. The second statement is “the key about identity is not so much knowing who you are but more about knowing whose you are.” This statement just wrecked me. For so long I've been rising to find out who I am by doing things and finding validation from the people that see these actions, and that just doesn't work so well. This feeling from that validation doesn't last very long and you're left searching for more. Placing my identity in God is freeing, as God's feeling towards me never changes.

On Thursday we had an awesome night. We broke into our outreach groups and we spoke about the strongholds of lies that we have built and spoken over ourselves. It's kinda crazy the crap we think about ourselves. It was so shocking to hear some of the stuff that people think about themselves, stuff that is totally wrong and no one would ever think of the person. For me it was like taking a huge weight off my shoulders. Just actually talking about the things that I feel and think deep down was so good. It's weird that talking about things just makes things easier to manage and think more clearly about. The bonds that Thursday night made for our team was awesome. It really emphasized the importance of having a close group of friends that can talk about deep things and support each other.

This was a great week and I learned a lot. I feel this was one of the best weeks for me so far. I can't wait for more! Sweet as! 

The long lost update

So… I may or may not have totally forgotten about doing my blog updates so this is going to a bit of a longer one.

The week of November 2 was what is known by my DTS as Mark Parker week and not the subject of the week which was “The Lordship of Christ and the Fear of the Lord.” It's known as Mark Parker week because of who Mark is, Mark is my favourite speaker of all time. He is seriously the most intense, passionate, kind, loving and crazy 60 year man who is just on fire for God and desires to see young people flourish.

Honestly I'm going to have to go through my notes from that week quite a few times before I get everything out of it. But I think the main points of this week would be these. A lot of what we do for God and how we live is because we choose and not because of how we feel. It's all about your attitudes towards things. But there are a large amount of things that I'm not going to list as it would take far to long. But I will say this, I came to New Zealand to figure out what God's plan is for me but I'm founding out that I really need to get to know God before I'm ready to learn anything about what that plan is.

The main event of that week was on Friday. We had a ministry day that lasted 15 hours. We started the day with praising, giving thanks and worshipping God. After that we all layed things down that were areas that we didn't necessarily trust or serve God in, things such as family or money. Once someone laid things down they also picked up commitments and goals. I picked up reading my Bible every morning before having breakfast, I also made the commitment to doing a School of Biblical Studies after my DTS is over. After everyone did that we got to the real deep part of the day. One at a time we went up and repented of sins that we were holding onto. We also spoke about any shame that we were dealing with. This was very hard for me but it was one of the best things I've ever done after I did it. The best way to deal with sin and shame is to find someone who you trust and can confide in. After that we had an awesome time of prayer, there was lots that I can say about this but that'll have to wait till you can talk to me in person. The last thing of the night was communion. All in all it was an amazing experience and I felt a real load taken off my shoulders by doing all this. Love is an incredible thing.

Backtracking slightly to Thursday we had our first coffee outreach. We went into Queenstown and had free coffee, tea and hot chocolate. Served as a good way to draw people in and talk about God.

I didn't really do anything on the weekend, I just used it as a time to unwind and relax.

So, onto the week of the 9th. This week was all about relationships. This week wasn't mind blowing or heavy to me but it was good for me. The sort of motto of the week was “finding the one, but first work on becoming the one but before that focus on know the One (God).” We learned about something called soul ties, they can be good or bad and what they are is just a way of saying how you've shared intimacy with people. Whether that intimacy was from making out or star gazing together or just even praying together. It is just a good thing to keep in mind when you are in friendships. Yes we had a birds and the bees talk, it was actually a surprisingly mature discussion that the guys had, it only had a few moments where it went how you'd think a bunch of boys would act.

There was also a lesson on forgiveness. This wasn't so helpful to me as it wasn't anything new but it was nice to see that other people hold the same view on it. That being that forgiving someone is a choice and not necessarily a feeling. It doesn't mean that the hurt didn't matter but you choose to forgive.

On the weekend I again pretty much just relaxed and did homework. On Sunday a bunch of us went to a pump track and I sort of learned how to sort of use a longboard. It was a lot of fun. This weekend coming up is skydiving so I'm super excited for that.

Until the next time, which hopefully only a few days away this time. Fingers crossed.

God is Love and also paintballing is fun

So this week was pretty sweet. The speaker was Chris Twinn and he spoke about the character and nature of God. It was a really good topic (I think all the topics are going to be good). What made this good was that he really focused on what is it that you believe, who told that and why do you believe that. It encouraged me to really start reading the Word and listen to what God wants to tell me about the passage. Chris talked a lot about the character and nature of God saying God is and does all these things. But if his final line was this: The Character and Nature of God is LOVE! God is love.

I did my chapel talk on Tuesday. The chapel talk is a 10 to 15 minute lesson on some aspect of God. My subject was "Rock." It went really well, I was terrified even when they were praying for me (every time someone is about to give a lesson or lecture we have a couple people pray for the person speaking) but once I started going I felt peace and it allowed me to enjoy teaching on what God had showed me about Him as a rock.

All in all it was a good week. We played a game of contact rugby and that was pretty sweet.  We started figuring out the game near the end so we are going to have to play again. On Saturday the Extreme Dts went paintballing and that was awesome. One of the courses was a small village with alleys and rooms and that was so intense. Definitely want to go again. Did a fair amount of hanging out with the people here and I'm starting to get to know people better so that is nice.

I'm really enjoying myself here and getting to know God better. This coming week is going to be pretty intense. I'll elaborate in my next update. God is good.