The weeks are going by very fast now and there is exactly one week left until I leave for outreach! This past week I had the amazing opportunity to have the lectures given by Cathy Nobles who is also the leader of the School of Reconciliation and Justice here on the Harpenden base. She spoke to my DTS about forgiveness and the cross. It was really interesting and made me think over a lot of things.
I'll just write out some various thoughts from the week that really stuck out to me and give a quick overview of the week! There were many quotes from this week that I found very powerful so I think I'll pass along a couple of those:
"Hope has two lovely daughters: anger and courage. Anger for what is wrong and courage to set it right."
"Unforgiveness is the poison I take hoping that you will die."
One of the topics that we looked at during the week was anger. The first quote goes well with the topic and we looked specifically at how anger is not a bad thing. It is okay to be angry as long as we use that anger constructively and don't hold on to that anger. The second quote looked at how unforgiveness not only hurts those you hold it back from but also yourself.
We also looked specifically at some different steps to forgiveness which were as followed:
1. Acknowledging the anger and hurt
2. Making a decision to forgive and not take revenge
3. Asking questions to look at the bigger picture
4. Learning to live with the bigger picture
5. Living from your best self
The last two days of the week we had the opportunity to hear from some people from Africa and hear about specific African cultures to help us prepare for our outreach. It was very interesting and eye opening. As I am leaving for South Africa next week I do not know if or how much access I will have to the internet for the next couple of months. So I will most likely be unable to post anything more on this blog for awhile. If possible though I will try and update! Thanks again to everyone who is reading these posts and your continued prayer is very much appreciated!
God Bless!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Relationships and Identity
The weeks seem to be going by faster and faster as outreach gets closer! I now leave for South Africa in two and a half weeks which is very soon and I'm starting to look ahead to packing and such. We also found out that for our outreach in the United Kingdom we will be going to Newcastle, England! We don't yet know what we will be doing there and may not till closer to the date.
This week's lectures were led by Steve and Jo Bishop who are the DTS center directors. They spoke on relationships and identity. We spent a lot of our time looking at who Jesus related to and how He related to them. We were often broken off into small groups to look up scriptures and give examples of those relationships. As Christians we are called into relationships with those around us so that we can share our faith.
We also spent some time looking at our identity and how that can be influenced by many different factors and how we have two different identities. Our natural identity which is how we would try and define ourselves through the world (through material things and concentrating on what we can achieve) and we also looked at our spiritual identity which is how God views us (found throughout the Bible). We also looked into the how our identity influences our self image.
This week I also saw the amazing ways that God works! There are five people who go to the same church as me here in Harpenden and on Sunday we had a little bake sale, face decorating and balloon animals for the congregation after the service. We spent four hours on Saturday baking and preparing for it and then on Sunday we just asked for donations towards the baking. Once we got back to the base we counted the total and we were amazed to find it totaled 360 pounds! It was wonderful and has helped out our team in reaching our financial needs.
This week's lectures were led by Steve and Jo Bishop who are the DTS center directors. They spoke on relationships and identity. We spent a lot of our time looking at who Jesus related to and how He related to them. We were often broken off into small groups to look up scriptures and give examples of those relationships. As Christians we are called into relationships with those around us so that we can share our faith.
We also spent some time looking at our identity and how that can be influenced by many different factors and how we have two different identities. Our natural identity which is how we would try and define ourselves through the world (through material things and concentrating on what we can achieve) and we also looked at our spiritual identity which is how God views us (found throughout the Bible). We also looked into the how our identity influences our self image.
This week I also saw the amazing ways that God works! There are five people who go to the same church as me here in Harpenden and on Sunday we had a little bake sale, face decorating and balloon animals for the congregation after the service. We spent four hours on Saturday baking and preparing for it and then on Sunday we just asked for donations towards the baking. Once we got back to the base we counted the total and we were amazed to find it totaled 360 pounds! It was wonderful and has helped out our team in reaching our financial needs.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Nature and Character of God
Overall this week was great! We had some beautiful weather, took part in another love feast and had a really challenging and thought provoking speaker among other things. David Painting was the speaker of the week and He taught on the nature and character of God. There was so many good things covered in the week it would be impossible for me to touch on all of them so I'll just focus on one or two points that really stood out to me.
One powerful yet simple thing we did was to read 1 Corinthians 13. First, as a class we established and all readily agreed on the fact that God is love. Then we were directed to read 1 Corinthians 13 which by itself is a very powerful chapter in the Bible. However, then David pointed out that if God is love then all the different characteristics of love covered in Corinthians also applied to God. We then reread the chapter out loud and replaced the word 'love' with 'God'. It seemed like such a simple thing to do but it really did make everyone in the room stop and think for a moment and re-evaluate how we see God and who He is.
We also looked into the idea of choices and how God has given us freewill to make choices. This in itself speaks of God's nature of love. Even though He has the ability as an all-powerful God to take absolute control of our lives He allows us to make choices whether they be good or bad. Not only does He allow us to make our own choices but if we make the wrong choice or move away from God with our choices He is willing to forgive us of that and accept us back into His love with true grace.
There were so many other topics covered in the week and many of them were touched on and expanded everyday so it is hard to give a sense of the whole impact and meaning of the lectures in this one entry! The two points above really made me think and appreciate more and more who God is.
As mentioned before my DTS had another love feast in which we specifically set aside an evening to get together, eat, be a community and have God the focus of it all. It was a lot of fun and really encouraging overall. We all dressed up in the theme of togas and shared a lot of laughs together.
The week was also so bright and sunny that I had the chance to play a lot of frisbee outside on the oval. Most of the flowers are starting to come out and bloom now! Some of the trees are also budding which is very exciting. I leave for South Africa in less then a month now and am getting very exited for it!
One powerful yet simple thing we did was to read 1 Corinthians 13. First, as a class we established and all readily agreed on the fact that God is love. Then we were directed to read 1 Corinthians 13 which by itself is a very powerful chapter in the Bible. However, then David pointed out that if God is love then all the different characteristics of love covered in Corinthians also applied to God. We then reread the chapter out loud and replaced the word 'love' with 'God'. It seemed like such a simple thing to do but it really did make everyone in the room stop and think for a moment and re-evaluate how we see God and who He is.
We also looked into the idea of choices and how God has given us freewill to make choices. This in itself speaks of God's nature of love. Even though He has the ability as an all-powerful God to take absolute control of our lives He allows us to make choices whether they be good or bad. Not only does He allow us to make our own choices but if we make the wrong choice or move away from God with our choices He is willing to forgive us of that and accept us back into His love with true grace.
There were so many other topics covered in the week and many of them were touched on and expanded everyday so it is hard to give a sense of the whole impact and meaning of the lectures in this one entry! The two points above really made me think and appreciate more and more who God is.
As mentioned before my DTS had another love feast in which we specifically set aside an evening to get together, eat, be a community and have God the focus of it all. It was a lot of fun and really encouraging overall. We all dressed up in the theme of togas and shared a lot of laughs together.
The week was also so bright and sunny that I had the chance to play a lot of frisbee outside on the oval. Most of the flowers are starting to come out and bloom now! Some of the trees are also budding which is very exciting. I leave for South Africa in less then a month now and am getting very exited for it!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Father Heart of God
Week seven is now officially over and it's getting closer and closer to the end of lectures and the beginning of the outreach phase. My outreach to team to South Africa has decided that the three locations within South Africa that we will be going to are Durban, Worcester and Cape Town. We will be spending six weeks total in South Africa and then we will come back to the United Kingdom for another three weeks of outreach. The location of our UK outreach is still undetermined and we are currently looking into that. We've booked our flights for South Africa and we leave on April 6 which is exactly a month from now! I'm very excited to go but it will also be sad to split up from the rest of the DTS as they will be going to Tanzania.
This week's lectures were taught by Emmanuel on the Father heart of God. The first few days we spent in looking at the character and nature of God so that we established a foundation of who God. We looked at how the nature of God (who He is) and the character of God (what He does) is relevant to all generations and all cultures. God remains the same but He is relational and knowable for everyone and we can all seek after Him and know Him. God created us to be creative, stewards (of the world and our own belongings) and to serve (by having a selfless commitment to others). We first need to be able to understand the Father to begin serving with His same heart. A major hindrance to our knowing God's hear better is our pride because pride can lead to many different barriers such as insecurity, independence and jealousy.
We then looked specifically at at the fatherhood of God and how it is this aspect of His character that allows Him to demonstrate warmth, nurturing and security based on His unconditional love. The role of our earthly father greatly influences our opinions and thoughts towards our heavenly father. By looking deeply into His character we can see how our views are false and need to be changed. The reason for the warmth of God's character is acceptance and unconditional mercy and grace. God's nurturing is for our maturing through discipline, teaching and guidance. Finally, God's security is so that we may have safety in identity, protection and through our rights and inheritance.
This week I also had the opportunity to go to a gig here on the base which featured a band called Evergreen who work through YWAM; their goal is to evangelize through the method of music to other musicians. It was a lot of fun and a nice end to the week! Thanks for reading!
This week's lectures were taught by Emmanuel on the Father heart of God. The first few days we spent in looking at the character and nature of God so that we established a foundation of who God. We looked at how the nature of God (who He is) and the character of God (what He does) is relevant to all generations and all cultures. God remains the same but He is relational and knowable for everyone and we can all seek after Him and know Him. God created us to be creative, stewards (of the world and our own belongings) and to serve (by having a selfless commitment to others). We first need to be able to understand the Father to begin serving with His same heart. A major hindrance to our knowing God's hear better is our pride because pride can lead to many different barriers such as insecurity, independence and jealousy.
We then looked specifically at at the fatherhood of God and how it is this aspect of His character that allows Him to demonstrate warmth, nurturing and security based on His unconditional love. The role of our earthly father greatly influences our opinions and thoughts towards our heavenly father. By looking deeply into His character we can see how our views are false and need to be changed. The reason for the warmth of God's character is acceptance and unconditional mercy and grace. God's nurturing is for our maturing through discipline, teaching and guidance. Finally, God's security is so that we may have safety in identity, protection and through our rights and inheritance.
This week I also had the opportunity to go to a gig here on the base which featured a band called Evergreen who work through YWAM; their goal is to evangelize through the method of music to other musicians. It was a lot of fun and a nice end to the week! Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)