Week 2 - Heaven: Creative, Colorful, and Musical Worship

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

                “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

                to receive glory and honor and power,

                for you created all things,

                and by your will they existed and were created.”

(Revelation 4:9-11 ESV)

OK, so now finally I’m on to this week’s lecture topic, which was worship, an absolutely foundational and fascinating subject. Our speaker this week was Teresa Archer, who has an incredible story that involves quite a lot of the world, but who currently leads worship at the Tauranga House of Prayer (THOP) with her husband, Paul. She is a wonderful storyteller and an engaging speaker who knows so much about worship, both from study and experience. As she speaks, she has a tendency to go down rabbit trails, but these tangents tend to be as valuable as the core teaching itself.

Coming into this week, I think we had quite a few students who thought they had heard most of what there was to hear on worship but soon realized there were huge aspects of and perspectives on worship that they had never considered. Even the staff, who had all been through at least one DTS week on worship, learned heaps from Teresa. As usual, I’ll just pick out a thing or two that stood out to me.

To start, Teresa defined worship as consisting of three parts: response (intentional), reaction (immediate), and metamorphosis (change – from the inside out). This doesn’t necessarily have to be worship of God, either, because everyone worships something, and we all bend our lives around what we worship. But those who worship God in Christ realize that we are made to worship Him, and that our greatest needs are met as we fulfill that purpose. In the context of worshipping God, we also learned that what we need to worship is faith, encounter, and relationship. The encounters with God are what create the immediate “reaction” part of worship, the “response” part is done intentionally through faith, and the “metamorphosis” happens through all three of parts, but especially in the relationship, which is a lifestyle, a daily walk.

Teresa went on to walk us through one of the most amazing illustrations of worship in the Bible, a passage where worship is anything but mundane. In fact, it’s incredibly creative, colorful, brilliant, flashy, dramatic, musical, and awesome! It’s a picture of what is actually happening eternally in heaven, even right now as you read this. It’s in Revelation 4 (part is at the beginning of the post):

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.               

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,who was and is and is to come!”

(Revelation 4:2-8 ESV)

Did you really read it? Did you take in how ridiculously crazy this is? Or did you gloss over some of the strangeness and wonder of it because you’re too used to reading incredible things in the Bible? I also have a tendency to downplay this kind of thing as I read through, so if you’re not a little bit amazed by this vision, read it again.

Teresa had us take a closer look at all the unbelievable things John sees here in his vision – the throne, the colors, the lamps, the rainbow, the elders, the creatures, the sea of crystal. John is smashing up against the limits of language here, trying to describe things that cannot be precisely described because they are unlike anything within human experience. It’s fascinating – God is fascinating, far more fascinating than the millions of things we have to fascinate us today. If nothing else, God is worth worshipping just because of who He is, regardless of what He’s done for us. God is anything but boring, and our worship should really reflect that, at least in the way our hearts come before Him.

Just reading this passage gave Teresa an idea of a few things we can expect in heaven:

1. God is exalted.
2. “People” are responding voluntarily.
3. It is dramatic.
4. It is creative.
5. It is beautiful.
6. It is musical.
7. It is a story.

One more topic stood out to me as Teresa continued her lectures. On Thursday, she decided not to teach on what she originally planned, and instead felt led by the Spirit to speak about worship as spiritual warfare. As usual, the Spirit was perfectly on point. She talked about how worship and prayer, though different, go hand in hand, and often worship can lead into intercession as simply a natural outflow. She talked about how worship is really the foundation of living out our faith because it means we are acknowledging God as king and placing him on the throne – His rightful place. Not only that, but worship is the uniter of all Christianity – we are all worshipping the king, all looking to our one God (Eph. 4:3-6).

Worship also can be an act of spiritual warfare, which includes not only standing firm against the enemy (2 Chronicles 20) but fighting back against him and advancing the kingdom of God. Worship can cut through the enemy’s deceptions, clear the air, and bring light in dark situations. God can use it to bring healing, revelation, and transformation. In fact, if you don’t know what to do, worship should be your default response. And if you take a look at Acts 16:16-34, you’ll see that worship challenges the foundations of the world and replaces them with the foundations of heaven! God loves to do all the work as his people worship him – check out Judges 7:20.

This all really came into play later this week on Thursday and Friday mornings. On Thursday morning we had an excellent time of worship full of joy and dancing and “ruckus” (as Cheyne would say) which really illustrated worship as being more than just singing – it is sometimes a full-on celebration of God’s goodness and love! Then on Friday morning we had a time of intercession focused on the country and people of North Korea. We took to heart what we had learned about worship as warfare, and began and ended our time of prayer with just worshipping God. It really made a huge difference, and I think passionate and heartfelt prayer really flowed naturally as a result of worshipping the king and welcoming the Holy Spirit. Not only does worship shake the foundations of the enemy, it can also open us up for God to reveal His heart to us.

Anyway, there’s a little taste of what we learned about worship this week and what happened because of it. Hopefully it got you thinking a little bit!

Dan

This doesn't have two much to do with anything, but I took it this week, so here you go (click to enlarge).

Week 2: Miscellaneous Events and Details

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33 ESV)

For the record, it’s really hard to sum up a week of DTS in a blog post without taking half a day to write it. So much goes on here and we learn so much that it’s just hard to narrow it down. But I keep trying.

The main focus of this week in lectures was worship, but before I get into that, here are of few of the other cool things that happened this week:

• Starting off every Monday morning, we have what’s called whanau (Maori for “family”) time at the base. Everyone from the Marine Reach Ministries office up the hill comes down to the base, and we spend some time together and hear about anything important that’s happening in the ministry. This Monday, we took up an offering for Nesi, our wonderful DTS registrar, and her family, who are Fijian but are applying for permanent residency in New Zealand. They needed around $2300 to cover the application expenses, so we wanted to bless them with at least that much. After the offering was counted up, there was about $3100, which was more than enough! But that wasn’t all. As Nesi took it to the bank to deposit the 2842 New Zealand dollars (some of the $3100 in US dollars and IOUs), the teller told her that there was actually more than Nesi had thought. In fact, the teller now counted around NZ$3400! To her knowledge, no one had added to the money since the offering, so the only explanation was that God multiplied the money! Now, including the IOUs, the collection totals near $5000, more than twice the visa application expenses!!
• The second exciting side story from this week starts with a broken electric piano/keyboard. Not so exciting to start, but it gets better. Anyway, the keyboard which the base here has been using for worship and general student playing (a very nice but old one) recently decided to completely stop turning on. So I, along with our worship DTS leader Cheyne, was tasked with figuring out what to do about this. We looked into fixing it or buying another used keyboard, but finally we decided that this time it would be best to do it right and buy a new keyboard that would hopefully last longer than our other options. So we drove all around Tauranga looking at our options, did some online research, and finally drove all the way to neighboring city of Hamilton to pick up an 88-key, hammer-action Casio Privia PX-150. This was pretty exciting for me and quite a few other piano-playing students, who now have about as close as we can come to a real piano with our budget.
• I am now officially the staff member in charge of basically anything technology-related in the base – internet, sound, projector, etc. I’m really not as knowledgeable as some at these kinds of things, but I guess they figured that out of the rest of the staff I was most suited to that position, and I’m not complaining.
• We had our first justice stream class from 1:30 to 3:00 on Wednesday afternoon! We now have 10 justice students from 8 different countries, and it’s really great group! We started off our justice-focused time by talking about what justice and mercy are, how they are different, and how God is both just and merciful. You might not expect it, but these can be tough concepts to define. I think we’re going to have some pretty intense discussions as we move forward led by our stream leader, Patty.
• On Tuesday and Thursday, we had our first two BSS (Body, Soul, Spirit) sessions. BSS is the physical/exercise part of the DTS. A couple schools ago someone pointed out that DTS does so much to promote spiritual and mental growth but largely neglects physical development, so they began an exercise component. The leaders (the lovely Cadi Trask and Danny Aviles on this school) try to make it as fun as possible, and it functions as a community building activity as well. On Tuesday, we started off with fun relays and ended with a game of blob tag (some people felt like they had regressed back to elementary school). Then on Thursday we did a circuit through 20 different stations, which were designated for activities from pushups to sprints to dancing to drinking water. Then after we were done someone brought out a long piece of black plastic which was promptly laid out down the hill and turned into a slip ‘n slide. As you can see, we had an epically good time with that.

Camille, an awesome student from French Switzerland

No need for explanation here

Edgar, a justice student from Brazil who came to DTS with his Chilean wife, Nicole. He gets credit for the other two photos (and I used his camera to take this one)!

• Later Thursday night, we had our first small group time. Our small groups consist of everyone in our particular stream, so Danny (my fellow justice staffer) and I have small group with our 10 justice students. For our first week, we had a campfire down in Gideon’s Valley, which is just a few minutes’ walk down from the base. We roasted marshmallows, hung out, discussed the week’s lectures, and worshipped a little bit. I think we all had a pretty good time.
• The fun didn’t let up on Friday night, when we split up into genders for guys’ and girls’ night. Us guys went down to David Cowie’s (the ministry leader’s) house and ate pizza and ice cream sandwiches, shot really cool guns (a 50-caliber flintlock rifle, a 70-caliber cap and ball rifle, and an antique .22 rifle), and watched a movie.
• On Saturday it seems like I caught up on sleep most of the time J, but in the evening we went to the movie theater to see our justice movie for the week, which was the recently-released Les Miserables musical. Fortunately I like singing, because there was 2 and half hours of it, along with good acting and a whole slew of justice and mercy themes.

I thought I’d also put a bit on this post about what it’s like to be DTS staff. There’s no doubt it’s quite different from being a student. For one, there’s more responsibility (duh), which makes time management a much bigger deal (and it was a big deal as a student). As someone who’s quite task-oriented, it can be hard strike the right balance of spending time with God, building relationships with the students, fulfilling my staff duties, doing everything else that needs to be done (like writing blog posts), getting enough sleep, and that kind of thing. Spending time one-on-one with God and finding intimacy with Him is especially easy to overlook, even though it is the foundation of everything and maybe the most important thing to be sure to do. God has really convicted me that He has to come first, then everything else will follow. If I have a foundation of intimacy with God, I will be effective in my staffing and in getting all my other duties done, but it probably won’t work if my primary focus is on being effective in staffing and getting things done. Seek first the kingdom, and everything else will work out.

Another part of staffing is that I’ve begun to feel a bit of what you might call a pastoral burden for the students, especially the ones I’m more responsible for in the justice stream. This burden isn’t a bad weight; I just really desire for them to know Jesus like I do – better than I do. That burns in my heart, and really makes me want to pray for them and intercede for them. When they have a victory, I want to rejoice with them; whey they fail, I feel some of the grief. Certainly, I understand that the real weight is ultimately on Jesus, but we as staff have the amazing privilege of partnering with him to transform lives. Do you have anyone in your live that you are investing in, hoping and longing that he or she will come to know God better? Are you making disciples? I understand that I’ve got it easy here because the structure is all laid out for me to disciple people, but all of us in the body of Christ should be making disciples in some way – it was the last thing (and one of the clearest things) He told us to do!

Check out the next post to find out a little of what our week of lectures on worship was about.

Love ya,

Dan

Week 1: Apart from Me You Can Do Nothing

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  (John 15:5 ESV)

If there is one lesson that new DTS staff learn from the first week of a DTS, it is this: apart from Jesus we can do nothing. The work that we do the first week of a new school is wholly impossible without the presence of the Holy Spirit which brings wisdom, discernment, comfort, healing, and the power needed to destroy the works of the enemy. This past week has been full on, intense, and difficult at times, but already the students are different than they were when they arrived. If you want a refresher on how the first week of Seth’s and my DTS played out, read this.

While it was a crazy week, we at least gave the students a slight ease in.  And “slight”  is the correct word, as we started right off with David Cowie giving his very non-confrontational  talk on how we as Christians need to give up our rights when we choose to follow Jesus – rights to food we like, good accommodation, privacy, wealth and possessions, reputation, freedom, life, etc. From there we jumped into an introduction to Marine Reach and Gideon’s Fields, the beautiful and special land where the base is located. This introduction from Linda Cowie led into preparation for the powhiri, or traditional Maori welcome, which happened that afternoon. Gideon’s Valley, which is just a few minutes walk from the base, is tapu (sacred) Maori land now owned by a trust of both Maori and pakeha (white people). In contrast to the not-so-distant past when Europeans came and took the land from the native Maori by force, today the pakeha and Maori honor one another, with newcomers being officially welcomed  by the tangata whenua (people of the land) in a traditional welcome ceremony. It really is an honor for the students to receive this welcome, which is led by the district’s Maori chief Huikakahu, who also lives in Gideon’s Fields just across from the base.

The wero (challenge)

The powhiri begins with a wero (challenge) by a Maori warrior, who attempts to intimidate the newcomers and discern whether they come in peace. Once satisfied, he retreats and a Maori woman calls to the newcomers, welcoming them: “Haere mae, haere mae!”. Then one in the new group replies, crying “Call us again (in Maori)!” This repeats a couple times, and the newcomers enter and sit down. A succession of speeches follows (the Maori like oratory), with singing interspersed. A man from the welcoming side will give a speech and the tangata whenua will sing; this repeats on the other side – a speech, then a song. It goes back and forth once or twice, until the leaders are satisfied. Then the tangata whenua greet each of the newcomers with a traditional Maori greeting called the hongi, in which the ha (breath of life) is shared and intermingled. Two people put their foreheads together and touch noses, essentially breathing the same air. For Christians, this hearkens back to the time when man was created and God breathed into him the breath of life, His Spirit. Once the newcomers are greeted with the hongi, they are now considered tangata whenua, people of the land.

More wero

The tangata whenua singing after a speech

The hongi

All tangata whenua now!

Anyway, that was the gist of DTS day one. Day two was orientation, and while it was incredibly important in terms of setting up the culture for the DTS, it doesn’t really need to be described here.

Wednesday, on the other hand, was when the real intense part began. On Wednesday we began three very full days of what YWAM often calls “openness and brokenness” time. During this time each student has the chance to tell part of their story, complete with the good, bad, ugly, and very ugly. Then, after a student shares, the entire class prays in pairs as our leader Cheyne and a few staff members talk to the person (and listen to the Spirit), trying to understand and discern the roots of some of the problems that he or she mentioned during the testimony. Once they have an idea, they may lead that person in a prayer, sometimes before the cross, sometimes as a public declaration before the class, as the case requires. Finally, the student leaves the room with his or her school’s staff for further discussion and prayer. In this way, lots of sins, wounds, and struggles are brought into the light where God can really deal with them in his grace, and the whole community becomes closer together because everyone has been completely vulnerable and even dark secrets have been exposed. Absolute openness can be incredibly difficult, but it is incredibly good in the right context.

As before, these times were powerful and often heavy as we listened to sometimes shockingly hard stories. This time, we heard some stories that were, if possible, even more appalling than those that Seth and I heard on our school back in July. It was hard to believe how many stories of abuse, rejection, and oppression we heard. Perhaps most devastating were the many stories in which girls were taken advantage of, let down, oppressed, misled, or disappointed by men in their lives, whether friends, boyfriends, brothers, fathers, or others. The frequency with which this kind of thing was mentioned made me sad, angry, and slightly guilty all at the same time. Here were all kinds of examples of the injustices we as Christians are tasked with stopping. How did so many men stray so far from what God intended? Women come to men seeking love and acceptance, and rather than gently pointing them in the direction of perfect, infinite love and acceptance, many men either ignore them or try to take all they can from them while giving little in return. I know where this tendency comes from, that but that doesn’t make it any less atrocious.

Along with the many stories of past wounds, lots of people told stories of the sins they had been struggling with. Many had found no success in their struggles even up until coming to DTS and came looking for freedom. Others even came having never made a commitment to Jesus, or one only in the distant past, long neglected. Therefore quite a few students recommitted their lives to Jesus after telling their stories, consequently surrendering to Him and proclaiming their earnest desire to be free of sin.

And so, while it was a heavy time of hearing difficult stories, it was also a time of winning battles, achieving breakthroughs, and jumpstarting journeys of healing. This type of healing ministry happened especially on Friday, when several very significant things happened. First off, at one point in the morning a student shared his story which included the ways that he had been bullied and rejected as a child. In response to this, one student who had himself been a bully stood up and offered to stand in the gap for everyone in the room who had been bullied. In essence, he offered to represent the bullies who had formerly tormented many in the room, admitting the sins, offering the apologies, and begging the forgiveness of his/their victims, as those bullies should have done themselves. This kind of “standing in the gap” is difficult to explain, but something happens when the Holy Spirit gets involved and healing is able to happen on both sides.

After Friday morning, everyone who wanted to share had had a chance to do so, but ministry wasn’t over (fortunately). A few student guys had approached our leader, Cheyne, the night before saying that we as guys needed to do something to ask forgiveness of the girls, standing in the gap on behalf of the men who have treated these women so cruelly and selfishly. Cheyne also had the idea (which had to have been from God) of washing the girls’ feet as a way of bestowing honor and dignity back on them. This was awesome for us as staff guys because we really wanted something like this to happen, but the students were the ones to suggest it and take ownership of the idea. The guys really put some hearts into it, gather flowers from the valley to put in the warm water they got for the footwashing.

It started with the guys all kneeling with heads down on one side of the room while the girls came in the door and stood on the other side of the room. Cheyne spoke for the guys first, admitting what we’d done as a group and asking forgiveness. Several individual guys followed, and then Cheyne gave the girls a chance to respond by expressing the wounds they still felt and offering forgiveness. Then came the footwashing, with the guys kind of listening to the Spirit on who to approach and wash. The Spirit was really present by this point, and tears flowed freely as these ladies saw, some for nearly the first time, what it looks like for men to be godly, humble themselves, and honor women with a right spirit. I had the privilege of washing one of my fellow staff member’s feet and speaking over her truth about who she is and how God feels about her. At the end, once everyone else had been washed, my friend Matt remained washing a student’s feet and weeping, asking forgiveness and speaking truth and honor. I heard later that that student had been one who had disliked men and found it very hard to trust them, thinking them all the same. The Spirit truly was working.

Following that we still weren’t quite done. Cheyne now had everyone with father problems to come up (absent, oppressive, neglecting fathers, etc.). Everyone else surrounded them and prayed while Cheyne played and sang “The Father’s Song” over them. Again, more healing.

As you can see, it really was a roller coaster of a week. Lots of awesome things happened, but we still have a long way to go. But while we abide in the Vine, we have every reason to expect great things.

Nothing without him,

Dan 

Excitement, not Stress

Well, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived in New Zealand, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was nice to be here. I miss home, family, church, friends, and a lot besides, but both the environment and opportunities here sure do ease the difficulty. It’s high summer right now and here in Tauranga that means beautiful, comfortable days and dewy nights with only a refreshing touch of coolness. And unlike our time in New Zealand from July to October, it stays light until 8:30 or 9:00 instead of being dark by dinner time – a fact that makes organizing games of ultimate frisbee much easier  J. As nice as it was to be here during winter and spring, I’m not sure that much beats the summer weather here.

Still, we certainly haven’t had too much time to lounge around outside since I got here last Sunday. For me and the rest of the staff, our days have been filled with almost non-stop training and preparation for the students’ arrival. There are nearly 10 more students than there were on the last school, so new accommodations had to be set up in addition to the required cleaning of much of the base and the constant stream of little tasks that Linda Cowie can always come up with for us to do. There are so many details that have to be taken care of to run a DTS with 43 students!

During our training times we covered all kinds of really important topics. Most importantly, we started every morning with worship and prayer, acknowledging that if He isn’t our focus and leader and foundation, this DTS will go really bad, really fast. We talked about the vision we had for the DTS and the culture we wanted to create that would allow the vision to become reality. We talked about communication within ourselves as a staff and with students through one-on-ones (kind of like mentoring sessions) and small group times. We learned about our spiritual gifts and strengths and how they all fit together as a team, and each of us was assigned certain staff functions according to those aptitudes. Then we discussed time management, a vital part of life when you have as many responsibilities and obligations as DTS staff do.

Although it was a little hard leaving home a week before the DTS actually began, I can really see how incredibly important this staff orientation week was. I think we all got a better sense of just how much responsibility we have as DTS staff – it would be a very stressful amount if we weren’t certain that God was guiding us and extending grace when we don’t live up to everything we’re supposed to be. Because of His leadership we can be really excited instead of being stressed because we know that He is going to transform lives on this school. I can’t wait to see how people are changed and healed and brought closer to God in the next few months.

Students began arriving yesterday (Friday) and will continue to arrive up until Monday morning, when the school officially starts. Amazingly, this school is even more diverse than mine: within the 43 students, we have 15 different nationalities! Many are from Europe (Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway), but we also have students from North America, Korea, Singapore, Fiji, New Zealand, Brazil, and Chile! Fourteen are in the Medical Mercy stream, thirteen are in Pacific Challenge, four are in Go, two are in Devoted, three in worship, and seven with me and my co-staffer Danny in the justice stream.

Photo credit: Danny Aviles

I want to again thank all of you who have supported me in my return to New Zealand to serve as staff. I feel certain that He handpicked each of us who are on staff for this school and that I am in the right place. In fact, the very first night I was here (last Sunday) we saw a sight that seems like confirmation from God that we are right where He wants us to be and that His favor is over this base. We had just finished having dinner at David and Linda’s house (they are the founders of Marine Reach Ministries) and were walking back up past the chapel to the base when a rainbow began to appear. It got brighter and brighter (the double rainbow was easily visible too) and soon arced all the way across the sky. If you stood in the right place, the rainbow actually connected the chapel with the training center, a picture of the intersection of prayer and discipleship. It was one of the most spectacular rainbows I had ever seen, but it was only the beginning. As the rainbow faded, the western sky lit up, soon becoming one of the most vivid sunsets I have ever seen. We ran up the hill to see it better, and I couldn’t take pictures fast enough! Both the rainbow and the sunset were nearly miraculous sights to see, something only God could create, so we took them as signs of his pleasure over us and this YWAM base, and reminders that He is the source of all beauty. Without Him there is no good thing.

Off to a great start,

Dan

Masterpieces.

Here are a couple of very important videos that you may have missed. One is an overview of our outreach to Cambodia; the other is, well, an exhibition of Tolkien geekiness.

Justice Outreach in Cambodia.

Pure Awesomeness.

Wisdom and Stature and Favor (or What Happened on DTS and Why I'm Going Back)

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.  (Luke 2:52 ESV)

This blog post is based on the stories and message that I shared on Sunday, December 30^th at the Vine of the Mountains church. On that Sunday, the time usually reserved for the sermon was given to Jared Grosse, Seth Blanton, and myself so that we could tell about our experiences over the past five or six months. In Seth’s and my case, this was DTS; in Jared’s, it was going to Fuller Seminary in California and voluntarily living out of his car. Of course all three of us had amazing stories to tell, and it just so happened that the day’s lectionary passages (1 Samuel 2:18-20 & 26 and Luke 2:41-52) lined up perfectly with our story. Particularly in the Luke passage, we see the twelve-year-old Jesus following God’s leading into an unexpected place, somewhere his parents aren’t entirely happy with him being. He stays behind in Jerusalem after the Passover feast even as his parents leave to go back to Nazareth. They have to walk all the way back to Jerusalem and search for him, finally finding him in the temple, learning from and asking questions of the religious leaders and amazing everyone with his understanding of God. When asked why he remained there rather than accompanying his parents, he replies, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?”

This is a good bit like what Seth and I did. We ignored the expectations that our culture normally places upon guys our age, believing that “being in our Father’s house” was more important than anything else we could do. I disregarded the traditional career path (and money, security, etc.) for someone with my education in favor of building up my foundation in Christ. I think I was obedient to God and went to a place where He was working, putting myself in a great environment to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature and favor with God and man. Seth and I stepped out in faith and God absolutely came through, using our openness transforming our understanding of him and our lives.

The Wisdom-building and Favor-increasing Environment (DTS)

One of the main reasons that DTS was so meaningful and life-changing for us was the incredible environment and overall atmosphere that Marine Reach Ministries (a part of YWAM) has created at the base in Gideon’s Fields near Tauranga, New Zealand. Long before there was ever a YWAM base there, Gideon’s Fields was (and partly still is) owned by a trust which decided to make Gideon’s Valley a place of prayer. In the steep-sided little valley, they constructed an international prayer walk: a network of trails overlooking the Waimapu River and its huge waterfall there, with benches placed in various locations for visitors to sit and pray for the nations of the world. That valley has been prayed in so much that it has gained a reputation for a place where it’s easy to hear from God and experience his presence – some of our lecturers referred to it as an “open heaven.” The valley is a perfect place to be connected to God right in the midst of the beauty of his creation.

Just up a trail and a little gravel road from the valley lies the YWAM base. About two or three years ago, Marine Reach finished construction of a building there. An amazing work of God’s provision, this building was purpose-built for discipleship training schools. Within one building, there are all the facilities needed to conduct a training school, with the students living on-site. There are dorms and rooms for nearly 30 people, bathrooms, offices, a large kitchen/dining room/lounge, and a lecture room. The building overlooks a field that can be used for sports, across which is a recently completed prayer chapel – another work of God’s gracious provision. And all of this is surrounded by beautiful New Zealand countryside. It’s truly a perfect place to find God both in community with others and alone with God in the quiet places of the chapel and the valley.

The chapel

The lecture room

The community that we found at our DTS was another invaluable part of our DTS experience. We began our DTS with a time of complete openness and vulnerability with each other, and that honesty, combined with living together 24/7, resulted in incredible closeness after only a few short weeks. We became a big family of people supporting, encouraging, challenging, and entertaining one another. If anyone ever needed someone to talk to or someone to pray over them, that was never difficult to find.

Our DTS also could never have worked without the leadership – DTS staff, school leaders, lecturers, worship leaders. The leadership was always wise and encouraging, and it always pointed us toward Christ. Our leaders led by example, mentored, taught, and prayed over us constantly. They were absolutely necessary for the DTS experience that we had – this is part of the reason why I want to go back and be a leader myself.

Of course, even with the best environment, God has to do the work (and we have to be open).  Fortunately, YWAM’s first priority is to acknowledge this and keep God at the center. Also, I think everyone in our school was open (or became open) to letting God work on them even when it was uncomfortable, Because of all this, we had an outstanding DTS.

The Big Picture (How We Changed)

We all came in dealing with some kind of struggle – there was just about any kind of problem you can think of. During our very first week there, we had a lot of time set aside for sharing our life stories with complete openness and vulnerability, revealing broken places, sin, and all. It was an amazing environment and an opportunity we rarely get – to be absolutely honest about who we are and where we’ve come from, and find at least the beginnings of healing and freedom from past wounds and burdens through prayer, forgiveness, and encouragement. Through that sharing time we came away with an understanding that not all our classmates had come in as the “upright” people you might assume would go to a Bible School. We heard our classmates tell their stories about struggling with sins (part of my story), being broken by abuse and molestation, being oppressed and taken advantage of by partners in past relationships, being wounded by rejection and distanced from God by bitterness. Some barely had a relationship with God at all. Others had a relationship with Jesus, but living and active faith had never really been a part of it or had shrunken into something dry and barren that only the breath of God could rejuvenate. Now certainly everyone wasn’t dealing with the same degree of difficulty, but everyone arrived really needing to experience God’s grace and peace in some way or another.

But however weighty those initial burdens, I think everyone came out a stronger, freer, and more confident follower of Christ. From the very beginning of the school, we saw fellow students freed from the chains of sin and the lies of the Enemy, we saw the wounds of abuse and rejection healed, and we saw forgiveness overcome bitterness. We have friends whose physical appearance even changed because they were freed and healed spiritually and emotionally. We saw the incredible power that the prayers of a unified community have because they are backed up by the Holy Spirit of God Himself.

           

So I think that is part of what DTS is about: freeing, healing, unburdening – shedding the things that hold us back from being close to God and serving Him fully. But then there is the second part, which is empowering the students to do the things that they’ve been freed to do – serve and love people, exercise their gifts, find intimacy with God. This part happens through the teaching, through mentorship by the staff, through time spent alone with God and his Word, and through continually being challenged to step out in faith (even if it’s a little uncomfortable) and expect more from God than you ever have before.

           

Now all this happened throughout lecture phase in New Zealand, and continued on through our outreach trip to some extent. However, the idea of outreach is that having had experienced and embraced all the good changes from lecture phase, it was now time to share what we had received with other people who desperately needed it. DTS was never just about us and fixing our issues; it was imperative that we let people in on the good news and the God that had made us so much more whole and alive. We had been equipped to serve, so we did. We went into difficult places to live with and minister to the poor and oppressed, and we saw firsthand that God was the one who did most of the work. We were forced to rely on God – we barely knew the language of the countries where we were, and the problems we faced were much bigger than we could ever deal with on our own. Our little team could often do little more than pray over a situation, but God came through and made everything worthwhile.

           

So that was the gist of our DTS: broken people came in, they encountered God, and they came out freer, more whole, more alive, more confident, more servantlike, and more in love with Jesus. That, at least, was our experience. DTS graduates are by no means perfect or finished, but they are also by no means the same, and the change is for the better. It’s just the beginning, but it’s a great beginning.

My Journey

When I arrived at DTS, my relationship with God wasn’t great. Now, I wasn’t remotely close to turning away from God, but I felt very distant from Him. I had been drawn away by the distractions of school and our busy culture, and some repetitive sin was also separating me from Him. I felt farther away from God that I had many times before, and I didn’t feel like I was moving closer.

Then DTS immediately changed that trajectory from drifting away from God to moving quickly closer. Through a combination of the base environment that I explained to you (community, teaching, leadership) and confession and freedom from sins and distractions, God became so much more real to me and the gospel so much more revolutionary. God spoke to me personally in ways that could not be mistaken for anything besides His voice. My whole perspective changed as He showed himself to be more powerful AND more personal than I’d ever experienced before.

I began to see the fullness of our mission as Christians, which is do the same things that Jesus did (including the miraculous things), and I began to see the fullness of God’s sufficiency – He gives us all the power, authority, and guidance that we need to carry out this mission when we are in close relationship with Him.

A Story

While this whole journey happened gradually over 5 months and encompasses many different stories, there is one that I especially wanted to share and which ties into the passage at the beginning of the post (Luke 2:52). I read this passage and was most struck by the part that talks about increasing “in favor with God and man.” I wondered how you increase in favor with God – Jesus did it, so we should be able to as well, right? That made me think of one of the big revelations I had on DTS, which is that in at least one sense we have favor with God not because of what we say or do but because of who we are. Certainly, this is a journey and we gain favor with God as we obey him and follow His plan for our lives, but this favor is also a constant reality – when we believe in Jesus our very identity changes. We become transformed sons and daughters of God, and because of that we have God’s favor regardless of how bad we might mess things up.

I had this reality revealed to me by God in a really personal way. One day several weeks into DTS I went outside near the chapel to spend some time with God. I didn’t immediately start praying and going on and on, but instead I asked God what He wanted to say to me and waited, listening. Then suddenly the words “Luke”, then “3” and “22” popped into my head. I didn’t know what that verse said, so I looked it up and read:

“and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:22 ESV)

That’s an unequivocal expression of God’s favor if I’ve ever heard one. In context it was spoken to Jesus just after He had been baptized (before ministry, cross, resurrection…)., but I had no doubt the words were also meant for me, especially in the context of some other passages:  

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.(John 1:12-13 ESV)

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.              (Romans 8:14-17 ESV)

So I had this revelation that as a believer in Christ and one led by his Spirit, I was a son of God. And as God’s beloved son, He was already well pleased with me. There is nothing more that I have to do to make Him pleased, and I don’t have to fear failure, because my identity is set – I am his son. When we are in Christ, we have God’s favor, and I don’t know about you, but that knowledge really comforts me.

Why I’m Going Back: THIS (↑) is worth being involved in.

And so you can get an idea from that of why I think I should go back and be a staff person on the next DTS. It’s not just to boost my own leadership skills, though that is part of it. It’s also an opportunity to make all of this (what I just explained in the rest of the post) happen in other people’s lives. I’ll get the privilege of supporting, mentoring, befriending, and praying for the students of the next school, and then I’ll get to help lead an outreach team and see what God does again. It’s exciting, and it’s rather frightening. So obviously, I really need your prayers (God listens!) and I need your financial support if God leads you to contribute in that way. I said it’s something that’s worth being involved in, and if you agree, then you can be involved by supporting me and others who do the same kind of thing. Check out the info card below to find out more!

Overwhelmed by His (and your) love,

Dan

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Restart!

Well, although Seth and I are now separated by a regrettably large distance, we don't think that's any reason why we can't keep our blog going together! I'm headed back to New Zealand and Seth is in Waynesville, but God is equally capable of doing awesome things in both places. I'll try and keep you updated on the goings-on as I staff the next DTS in Tauranga, NZ (and an as-yet-unknown outreach location), and hopefully Seth will chime in now and then detailing his adventures and God's work back home. It's still a dangerous business going out your door - it doesn't matter how far you're planning on going!

As I always say, once a hobbit, always a hobbit!
Dan

[P.S. Check out the new blog description on the right!]
[P.S.S. As an added bonus, here are some pictures of Seth and I on our Post-DTS New Zealand Exploration! (note that you can click on them and make them bigger)]