Reentering the DTS Vortex

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10, ESV)

Wow. I've been back in New Zealand for 3 weeks already and while it has flown by, home seems so far removed, like I've been gone for quite a long time. It's odd, but I have experienced this feeling before – it means that I have reentered the DTS vortex.  It's a place where the intensity of living is such that time seems to skip ahead at an unnaturally fast clip, yet simultaneously so much is crammed into that time – challenges, growth, new friendships, adventures, lessons, etc. – that on looking back you could swear you'd been there twice as long as the date would suggest. The environment of DTS veritably forces one to be so present that everything else seems further off. Fortunately, in most cases (especially for the students) that isn't at all a bad thing. It allows us to throw off some of the cares that would weigh us down at home and have the freedom to focus our lives on Jesus.

The past three weeks have been very busy, hence why I'm only now writing a my first blog post for this trip. Of course, the beginning of a new DTS is always busy for the staff, but this one has been particularly demanding because a certain ship was just arriving in New Zealand.  The ship was the M/V Pacific Hope, which, as you may recall, was the same ship my last outreach team worked on in Manila, in the Philippines. The Pacific Hope was purchased in March by Marine Reach Ministries (part of YWAM) with the ultimate purpose of bringing medical care and the gospel to many of the Pacific's more remote and isolated islands. Since then it has been a major work in progress, and will continue to be for several more months until it is fully renovated and outfitted to do its intended service. In fact, Marine Reach is on a major faith journey to make that happen financially and practically, something you can partner with them in (for more information, click here).

The ship arrived in Auckland, NZ just a few days after I did (July 9^th) and stayed there until July 19^th, when it finally sailed down to its home port of Tauranga. This was a pretty amazing and historic occasion to be a part of, but it did make life more hectic for us as staff. You'll see why pretty soon.

After an elongated trip to New Zealand due to a problem with one of Air New Zealand's planes, I arrived back at the base in Tauranga on July 7^th. The week following was staff training week. This involved learning about dealing with the myriad of issues that can arise on DTS, getting on the same page as staff (there are 12 of us), praying lots, and doing all the final preparations for the students' arrival.

The students began to arrive on July 11^th, with the bulk coming on the 12^th and 13^th. Because of some details I won't get into, we had to drive to Auckland (two and a half hours away) to pickup nearly all the students, sometimes very early in the morning or late at night, which made for some interesting adventures. In between pickups, we got to hang out and make friends with lots of uncertain and jet-lagged students who were generally very far from home – which is fun and quite awkward at times. On Monday, the first official day of the school, we had orientation, and then proceeded to inform the students that the very next day we'd start a time of sharing in which they had the opportunity to share their life story, complete with every struggle, sin, and area of hurt in their past. We do this at the beginning of every DTS – our DTS coordinator Cheyne explained why by comparing the DTS to the renovation of a house. Usually, the beginning of a renovation involves clearing out all the old, broken, and unnecessary things left inside before the real renovation can start. So, over the next two and a half days about 25 of our 30 students shared their stories, taking the first step of a new journey in total openness. After sharing, each student received some one-on-one prayer and consultation with Cheyne and his or her school leaders – the beginning of a healing process for many of them. To look back at the experience I had as a student on my DTS, click here.

Then on Thursday we took the students up to Auckland, where they boarded the ship and got to sail with it to Tauranga. I drove a van back to Tauranga, and on Saturday morning I helped set up for a big welcoming ceremony for the ship and photographed its arrival. Finally, after about four months of work and sailing, the Pacific Hope arrived in its home port for the first time! There was a large crowd there to welcome the ship, including a group of traditional Maori warriors, the local Maori kaumatua (chief), and the city's mayor. The ceremony included a traditional Maori powhiri, complete with speeches and songs.

The Pacific Hope coming into port!

Maori warriors doing the haka!

Jesse Misa, CEO and regional director Marine Reach, speaking.

The welcoming crowd! (click to enlarge)

The following week we happily got into our normal DTS routine with morning lectures, work duties, and community living. The week's lectures were on relationships (a foundational issue, and one which most people have problems with today), and they were taught by Linda Cowie, a YWAM veteran who founded Marine Reach Ministries (and the base here in Tauranga) with her husband David. She has a wealth of wisdom gathered from many years of experience in leadership, friendships, and marriage, and she readily translated that wisdom into great teaching.

This past week, we also had our first "stream" classes. Right now, we have five different DTS's running here at the base – Medical Compassion, Pacific Challenge, Worship, Devoted, and Go (click for more info). The students from all of these schools (or "streams") participate together in lectures, work duties, worship, and the like; however, each stream has a weekly class and small group time. For this school, I am the leader of the "Go" stream. I have one fellow staff member named Hannah, and students named Brad, Abbey, Ainsley, and Charlene (you'll see pictures soon). Brad and Ainsley are both from close by in New Zealand, while Abbey and Charlene are from the United States.

Of course, the name "Go" doesn't give you much idea of what the stream is really about (part of the point is that it's not as specific as the other streams), so here's the vision behind it:

The Go School is ultimately about challenging ourselves, pushing further, thinking bigger and being equipped and empowered to boldly step out and do ALL that God has called us to do. However, a sustained life of boldly "going" must first be based in relationship with God – in intimacy, trust, and dependence on Him. The purpose of the Go DTS is to guide students to come to God in close relationship, trust Him fully, and go out in radical obedience to him.

I am totally happy leading this stream, and I feel sure this is what God has called me to do. He has awesome things planned for these students on this journey, and it will stretch and grow me in all sorts of new ways as well! We will be studying how to have an intimate relationship with God, learning about spiritual gifts and evangelism, and discovering what our calling is in Christ. Please pray that we will press into Him as completely as possible and grow together over the course of this school. We don't want to miss anything that He has for us!

Stay tuned for more updates and photos in the near future, and thank you for your prayers and support!

Grace and Peace,

DJS

If you'd like to donate to me online, click here and select "Donate to a Staff/Student."

Infinitely More than We Might Ask or Think

Last Sunday, June 30th, I had the opportunity to give the sermon at my home church, The Vine of the Mountains in Waynesville, NC. It was a daunting task: I had to try and look back on six packed months of ministry with YWAM and decide on the most important things to talk about in only a little over twenty minutes. Fortunately, though, God really helped me out and gave me a focused message. Before I got to the message, however, I started at the beginning, trying to briefly sum up my past year.

It starts last May, when I graduated from NC State with a degree in Ecological Engineering. However, I decided not to jump right into an engineering job but rather take some time out and focus on God. My friend Seth Blanton had the same idea, and we settled on doing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in New Zealand. We didn't know exactly what we were getting ourselves into (I don't think anyone who comes on DTS really does), but it turned out to be more incredible and life-changing than we could have imagined.

Our DTS started with three months of lecture phase in New Zealand. The essence of lecture phase is a that students are surrounded by a culture or an environment that is amazing for rapid spiritual (and mental and emotional) growth - it's like a spiritual greenhouse. The environment is built on encouraging, diverse, and loving community; lots of prayer; worship; good leadership; and Biblical teaching (lecturers are brought in each week from all over the world to speak on various topics). Next there are two months of outreach, which is essentially where the students put in practice what they learned on lecture phase and continue to be challenged to grow in different ways. The video below shows some of what we did on my last outreach, a trip to the Philippines.

Trying to sum up DTS is difficult. However, to simplify it as much as possible I said during my last presentation (six months ago) that the purpose is to help students shed the things that hold them back, then to empower them to do the work to which God has called them. This happens in all sorts of ways, but the main transformation comes simply as a result of growing closer to God in relationship and experiencing his incredible love and goodness.

Now, after having been a staff person, I have some more insight into how the process works and I have tried to summarize it in this way (although it's still not all-encompassing):

We all go through life with hurts, fears, or insecurities – big or small – that we either don’t know are there or we’ve lived with for so long that we’re used to them. So we don’t realize that they are holding us back in so many ways. DTS is the perfect environment to stop and look at those issues and discover that Jesus is offering healing and victory over them. With an open hand, God offers us a whole new identity as his valued children, and with it a new mindset to live a life of security, confidence, and freedom we didn’t realize was possible.

Of course, those are some pretty big claims, but I can honestly back them up by saying that I've seen evidence that this is true! In fact, I've experienced it in my own life!

So, coming back to my story... Partway through my own DTS I felt led by God to return and be a staff member on the next DTS. My hope was that assuming that role would allow me to continue building my foundations in God – prayer, Scripture, worship, intimacy with God - along with a greater focus on teaching, serving, and leading.

It turns out, I was exactly right about that. I've had the opportunity to be help create that environment that is so encouraging, accepting, and focused on God. I've been a mentor to students dealing with a variety of issues. I've planned an outreach in the Philippines (a country I've never been to) and co-led a team of 12 people (some of whom were older than me), and by God's grace it was pretty successful (I mean, no one got seriously injured or anything). Really, looking back I can see how this time with YWAM has been a perfect complement to my technical training in college. This experience has allowed me to round out that engineering foundation with a better understanding of relationships, leadership, and God himself, which in most ways is far more important than technical knowledge.

So, the past year has been far more life-changing than I could have expected, and now I'm going back to staff again for five more months. I will be doing a similar job, but I will have some new challenges because I'll have some different leadership roles. So as they say in Cambodia, "Same same, but different."

Now that I've given you some context, I could tell stories from DTS for the entire message time, no problem, but I think God has given me something else to share. It’s partly still about YWAM and my adventures with Jesus, but some will hopefully be an encouragement to you, and some is meant to be a challenge for all of us individually and as a church. We're going to talk generally about our relationship with God, in the process wandering off just a little to talk about what worship is. I have so much I want to say and I'm going to plow through a lot thoughts, so I hope you can stay with me.

Our starting point is the following Scripture, from the book of Ephesians:

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20 NLT)

I want to talk about the " infinitely more than we can ask or think" part and what that means in the context of our relationship with God. It's some pretty strong language that should really mean something for us if we believe it! I'm going to come at from the perspective that this statement about who God is, is actually an invitation for us. It basically says that whatever it is we're expecting God to do or to be able to do in our lives and our world is actually TOO SMALL. It's not fanciful or amazing or delightful enough. Whatever you came to church thinking God wants to happen here, He really wants to do MORE. Whatever you think God can do with your life, whatever hurts you think He might be able to heal, whatever sins you think He can free you from - He can actually do MORE. God has MORE gifts for us; He wants to reveal MORE of himself to us. And if there's something that much greater out there that we have yet to wrap our heads around, why wouldn't we pursue it? That's the invitation, whether you've followed God for one day or half a lifetime - it's an invitation to a relationship with God that is always growing, always increasing, always experiencing new and more unbelievable things.

That brings me to this next Scripture, which takes us further into this invitation:

Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
    for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
      have worked salvation for him. ...
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
      to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
      the salvation of our God.  (Psalm 98:1,3 , ESV)

“Sing to the LORD a new song” indicates more to me than just writing some new lyrics and notes to worship with. To me it points to a freshness in our entire relationship with God. We’re told to sing a new song to the LORD - why? Because the Lord "has done marvelous things." And I think the command is not necessarily just to sing about the marvelous things God did long before our lifetimes (that we never experienced), but the idea is that God is constantly doing new marvelous things for us to write new songs about! So the question for me (and you) is:

Do I have the kind of relationship with God where I see and experience new (and sometimes really unexpected) things that God is doing now, in the present? Or is my relationship with God always in the same place, or even looking backwards? Just the same old, same old?

This idea of newness is all over Scripture. A verse in Lamentations (of all places) talks about God’s mercies being new every morning (3:22). 2 Corinthians says that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation"(5:17) and that we are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory (3:18)! That evokes an image not of drudgery and stagnation but of excitement and novelty and…well,  freshness in our relationship with God. Now, that's not to say that there aren't times when moving forward is really hard and we don't see new things from God for a while (I mean, look earlier on in Lamentations!). But if we never see anything new from God, I think we're missing out on who He really is!

As I have begun to understand really what it is that Jesus is inviting us into, I’ve seen (and experienced!) that this journey is more like falling in love than anything else. We’ve probably all heard that Jesus wants a “personal relationship” with us and that we need to “fall in love with Jesus.” But these phrases have lost the ummph that they should have! This is no run-of-the-mill “personal relationship” we’re talking about here! For one, we’re talking about falling in love, which is one of the most powerful and intense and exciting things that can happen to a person. And two, this is a personal relationship with Jesus who, we read just right here, has done “marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation…and all the ends of the earth have seen…!” And even though you can’t see Him like you can other people, it’s still possible to relate to Him personally, to hear His voice, to spend time with Him. Peter says, “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him (1 Peter 1:8). In some ways It’s the most challenging relationship you’ll ever have, but think about all of that – how is that not exciting??!?! How is that not an adventure?? How did anyone ever turn that into a rule-focused, oppressive, Sunday-relegated way of maintaining the status quo? That is just crazy... because relationship with Jesus is the most freeing, dynamic, whole-life-encompassing adventure there is - and you made for it!!!!!

So, you see what DTS does to people J Sometimes I’m just like, “How did I find something this good?” and I just want to dance during worship time and sing whatever praises and truths come to mind. I want to tell God how much I love Him. I want to declare how great He is because I've seen it!

THIS is what I'm talking about what it says “sing a new song!” It's saying that a genuine relationship with God just naturally results in worship. It’s saying that the point of worship is to pour out the overflow of your personal relationship with God and express your response to His work in your life. It might involve dancing; it might involve prayer; it might involve generosity; it might involve singing whatever words come out about a God you’ve experienced and known. To put it another way, worship – or the ease with which I worship God from my heart – is really the barometer measuring the quality of my relationship with God. It’s not so much about drumming up some emotion and feeling for God with good music, but it's about expressing the feelings and adoration God has already drummed up inside of us through this love relationship I was talking about.

All of this really forms the basis for what I think is maybe the best thing about the culture of YWAM as an organization, and one of the main things that is transferrable from DTS to "normal" life at here at home. DTS is a really unique environment, but everything about it need not remain isolated. What I'm talking about is this mindset, this approach to relationship with God  that is based on a CONSTANT DESIRE FOR MORE. More of God Himself in relationship, more His Spirit, more of His wisdom, more of His love, more of His power.

In Scripture, this idea is actually a crazy paradox you see in the psalms: that we can be totally satisfied with Christ and yet absolutely longing for more. Case in point – David in Psalm 63. He says things like, "I earnestly search for you; my soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you..." And then just a few lines later, "You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you."

As new students come to DTS, the ones with the most promise and potential for transformation aren’t the ones with the greatest skills or the most Bible knowledge, but those who come with open and seeking hearts, hungry and thirsty for God. In the same way, I think we are most on track as followers of Jesus when we have an earnest and active desire for more of Him. Didn’t Jesus say something like that? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”(Matthew 5:6, ESV)

The unfortunate news here is that we can’t suddenly make ourselves hungry for God. In reality, the Holy Spirit does most of that work. But we can totally set ourselves up for that deep desire, knowing that what we’re after is something incredible, the one thing that is most worthy of our effort and focus. One starting point is to really take ownership of our own journey, understanding that because it’s a personal relationship, it’s not up to your pastor or your small group leader or your friend to do it for you. Jesus wants you to seek Him; he wants a relationship with you. And so we can start seeking God in the Word and in prayer and just spending time with Him; we can start wanting that relationship with Him, even a little bit. We can start stepping out in faith, trusting that God will come through for us. And we can do it together, working as a community to create a culture that is satisfied with loving Jesus, but totally unsatisfied with seeing only what God has already shown us.

The good news is that this whole process moves itself forward. As I have sought God, I've found him, and what I've found is so good that I just want more! We step out on a limb in faith – i.e. we get in situations where we will crash and burn if God doesn’t come through for us, and every time when He does come through it makes it that much easier to trust in Him again. The more we seek to satisfy our hunger for God, the more He satisfies us and the more hungry we get. How’s that for a paradox?

Now I really don't want to come back to the Vine and say, "Oh, I've been in YWAM, where we do everything right and you should be just like them." No, I just think God wants to extend this invitation to you. He wants to do more in and through you as an individual and through this church as a whole. Some of the things He is capable of doing here won't necessarily be expected, comfortable, or easy, but they'll be on the way to "infinitely more than we can ask or think." I don't know about you, but that sounds like good news to me. I don't want to stay where I am because right here I see all kinds of issues that still need to be fixed, all kinds of seeds that still need to grow. But God doesn't want me to stay where I am; He is calling me (all of us) forward, closer to Him and into fuller restoration!

I know I've made some pretty big claims here that probably need some backing up, and I understand that "more" is pretty ambiguous if you don't have any specifics. So I had thought I would tell stories from my time on in New Zealand and the Philppines to follow up, but God gave me a crazier idea. Now don't get me wrong; I do have stories. I wouldn't be so excited if there weren't something to be excited about. I mean, besides falling in love with Jesus myself, I've seen people miraculously healed, thousands of dollars provided in a few minutes,  and money multiplied inexplicably. I've seen prayer transform lives and realities almost immediately. I've seen God align circumstances that no one else could have lined up. I've heard people speak in tongues and see visions. I've seen visions. I've heard God's voice in unmistakable ways.

 So here's the crazy idea. God said that I could be the evidence for you, right here, right now.  It starts with a song that I first heard on my DTS and it has since become one of my favorites. It's called "Set a Fire," it's written by a guy named Will Reagan, and the lyrics just happen to line up exactly with what I've been talking about. But the real kicker for me is that I think God wants me to play and lead you guys in singing it, and I have never even played and sang in front of people before, let alone led any kind of worship. So I'll be your example that God calls us into new and unexpected things, and praise Jesus, the result is just more of Him.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for me), I don't have a video of my singing, but it may be a part of the podcast when it comes out. For now, here are the lyrics and a video of the song. This short worship session was how I ended my sermon time.

There's no place I'd rather be

No place I'd rather be

No place I'd rather be

Than here in your love

Here in your love

Set a fire down in my soul

That I can't contain

That I can't control

I want more of you God

I want more of you God

Philippines Outreach Overview

I've been home for about a month now (and I'm about to go back to NZ on Thursday), but I just finished making a video/slideshow telling about our outreach in the Philippines. We had an awesome time, and God provided us with just the right opportunities for our team. We went into some very challenging and unexpected places, but God never left us. In fact, He worked powerfully and showed us that He wants his followers to bring more of his presence even into the places we are least likely to go. It turns out that the places we avoid are sometime where we're needed the most...