Weeks 4-9: Rundown

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. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. ~ Colossians 1:9-14 ESV

Well, it has been a terrible long count of weeks since I last posted a blog, for which I must apologize. My former staff weren’t kidding when they said that DTS staff have lots to do, so I’ve had a very full schedule which has made it hard to find time to write blog posts these past several weeks. Still, these weeks have been full of good, noteworthy events which would be nice to write about and share with you. So, the busyness both calls for blog posts and prevents them from coming. An unfortunate contradiction. To be honest, I’ve been trying to finish this post for weeks but when I am finally able to sit down and work on it, I never quite get done. Then when I get to it again there’s even more to write about. Nevertheless, if you’re reading this I must have finally finished, and I thank you for still reading after the long break!

I’d love to share ever good story from my time here, but obviously that won’t happen so I’ll just give you an overview of what’s been going on the last several weeks. God continues to make it obvious that He can (and will) do far more for us and through us than we expect for Him to do. If we would simply think to turn to Him in every situation – from the most mundane to the most extraordinary – we will see Him work in unbelievable ways. To put it concisely, the past six weeks have been challenging, stretching, and blessed: challenging, because being responsible for the rapidly-changing spiritual lives of a bunch of young people (in addition to my own) is hard; stretching, because I’m constantly confronting situations I’ve never before confronted; and blessed, because God is far better than we can imagine, because our efforts are bearing fruit in the form of transformed lives, and because there’s so much joy to be had in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. (And because it has been sunny and warm 99% of the time since I arrived back in New Zealand.) For all these reasons, there is no place I’d rather be.

I left off with a post on the week we spent learning about relationships from Matt and Cora Dawson. Since then, every week has been amazing in certain ways and step by step the students are coming to know God better, find freedom in Him, and understand both the call He has placed on their lives and the ways He equips all of us to carry out that calling. Here is a rundown of the different weeks’ topics:

• Week 4 – Mandy Hudson taught on Hearing God’s Voice. Mandy was one of my favorite speakers from my DTS because she is great at imparting a lot of information and wisdom, but her week is always as much about the heart as it is about the head. She is great at challenging both students and staff to step out of their comfort zones in obedience to God, pressing ahead to find what he has for us. She talked about all kinds of things – what it means to surrender to God, how we can hear God’s voice, why and how to cultivate a lifestyle of intimacy with God, and finally the ever present question, “What’s God’s will for my life?” We learned so much that week, but I can at least assure you that God is personal, that He wants intimacy with us (it’s what we were made for), and that He does speak to us directly in a variety of different ways. There are no formulas telling us how to hear His voice, but that’s because it’s meant to be a relationship, and God loves to be creative in how He speaks. Some of what she covered can be found in my post from last DTS here. Interestingly, looking back on that post I see that I have been repeating a similar journey with God as staff this time around.

I’m going to interrupt my own list here to talk about this journey of hearing God’s voice. Just like last school when I was a student, a large part of my personal journey with God on this DTS has been one of seeking greater intimacy with Him. Intimacy is not about getting anything from God, it’s about getting God himself, the One we were made for. It’s about seeking closeness of relationship just like I would cultivate closeness with another person, except that it’s also totally different because this Person is unseen, infinite, and holy, yet totally approachable, joyful, loving, and much more besides. Intimacy with God is something I began to experience on my DTS (and it was awesome!), but I lost much of that closeness as I finished DTS, came home, and was overwhelmed by the busyness of the Christmas season combined with preparations to return to New Zealand. So I when I returned I had to fight and reclaim that intimacy with God. That meant intentionally setting aside time to spend alone with God and refusing to let my to-do list take priority over building relationship with my Creator, Father, and Lord. As I did this, I began to really listen to Him again, read His Word, worship, and just spend time in His presence. Now, whenever I take this time out, He speaks to me about all kinds of things (He points me to certain Scriptures, and I think he even gave me the words to a song), He guides me in decision making, He tells me who He is, He tells me who I am, and He generally breathes life into me. In those times, it’s totally clear to me that I was made for this relationship – and this is only a tiny glimpse of the true intimacy we were made for. The Father has again been speaking identity to me as His Son, placing in my heart the understanding that my value does not come from the things that I do, but it’s based on what my Creator thinks about me. And what He thinks of me is pretty darn good, because when He looks at me He sees a son, covered in the righteousness of Christ. That’s pretty awesome, and pretty freeing.

OK, back to the list of weeks:

• Week 5 – This week’s speaker was Laurie Morris, an American professional whose expertise falls somewhere between that of a counselor and a prayer warrior. It’s really hard to describe exactly what she does in only a few words, but the best I can do is say that she helps people find healing and freedom by uncovering the deepest roots of their spiritual and emotional problems and dealing with them through prayer. The entire process is dependent on the involvement of the Holy Spirit, who is the Master of revealing hurts as well as healing them. She has a huge amount of experience in this area, both personally and professionally, which adds credence to her teaching. She taught about different roots in our lives that can affect how we live in the present, such as generational sins, family pressures, places of pain, lies and labels about ourselves that we may believe, and also the demonic. Then she helped us understand how we can deal with these issues. Some of this involved simply realizing and exercising the authority that we ourselves have over our minds, bodies, and hearts because the Holy Spirit is in us. For other things, she told us about different ways to invite God in and let Him lead the healing work. If I could take away anything from this week, it’s that there is no hurt or brokenness or confusion that the Holy Spirit cannot overcome, and He wants to lead us into complete freedom, not just a merely acceptable freedom.
• Week 6 – this week Matthew Jeffares, an excellent teacher from New Zealand, taught about the revelation of Jesus Christ and who we are in Him. Like last school, it was an excellent time of learning about Jesus, ourselves, and the world through our incredibly deep Scriptures and the in-depth study Matthew has done during his lifetime. For a look at the revelations I had last school as a student, see this post.
• Week 7 – Veteran YWAMer Doug Sparks lectured this week on Biblical Worldview. What this really meant is that he prodded the students to go back to the most basic assumptions upon which their beliefs rest and question them to find out why we believe what we believe. Many young Christians today grow up in the church and believe the things they are told there, but they are never given much explanation as to why they should believe those things, and they don’t seek out those explanations for themselves. Because of this, so many Christian youth fall away from faith when they leave home and their faith is questioned, often by people with really sound (or at least good sounding) arguments. Doug Sparks wasn’t afraid to field the hard questions and get us thinking and genuinely pursuing truth.
• Week 8 – We had a bit of a surprise this week when we found out 45 before class started on Monday that our speaker for the week wasn’t actually coming! So, with almost no warning our humbly heroic DTS coordinator Cheyne stepped in to teach on the Father Heart of God. He did a wonderful job teaching on what is a really important subject for so many who have been hurt, neglected, disappointed, or wronged in some way by their earthly fathers (or other male authority figure) and need a new understanding of what it’s like to relate to a perfect, loving, kind, gracious, and good heavenly Father. One takeaway for me was that we actually belong in the Father’s presence as his sons and daughters. We belong with Him, so we don’t have to come timidly before his throne hoping for a minute of his time. No, He has all the time in the world for his children, and He welcomes us into His presence whenever we seek Him. As any father should do, He provides us with identity, protection, and acceptance – enough to totally satisfy us. The week ended with a time when the students came before God’s throne simply let Him speak to them in these areas through the Holy Spirit, through Scripture, or through the staff. I had an awesome opportunity to hear the Father’s words for several students and share those with them.
• Week 9 – This was an incredible week on the Holy Spirit led by a local pastor (who speaks all over the world) named Kristen Williams. Kristen is an amazing speaker with such a real and loving relationship with the Holy Spirit. He exercises many spiritual gifts including prophecy, words of knowledge, exhortation, speaking in tongues, and quite a few more, but does it in a humble way that only inspires and encourages. He’s the kind of guys with such an authentic and extraordinary relationship with God that you can’t help wanting to be like him. If anyone could turn me into a Pentecostal, it would be him. But whether I become a Pentecostal or not, I want to see the Church understand better both the loveliness and the power of the Holy Spirit. In the churches he has led, miracles are common, even expected, yet throughout most of the Body of Christ that I’ve seen, we hardly even pray for miracles. We need to honestly look at the Scriptures and listen to some of the stories of what is happening in parts of the church today and realize that our expectations for God are far too low! God can and will do incredible things in our midst if we seek after Him, ask Him, and stop selling Him short!

So that’s a “quick” rundown of the topics we’ve been learning about the past several weeks. But perhaps more importantly than what we’ve been learning is what has been going on in the hearts of the students. In an attempt to sum that process up, I’d say this has been a journey of claiming freedom and truth step by step. Often, this has meant inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives, stepping out in faith, and obeying God in a way that pushes us outside our comfort zones. He challenges us to be more vulnerable, open, and free in worship, prayer, and speaking, responding to God only and not fearing what the people around us might think. There are many, many opportunities to do this on this, and the wonderful thing is that it always looks different for each person.

Hmmm, that may have bored you to death (or maybe you didn’t even make it this far), but that’s one way of telling what we’ve been doing for the past 6 weeks. Thank you to all of you who have been faithfully praying for me and for our school! It makes such a difference. Also, thank you to everyone who wished me happy birthday last week – you’re all wonderful! Thank you for loving and supporting me SO much!

Grace and Peace!

Dan