So I am now through six weeks of the program, and am overjoyed with God's provision for me during this time. The week before last, we did a 5 day missions adventure program and got out of the house for a week to stay at a local church. We had a very intense five days which included a great diversity of service. We picked up litter, spent some time trying to love prostitutes, led a fellowship service at the youth prison, and watched some very informing videos focused on various aspects of global justice. It was so nice to get out of the house for a week, and to plunge into our urban setting in a more intentional manner. The lord was more than mystical throughout the week, and proved his faithfulness to me on a few occasions. One evening we all crammed into the YWAM minivan and drove around the different tracks for prostitution in Downtown Winnipeg. To our surprise, one of the three main tracks is Ellice Avenue, a street we walk down every day and live within a block of. Realizing how to identify a girl working on the street opened all of our eyes. I had the great privelage of giving a rose and some words of encouragement to a young lady, who in desperation, offers her body for cash. I felt God moving in and through our team throughout the night, and it was an experience I will not soon forget. This past week we were back at the house, and Jack McNeill spoke to us about Global Missions. He is an anthropologist deeply rooted in first hand experience in missions. Jack is an incredibly wise and learned man who, as well as being a full time YWAM'er, is a professor at Providence College. I learned a great deal about the cultural complexities of missions, and also about the common motivations for wanting to be in missions, disecting the possible advantages or problems that could stem from them. Other highlights from the last few weeks include a conference last weekend with renound author Phyllis Tickle. She is a delightful and spunky seventy five year old with a vast wealth of information and insight into the "emergence" our world is swept up in, and how different parts of the Church are responding.
All is well here, and your continued prayers are welcomed and felt.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
4 weeks in
Time is flowing far too quickly.
After our week on justice, Chris Whitler stayed with us for a week and shared his experience with Evangelism. The stigma this word carries left me unsure of what to expect. The way Chris approached sharing the gospel was refreshing and beautiful. We talked mainly about what the gospel is, reaching back through time to view the earlier parts of the story. We spent a full day discussing and exploring the covenant God made with Abraham. That he would bless him and bless all nations through him essentially. Chris painted this as the foundation that all evangelism must rely on. We watched a video called cosmic voyage which takes you on a journey from the inner workings of an atom to the furthest reaches of space. Even with the outdated effects, the serene voice of Morgan Freeman blows your mind as he narrarates the complexity of this design we exist within and exists within us. We touched on the ways that evangelism is perceived and dialogued about the face value methods which have been used in the past and are still being used today. Essentially, Chris described the purest and most authentic evangelism as living in the tension between relationship and intentionality. He was careful to use the word tension as opposed to balance because nothing is balanced when it comes to this kind of stuff. In that tension, Chris thought that constant prayer was fundamental. Just being present with people and engaging in relationship without an agenda was the message of it all. Throwing out our ideas of what people must become, and simply relating to them as fellow broken broken people, while not shying away from sharing our whole self, which of course includes our believing that the spirit of the living God indwells us and is our life. If we truly believe this, it will come up pretty quickly when in genuine relationship.The idea that love begets love and Gods relationship with us is a circle of love eager to invite more dancers is one of the ways he described it all. Chris was a joyful and hilarious man that I will not soon forget.
This past week, we had Jamie Arpin-Ricci, who is married to the director, speak about Missional Community, or as he puts it, the Community of the Gospel. One of the first things he said in lecture was "Unless truth is an expression that transforms our lives, it is not the fullness of truth". These seperations between intellectual consent and how we spend our hours have built many walls between Christians and the fullness of life. I have been heavily influenced by these illusory seperations, and it is wonderful to feel the poison beginning to leave my thought processes and ideals. Jamie said so many elightening things about community and the gospel, I am finding it hard to pick and choose what to share with you, my friends and family. One thing that hit me was the idea that not being racist is not enough. An active embrace and recognition of the necessity of diversity is the standard set for us by our gospel. This applies to more than just racism of course, however, I found it an impactful example for myself. The root of this ideal goes into the nature of sin. Sin, it its original form, simply meant missing the mark. An illustration of archery was used by Jamie to express the idea that, often, Christianity has exhausted itself instructing people to not do things. Don't hit the tree, don't hit the seagull, don't hit the squirrell, in contrast to the freedom of the true gospel which directs people towards the mark that we are missing. Moving from condemnation into conviction was how Mister Ricci put it. We walked through a pattern that repeats itself through out the gospel, and dug deep into its rhythms. It goes something like this...Hidden nakedness, The cross, The tomb, The resurrection, Pentecost. As we talked of hidden nakedness, we compared jumping behind a bush with the metaphorical masks we choose from. These masks cause a pseudo community, as Jamie puts it, built on pretenses that are simply not true. Nobody really knows how broken we are, and evil has a myriad of ways to shape you. In darkness he dwells, and false pretenses inevitable cast shadows over our true being. This hiddenness is based on conflict avoidance among other things. As we ignore differences and conform to false pretenses, it allows for generalizations and individualism to find a home, working against the interdependance and diversity of a Body. The rest of the parts of this pattern were equally insightful, and made it clear that community does not just become a resurrected state without the painful vulnerability, mutuality, and commitment that make up the process. We were given a project yesterday, which is to engage in all of those steps as a community, and than as pentecost (metaphorically speaking), to design a project where we can be an incarnational body expressing our individual gifts to love people. Very open project, and I am excited to see what comes of it. Yesterday, us students decided to start by sharing our stories and our struggles from the past and present, which opened people up as we began to realize how broken everybody really is. It was a big step for our community, and we are going to try and honor eachothers vulnerabilty, as it is a very fragile thing to be.
I am really enjoying my time here so far. There is a good amount of free time which I have spent reading, doing my mandatory journal (which is alot of fun), forming friendships with people outside of the DTS, and just unwinding, usually with music in the air. God is good, and blessing me in many ways. I hope you can see how he is blessing you as well!
Feel free to write me if you wanna chat about anything I mentioned here, or anything in general.
Adios Amigos
After our week on justice, Chris Whitler stayed with us for a week and shared his experience with Evangelism. The stigma this word carries left me unsure of what to expect. The way Chris approached sharing the gospel was refreshing and beautiful. We talked mainly about what the gospel is, reaching back through time to view the earlier parts of the story. We spent a full day discussing and exploring the covenant God made with Abraham. That he would bless him and bless all nations through him essentially. Chris painted this as the foundation that all evangelism must rely on. We watched a video called cosmic voyage which takes you on a journey from the inner workings of an atom to the furthest reaches of space. Even with the outdated effects, the serene voice of Morgan Freeman blows your mind as he narrarates the complexity of this design we exist within and exists within us. We touched on the ways that evangelism is perceived and dialogued about the face value methods which have been used in the past and are still being used today. Essentially, Chris described the purest and most authentic evangelism as living in the tension between relationship and intentionality. He was careful to use the word tension as opposed to balance because nothing is balanced when it comes to this kind of stuff. In that tension, Chris thought that constant prayer was fundamental. Just being present with people and engaging in relationship without an agenda was the message of it all. Throwing out our ideas of what people must become, and simply relating to them as fellow broken broken people, while not shying away from sharing our whole self, which of course includes our believing that the spirit of the living God indwells us and is our life. If we truly believe this, it will come up pretty quickly when in genuine relationship.The idea that love begets love and Gods relationship with us is a circle of love eager to invite more dancers is one of the ways he described it all. Chris was a joyful and hilarious man that I will not soon forget.
This past week, we had Jamie Arpin-Ricci, who is married to the director, speak about Missional Community, or as he puts it, the Community of the Gospel. One of the first things he said in lecture was "Unless truth is an expression that transforms our lives, it is not the fullness of truth". These seperations between intellectual consent and how we spend our hours have built many walls between Christians and the fullness of life. I have been heavily influenced by these illusory seperations, and it is wonderful to feel the poison beginning to leave my thought processes and ideals. Jamie said so many elightening things about community and the gospel, I am finding it hard to pick and choose what to share with you, my friends and family. One thing that hit me was the idea that not being racist is not enough. An active embrace and recognition of the necessity of diversity is the standard set for us by our gospel. This applies to more than just racism of course, however, I found it an impactful example for myself. The root of this ideal goes into the nature of sin. Sin, it its original form, simply meant missing the mark. An illustration of archery was used by Jamie to express the idea that, often, Christianity has exhausted itself instructing people to not do things. Don't hit the tree, don't hit the seagull, don't hit the squirrell, in contrast to the freedom of the true gospel which directs people towards the mark that we are missing. Moving from condemnation into conviction was how Mister Ricci put it. We walked through a pattern that repeats itself through out the gospel, and dug deep into its rhythms. It goes something like this...Hidden nakedness, The cross, The tomb, The resurrection, Pentecost. As we talked of hidden nakedness, we compared jumping behind a bush with the metaphorical masks we choose from. These masks cause a pseudo community, as Jamie puts it, built on pretenses that are simply not true. Nobody really knows how broken we are, and evil has a myriad of ways to shape you. In darkness he dwells, and false pretenses inevitable cast shadows over our true being. This hiddenness is based on conflict avoidance among other things. As we ignore differences and conform to false pretenses, it allows for generalizations and individualism to find a home, working against the interdependance and diversity of a Body. The rest of the parts of this pattern were equally insightful, and made it clear that community does not just become a resurrected state without the painful vulnerability, mutuality, and commitment that make up the process. We were given a project yesterday, which is to engage in all of those steps as a community, and than as pentecost (metaphorically speaking), to design a project where we can be an incarnational body expressing our individual gifts to love people. Very open project, and I am excited to see what comes of it. Yesterday, us students decided to start by sharing our stories and our struggles from the past and present, which opened people up as we began to realize how broken everybody really is. It was a big step for our community, and we are going to try and honor eachothers vulnerabilty, as it is a very fragile thing to be.
I am really enjoying my time here so far. There is a good amount of free time which I have spent reading, doing my mandatory journal (which is alot of fun), forming friendships with people outside of the DTS, and just unwinding, usually with music in the air. God is good, and blessing me in many ways. I hope you can see how he is blessing you as well!
Feel free to write me if you wanna chat about anything I mentioned here, or anything in general.
Adios Amigos
After Week Two
Winnipeg is really great so far. We live in a big duplex in the down town west end area. The area is incredibly old, and our house is past the hundred year mark itself. The neighbourhood is very ethnically diverse, and it is interesting to have so many culutures within such a small area. Poverty has definately left its mark in this inner city area. Prostitution, drug use, and crime are all serious and visible problems where we live. The house we live in used to be a gang haven for the neighborhood. If people were walking by our house they would cross to the other side of the street because of the kinds of people that inhabited it. Every major crime other than murder had been reported at this house. The house was completely gutted and re done by a local pastor who was very passionate about the people who lived here, and has blessed them with many great stories of reconciliation, this house being one of them. Lovely history in the air between these walls.
So I have been here two weeks and it has been a pretty challenging, but amazing time. We have been learning so many things together. This last week, speaker Phil Cunningham came to do a one week seminar on justice. We talked about hunger, human trafficking, AIDS, child soldiers, as well as spent an afternoon walking around our neighbourhood searching for brokenness and injustice, believing strongly that we can't proclaim we long for justice for those far away, without confronting the injustice in our backyards. Eye opening stuff for sure. I cant see a possible future for me outside of serving the oppressed. Some times you talk about justice and its just a massive weight and burden which is poor for transformation. It is most certainly an aspect, however, without Christ in the equation, it is passion without direction, a car without wheels. We spend alot of time focusing on obedience as the MOST important thing to do. What more can you expect from clay?
The schedule we keep is tight, and is disciplining me in ways I have not yet experienced. At seven we have breakfast. 7:30 to 8:30 is quiet time. Quiet time has been awesome for me, as its a great time to connect to people back home with prayer, as well as simply ponder and dwell in the depths of grace, and our inheritence with the Lord. 8:30 is corporate prayer or worship for 1/2 hour. The worship we have done is not usually musical, and it has been cool exploring different ways of lifting my heart to God. The corporate prayer we do is beautiful and the liturgical togetherness adds something special to our day. 9-10 is usually small group time. We have groups of four within the base that meet in these times. This is a good time to share some scripture, concerns, and most importantly prayer to build each other up. Then lecture begins and goes until lunch. The lecture is very interactive and engaging, forcing everybody to offer input. After lunch we we have work duties or outreach until dinner. I am on maintenance which means cleaning out under the deck, shovelling snow, that sort of thing. On tuesdays a few of us are running a kids after school program for some girls in the neighbourhood. I feel like this will be a great way to connect with the community. We eat dinners at the Ellice cafe, which was started by the same ministry that resurrected our house, and they serve up some great grub for us. They offer some cool food programs that provides a cheap way to eat out for families who would otherwise never have that opportunity. Evenings are usually free, with the exception of thursdays for an outreach preperation session. Weekends are free, but we must attend some sort of Church service on sunday. Any service we want in the city. The director and her husband have started a small church plant here at the house, and I think I will be joining this community for the next three months. If you want to learn more check out www.littleflowers.ca
Aside from our schedule we have some homework as well. We have ongoing book reports due once every three weeks. The first book is blue like jazz. I am really enjoying the insight and honesty of the author Donald Miller thus far. I was looking for intentional community when I began me search for a fall program to attend. God has answered that prayer, as this place is a very tight community. Because it is so small, there is no room to search out similar folks and form bonds. It is stretching me to new levels of acceptance of different beliefs, life styles, and communication styles. Despite our quarks, we are all searching and longing to live by the Spirit of Life, and it is such a lovely environment to meet God in. As we lift God to his proper place as the head, I am beginning to catch glimpses of a functional body, and am excited to see more. Next week Chris Witler is coming to talk about evangelism, which I am very stoked about. I know that will thrust me out of many comfort zones, and break down some walls I have built against that word, evangelism. So thats my life here. It is a roller coaster in many ways, however, I have experienced more joy and laughter here than I have in any other group of people.
Thanks for taking time to hear about my life
So I have been here two weeks and it has been a pretty challenging, but amazing time. We have been learning so many things together. This last week, speaker Phil Cunningham came to do a one week seminar on justice. We talked about hunger, human trafficking, AIDS, child soldiers, as well as spent an afternoon walking around our neighbourhood searching for brokenness and injustice, believing strongly that we can't proclaim we long for justice for those far away, without confronting the injustice in our backyards. Eye opening stuff for sure. I cant see a possible future for me outside of serving the oppressed. Some times you talk about justice and its just a massive weight and burden which is poor for transformation. It is most certainly an aspect, however, without Christ in the equation, it is passion without direction, a car without wheels. We spend alot of time focusing on obedience as the MOST important thing to do. What more can you expect from clay?
The schedule we keep is tight, and is disciplining me in ways I have not yet experienced. At seven we have breakfast. 7:30 to 8:30 is quiet time. Quiet time has been awesome for me, as its a great time to connect to people back home with prayer, as well as simply ponder and dwell in the depths of grace, and our inheritence with the Lord. 8:30 is corporate prayer or worship for 1/2 hour. The worship we have done is not usually musical, and it has been cool exploring different ways of lifting my heart to God. The corporate prayer we do is beautiful and the liturgical togetherness adds something special to our day. 9-10 is usually small group time. We have groups of four within the base that meet in these times. This is a good time to share some scripture, concerns, and most importantly prayer to build each other up. Then lecture begins and goes until lunch. The lecture is very interactive and engaging, forcing everybody to offer input. After lunch we we have work duties or outreach until dinner. I am on maintenance which means cleaning out under the deck, shovelling snow, that sort of thing. On tuesdays a few of us are running a kids after school program for some girls in the neighbourhood. I feel like this will be a great way to connect with the community. We eat dinners at the Ellice cafe, which was started by the same ministry that resurrected our house, and they serve up some great grub for us. They offer some cool food programs that provides a cheap way to eat out for families who would otherwise never have that opportunity. Evenings are usually free, with the exception of thursdays for an outreach preperation session. Weekends are free, but we must attend some sort of Church service on sunday. Any service we want in the city. The director and her husband have started a small church plant here at the house, and I think I will be joining this community for the next three months. If you want to learn more check out www.littleflowers.ca
Aside from our schedule we have some homework as well. We have ongoing book reports due once every three weeks. The first book is blue like jazz. I am really enjoying the insight and honesty of the author Donald Miller thus far. I was looking for intentional community when I began me search for a fall program to attend. God has answered that prayer, as this place is a very tight community. Because it is so small, there is no room to search out similar folks and form bonds. It is stretching me to new levels of acceptance of different beliefs, life styles, and communication styles. Despite our quarks, we are all searching and longing to live by the Spirit of Life, and it is such a lovely environment to meet God in. As we lift God to his proper place as the head, I am beginning to catch glimpses of a functional body, and am excited to see more. Next week Chris Witler is coming to talk about evangelism, which I am very stoked about. I know that will thrust me out of many comfort zones, and break down some walls I have built against that word, evangelism. So thats my life here. It is a roller coaster in many ways, however, I have experienced more joy and laughter here than I have in any other group of people.
Thanks for taking time to hear about my life
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