Pearson Airport

This is the last post of this blog until further notice.  I'm currently sitting in Toronto Pearson Airport waiting to board a plane to Chicago, where I will board a plane to Tokyo!  So I'll talk to you all when I talk to you.  Bye! :)

Cleaned

Today was a lazy day.  But we also cleaned.  That is all.

A Beautiful Smile

Today was confirming, blessing, prophetic, and overall just incredible.

I don't really know how to put it into words for you, but basically I had a lot confirmed for me, and a bit of prophecy as well.  God ain't nothin' but good :).

One thing that struck me about today was how many people have told me today and in days past while here that I have a beautiful and contagious smile.  I never realized it before, but I don't really think I have a very nice smile at all.  Whenever I look in the mirror and see my wide gape of a smile and the two bucked, gap teeth that serve as the centerpiece, I try and forget about it so I can laugh and smile without worrying what I look like when I laugh.

But I realize now that God sees me as His, "sunshine when clouds are grey".  God loves my smile.  People love my smile.  I'm gonna keep smiling, because I have no reason not to.

For those of you reading this from home, I miss you all terrible right now, and I look very much forward to February when I can wrap each and every one of you up in a big hug.

Catch you all...tomorrow?

The Real Kingdom of Heaven

So, we went on the van run again tonight.  And I want to write all about it, because I'm so excited and I want others to know and experience everything you learn and experience every time you do one of these van runs, but I know there is no way anyone reading this will understand.

You can nod your head and say, "wow, that's exciting" with a slightly genuine smile trying to understand why I'm so excited about homeless people.  Or you can say, "uhhh...that doesn't sound right." as I tell you how all the men and women I meet on the street are ten times more genuine, generous, caring, loving, thankful and kind than any given friend I have today(I still love you all). 

It would only frustrate me to try and explain it to you, and so all I'm going to tell you is this: Jacob, apply for a YWAM DTS.  University/College will worry about itself later.  Rebekah, do the same.  Holt, do the same.  Everyone else...DO THE SAME!!

The only way I can help you understand the wonderful men and women I met on the street tonight is that that is where I found the kingdom of heaven.  I got an idea for a documentary for when I get back.  I'm going to call it, "The Real Kingdom of Heaven".  All it will be is interactions with all these wonderful people that live on the streets of Toronto.  It will be a testament to them and their lives, and an example to every single christian on this earth.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I don't know Anything

I don't know anything, but I know a God who knows everything.

This is the statement that God has given to me and ultimately given me peace about all this knowledge we're getting this week.  Frank is the wisest man I think I have ever encountered--he even tops Sid! 

Frank joined us in our apartment for dinner last night, and he continued to talk about what he had talked about yesterday for the morning lectures, and he went more into detail about the tree of good and evil and the creation of man and how it relates to knowing God before you know anything else.  To be honest, I was so overwhelmed by the information that I simply had to go to God and say, "uh…".  And through processing my thoughts with Marvin and Jess in conversation, God gave us that statement: I don't know anything, but I know a God who knows everything. 

For every thought, decision, or action where there is more than breakfast involved, I will go to God.  Whether it's a big issue, or a little one.  If it's life, it deserves a conversation with God about it.

See, Frank explained to us last night that God said this about the tree of knowledge of good and evil: "They are not READY to eat of this yet".  There was a time coming when God would allow man to eat from that tree.  But He is our father, and His intention was to father us into that time when we were ready to eat.  Frank talked about the fall of man, and how we only use 10% of our brains.  The theory is that Adam used a significantly larger amount of his brain, and had a greater understanding of life than anyone.  Yet, God waited to create Adam on the sixth day for two reasons:

1. Adam was not to know how God created creation.  That was not for him to know.
2. Adam was meant to enjoy the creation and the mystery of it.  If he knew it all, he wouldn't enjoy it as much.

But then Lucifer came along--the most beautiful angel ever created(the original translation of serpent actually meant, "shining one"--and told Adam1 and Adam2 that they could have all the knowledge that was coming NOW, and this was all they had to do: eat this fruit.  They would become like God: they would know the difference between good and evil.

Ever since, that has been the nature of man: to know all things, and to know them now.  All the church has done in the past 100 years is make rules and point out what is good and what is bad.  Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit, nakedness was not good or bad, it was just nakedness. 

Today, if a naked couple walked into a large gathering of people 50% would probably say, "oh, that's good!" and the other 50% would probably say, "oh, this is very bad!".  Not one would think, "huh, they're naked".  Everyone would judge. 

Judgementalism was the first thing we see as evidence of our premature knowledge of good and evil(besides nakedness): "The woman made me do it!" and then, "The serpent made me do it!"

This was not how God intended it.  Right now what I feel like God is constantly showing me is that the gray area is the best area, because our premature understanding of good and evil leads us to think that everything is black and white.  The fact of the matter is that that's simply not how it is.  I don't know for sure that that's not how it is, but that's what God has shown me for my time on earth: stick with the gray area, and ask Him for guidance, counselling, answers, etc.  I don't know anything, but I know a God who knows everything.

I'm not saying there aren't things that are fundamentally wrong, because everyone can agree that there is nothing positive in rape.  But put a philosopher in the situation and he'll show you the gray areas of rape.  And in those situations all I can do is say, "You take this one, God." cuz I don't know!  But He knows, and He'll guide me, because He is 110% loving and 110% faithful to His children.

Frank also explained that people seem to have the illusion that God can't sin.  He can, He just doesn't.  Ever.  Because He knows what sin does.  He knows it grabs hold of you, and God won't give up His freedom.  That's the only thing stopping Him from sinning, because there is no one greater or equal, so no one can hold Him accountable, and no one can call Him out on it, and no one can stop Him.

But that's exciting.  He's immensely greater and more powerful than we will ever be able to comprehend, and whatever He chooses to do no one will EVER be able to stop him.  EVER!!  And yet He chooses to be patient and loving with us, because He loves us too much to give up His freedom.

Going into outreach, I'm going to remember that I don't know anything, but I know a God who knows everything, and that the gray area is exactly where I should be, because that is the easiest way for Him to help me.

Are you willing to admit you don't know anything?

Catch you all tomorrow.

I Never Knew You

"Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" 
       - Matthew 7:22-23


Jesus said He only ever does and says what He sees His Father doing.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  We got a really intense talk this morning from Frank(he's our speaker this week).  He talked about how we can live the most righteous life, and do all these amazing things, but when it gets to the end God will saw what He says in the above verse.


We can do fantastic things in the spirit and be all crazy, but it is MEANINGLESS if we're not doing it because we believe it is God's heart.  God may only have two things He wants you to ever do, and the rest of the time is just to enjoy the blessing of life that He has given you, and enjoy it in a Godly way!  God doesn't want good works, He wants your true heart and your true love and your true relationship through Jesus Christ.


It's actually easier than striving for righteousness.  All it takes is spending time with God, and He rubs off on you naturally, and you'll find yourself doing things and having attitudes you wouldn't expect yourself to have!  I have experienced this first hand and witnessed it first hand.  It makes perfect sense too: you hang out with drugees you will develop the same attitudes and habits as them as well.


Frank then talked about the creation story of lucifer and him being the most beautiful angel God ever created and the fall of man and such.  It tied in with all this, I just can't remember exactly how...oops.


We then had the man who runs the, "John schools" in Toronto come and speak.  Funnily enough, his name is John Fenn.  


John was once himself a buyer, and because of this lost a 25 year marriage and lost relationship with his two daughters for just over a year.  He was also an alcoholic, gambler, drug addict, etc.  Long story short, he is a christian man who helps run the most successful operation in the anti-sex trade.  


Basically, men who are convicted of buying sex spend a day with him and several speakers on the truths of the sex trade, and only 2% of the men who go to this ever go back to buying sex.  It was a crazy awesome talk, and really encouraging to hear so many hopeful stories.


Catch you all tomorrow.

Philosophy is Pointless

I really hate philosophy.  It's a lot of discussion that leads to nowhere.

It's good to discuss things, but there's a point where the discussion should lead to action.  We had a guy from the music industry come in today and talk about working for MTV as a music score-er for movies and commercials.  He talked a lot about luck, so off the bat I didn't really appreciate his viewpoint, and it only got worse as he appeared to be more and more immature in his beliefs and views.

He presented a lot of philosophical situations and, "what would you do?" situations about working in the media industry.  And to me a lot of them were no-brainers, but he kept factoring in these sort of questions, "Well yea, but if you say no to something you don't agree with you just look like one of those crazy christians that nobody likes, and plus you lose your job!"

1. He's clearly never been involved with YWAM
2. Is your job and need to survive bigger than God?
3. Be in the world, not of the world

I dunno, it just felt like a very vain couple of hours, and I said very little to add to the discussion as I just didn't feel right contributing to it.  I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Catch you all tomorrow.

4600

Every time I have asked God to provide, and asked Him to blow us away, He has more than answered.

In the spring, it was 20,000 dollars towards building wells.  Today, it was 4600(when we only need 1500) towards outreach.

We did our JAMM Cafe at a local church today in order to raise funds for outreach, and it went very very well.  We all enjoyed it, and even we were impacted by it! 

I also got to see Oliver and Ben from Muskoka Woods, which was wonderufully refreshing.  We then spent the rest of the day being couch potatoes.  

Whelp, catch you all tomorrow!

Whelp

Whelp, today was rather boring.  Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it cetainly was uneventful.

I did, however, get a chance to go back to the soup kitchen and help out there.  I saw Grace and Sue from China again which was really nice!

And now, I'm afraid I must rest up because we've got a JAMM Cafe to do tomorrow at Chartwell church. 

Catch you all tomorrow :)

Opinions, actually

So today we presented our research projects(mine was on legalizing the sex trade in Toronto).  It went very well!  I'm finding that my comfort in front of a group of people and talking when I was in grade 9 as opposed to now is extremely different, and I am more than comfortable doing it now.

In the afternoon we discussed first aid precautions for outreach.  Then my parents came and picked up a bunch of things I won't be needing for outreach and we went out to starbucks for coffee.  It was quite nice!

On the downside of today, I found out that the song used in the trailer of my documentary(and subsequently the song at the end of the documentary) was sampled from a popular 80's band.  This means that I may not be able to make any money or possibly even publish the documentary.  I'm slightly aggravated by this and annoyed.  The guy who told me I could use his music didn't specify that it was a sample, and he also didn't specify anything about copyright laws on each individual song.

If all goes well, I can still publish the doc on the internet, but we'll see.  Perhaps the only eyes that will ever see it will be those of my close friends and family...and possibly some college applications.

A final note: if I were to read the book of Leviticus--and only that--and then tell you that I think the entire bible is crap and just a stupidly strict rule book, you'd think I was full of crap wouldn't you?  I hope you would.  The reason I say this is because I'm quite peeved with someone who came in halfway through watching a movie and called it a load of crap at the end.  They missed the beginning, and when I informed them of this they proceeded to proclaim the beginning as a load of crap because the end of the movie was a load of crap.  In order to keep myself from screaming at them and introducing them to my knuckles, I left the room and began to write my journal entry.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Sid

Well, I know it's 2 in the morning, but I'm still gonna write this thing, and I think it's gonna be semi-long.

I went for the van run tonight, which is basically where three of us YWAMers join an employee of Vea'havta(or something like that) in a van loaded with sandwiches, bottles of water, coffee, gloves, hats, mitts, scarves, jackets, pants, shoes, socks, etc, and roam the streets of downtown Toronto.

Roaming sounds a bit broad...the staff member actually has regular spots that she knows of all of which we visited--this is literally her job five days a week: feed and clothe homeless people at night and counsel them when needed.  Her name is Lauren by the way.

We also visited a shelter where we were completely swarmed, but it was wonderful to have so many people asking for things they need, and then being able to say, "Yes, I can give that to you!".  I will never ever ever ever ever be able to communicate the feeling to someone who has never done something like a van run, and the main reason is because of the pre-conceived ideas of homeless people in their head.

The first person we stopped with, we talked to for TWO HOURS about Christianity and Philosophy and homosexuality!  He was a christian man from India, who was wiser than any single human being I have ever met, listened to, or heard of in my entire life!!  He gets it!  He literally told us that he has been on the streets for seven years, and if someone offered him a chance to get off, he WILL NOT take it.  Why?  Because he has never had a greater opportunity to watch God provide for him.  The other day, a rich person who gives to him on a regular basis, gave him a brand new 400 dollar winter coat!  Just because!  This man was humble, but also confident in himself, he was wise, but he still told us that he even learned from us by talking to us(that is beyond almost any wisdom any single human possesses today), and he was friendly, polite, and most of all, happy!  Just like everyone else we met tonight!!

All the people we stopped to help out and talk to were friendly and happy and so grateful for everything we had for them!  And they loved to talk to us!  They were honestly more pleasant than every single person I pass on the street every single day when I walk around Port Credit or Parry Sound.

Some people were sleeping--literally just sleeping on the sidewalk--and so we just left bags of things by them to wake up to in the morning, but most were still awake and very open to talking and being friendly.

We met people camping on the sidewalk, and we met people camping in little park forests.  I never before in my life felt more like I was spreading the kingdom of heaven.  I felt God's pleasure and God's joy, and I felt His love going out to all these people and out from all these people.  It was beautiful.  I wish I could do that every single night!  I seriously envy the woman whose job that is!  Granted, some nights are not so pleasant and she has to quickly leave places, but most of the time she's building relationships with beautiful people who society has disregarded as garbage.  I seriously couldn't believe how many people I saw simply walk by a lump of sleeping bag without even acknowledging it.

I honestly am so excited about all that happened tonight.  It was just simply beautiful.  People loving people.  To be able to say to someone in need, "Oh yea I have that right here let me get it for you!" and give it to them completely for free, and then see the smile on their face and hear the sincere gratitude in their voice is wonderful!  I just want to do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again!

Everyone should check out Veahavta(I still don't know if that's spelt right) and see about volunteering for their van runs.  It cannot be described with justice by anyone.  You have to experience it.

To top it off, our train home was cancelled and we found ourselves squished onto a bus full of complaining people about the stupid transit system.  Needless to say, God was giving us a nice, whopping plate of perspective.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Big Waves

Today we practiced for the JAMM Cafe all morning, which was lovely, and then we had intercession.

Max had a verse for each of us, and mine was Matthew 19:13-14.  It's where the disciples try to shoo children away from Jesus and He scolds them, explaining that children are of the kingdom of heaven.  Talk about affirmation for wanting to help at the youth group and do counselling at muskoka woods.

It was also extremely wavy and stormy last night and we went out to enjoy the awesomeness.  It was quite nice.

It was still wavy and absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside after class so I went for a walk and enjoyed the waves.  If I'm gonna miss anything when I get home, it's gonna be big waves.

Catch you all tomorrow.

M.A.S.T.

Today we had a speaker from an organization called, "M.A.S.T." come in. 

M.A.S.T. stands for Men Against Sexual Trafficking.  It's basically the equivalent of M.A.D.D. in the world of sex trafficking.  They are an organization which only became official very recently, but has already done a ton in respects of the legal side of things.

For example, they passed a bill that does not allow the porn industry(almost always very closely affiliated with human sex trafficking) to have any venues on any public government property/any property that is supported by tax-payers.  I'm not sure if that is for the whole of Ontario or not, but it is definitely in the GTA.  They also helped pass a bill which creates a minimum prison time of 5 years for people convicted of human trafficking or the like(I'm sure the bill is much more specific), as well as several other legal steps forward in respects to human trafficking in Canada.

Stan(that was his name) also talked about the current struggle the government is having on whether or not to legalize the sex trade in Ontario.  The biggest argument that is being made in favour of the sex trade is that the prostitutes want to be there.  What isn't being told is that only THREE PERCENT of women on the streets say they are there because they want to be there.

Men who buy sex(or John's) think that the sex workers have a choice.  If they had a choice, there would be more than three percent who wanted to be there.  Also, look up the definition of choice and do some research on the horrors of life as a prostitute or sex slave, and then decide if you can really call it a choice.

On top of that, we had a former prostitute come in and tell her story.  She was sexually abused as a 9 year old(as a very large percentage of current prostitutes were) and started selling herself when she was 12.  In her case, she wasn't trafficked, but she also didn't necessarily WANT to be doing what she was doing.  She just didn't think she had any other choice.  She has a very long and horribly tragic story, out of which she has emerged a very passionate, loving, kind, and strong-spirited person(not without lots of therapy of course). 

I wish I had gotten her story on tape so I could show it to every ignorant person in the world.

I'll catch you all tomorrow.

2008

Two weeks from today we leave for Japan.

Today we had several speakers come in--including an RCMP Officer--to talk about human trafficking much more in detail than any of us knew.  It was pretty horrible, and we all agreed that our gut reaction is that we just want to fix it and defend every person who is mistreated and misrepresented so horribly.

But we can't do it that way, so we're going to do it the best way we possibly can: by going over and helping out at victim recovery centers and by doing plays to raise awareness.

Here's the main issue: everyone thinks that prostitutes are there by their own will and that they, "want" to be there.  If you think like this, you need to get yourself informed ASAP.

Pretty much every person in the sex trade is there because they feel like they have to be, or because they are straight up forced to be because they are slaves.  I'm serious, get yourself informed.  Even the law is just realizing how bad this slave epidemic is.

The first person charged with human trafficking in Canada was in 2008.  TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT!! 

One thing that really struck me, however, was that everyone in the class seemed really, really overly-pissed off at the, "Johns"(men who buy children/people for sex).  I get disgusted by them, yes, but I also feel for them almost as much as the people being bought and sold and abused!  Those men are just as broken because of the fact that they are actually committing that act!  God wants them to love Him just as much, because if they loved Him they wouldn't be doing what they were doing!

God's heart breaks for both sides, and to be honest my heart breaks for them too, because they are the ones who, once this starts getting dealt with on a large scale, will be treated like garbage, and suddenly they will be no better off then the girls who they have raped and abused. 

Many people who are, "christians" have a genuine hate for these men, yet these christians profess to believe that all men are created equal and are equally broken and equally in need of a graceful, loving saviour.  My prayer is that God will help me remember this going into Japan and Thailand and confronting these people.

Catch you all tomorrow.

skyrim

I am going to miss everyone so much when we leave.  But I'm gonna have an awesome time playing skyrim when I get back!

We had a mini early-christmas today(we being my family and rebekah).  And I gave Jacob a pair of drum sticks, and bought Rebekah a button as well as a t-shirt--of course I'm going to get everyone something from overseas, but for now that was all I could muster.

Rebekah got me skyrim, Jacob got me comics, and my parents gave me a power adaptor for overseas.  I think that's a pretty good christmas!

To top it off, the leafs are currently winning 6-1 against washington.  I'll catch you all tomorrow.

Caring, Loving, Gentle, Kind.

Before I write this, I just want to say I've decided to make them shorter than they have been unless it is necessary to elongate them.  I think I'm spending too much time figuring out, "How am I gonna write about this on my blog" while in class instead of, "How does this apply to my life?".  So yea, just thought I would let you all know.

Today we discussed spiritual warfare/spirituality in general.  It was crazy--in a good way.

Lorne was the one who talked about it, and he told some really cool stories about spiritual warfare, and then explained how the enemy works by putting lies into our life and discourages us, and then sent us to be alone with God to ask Him to expose some truths in our lives.

I had a rather interesting experience.  I asked God for some truths in my life, and almost instantly I had, "caring, loving, gentle, kind" running through my head.  These are things I try to be, and so I figured that was just my own thoughts talking.  So I tried again.  Same thing.  I tried about five times, and out of frustration was just like, "GOD!  My thoughts are getting in the way of you speaking!"

Then God was like, "Ok, write down, 'Truths in my life' and then after that put in brackets, 'from God's mouth'." so I did.  And then God told me to write down, "caring, loving, gentle, kind".  I did.

After our alone time with God we had lunch, and Lorne suggested we all share what God had told us and that after we share a couple people encourage us or give us a word God may have given them for us.  And wow.  Everyone was hugely encouraged and we were all praying for each other and it was just overall awesome.  God was present big time. 

I shared my experience, and then had a couple confirm those things, as well as was told not to worry about the future or stress about it cuz God's got something huge planned and He's gonna worry about the details.  I'm really excited and super encouraged.  I can't wait to experience it all.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Humility

Well today was a rollercoaster of emotion.  Again.

I woke up this morning and was overwhelmed by stress.  I had several disagreements/conflicts with several people from home over facebook, and I let it ruin the first half of my day.  Wouldn't you know it, Floyd talked about pride.

He pulled pride apart and talked about the damage it can cause.  He then got into the importance of repentance of that pride, and after the video we spent about an hour in repentance and confession.  Needless to say, I felt like a fool for getting worked up this morning.

If pride is what separates us from God, humility brings us closer.  The opposite of pride is gratitude, because everything that is not hell, is grace.  I'm extremely exhausted.  Catch you all tomorrow.

Excitement

Today was a bit of a rollercoaster day.

We were told we had all morning(from 8AM to 12 AM) to practice for the upcoming JAMM Cafe, but at about 9:50 we found out we only had until 1030, and we hadn't yet finished practicing our entire list of songs due to technical difficulties.  We took a quick break, and I felt rather aggravated because disorganization and miscommunication seem to be the only consistent thing around here--as someone who wants to be getting into film organization and communication are more than key.

After a quick break, however, we came back together and prayed before quickly practicing all our songs all the way through.  I was reminded that we're not doing this for ourselves in the first place; it's for the glory of God.  We went through most of the songs, and it sounded wonderful and I left the sanctuary feeling very joyful and foolish for having gotten so worked up over a little speed bump.

We then watched the last three Floyd McClung videos.  Pretty much all of them summed up his overall point in talking about passion: Christians need to be passionate about God, or they're not really Christians.  How can we say we are in love with God when we only really treat Him like an idea?

Floyd said He is frustrated with Christians who spend their whole life waiting for a calling or a sign from God to go and do His work.  The moment they said they believed God called them.  God may give us different directions at different times, but there's always something we can be doing for Him.  Floyd said that instead of asking God where God wants Him to be, he instead says, "God, I'm thinking about going to this country and helping out with this.  Is that OK?" God pretty much always says, "Yea, I like it!"

As much as Floyd ticked me off yesterday, I couldn't help but get excited about coming home in February.  All I can think about lately is the youth group in Parry Sound.  I am so excited to get back there and start helping out in every way possible for the sake of the youth.  Where do I feel called right now?  Parry Sound.  I felt that way before I left, and I still feel that way now--even more so than before.  I am passionate about the youth in Parry Sound because I know what a hell-hole high school can be in such a small town like that.  I've seen people go through it, and I've been through it myself.  Fortunately I had a Christian family to help me through, but most of the kids in Parry Sound aren't that blessed. 

So yea, I realize that my passion may shift dramatically whilst on outreach, but right now, I believe very passionately that God wants to place me in Parry Sound, because my heart breaks whenever I think about the youth there. 

My parents may read this and think that I'm just excited to be home again and live with my family, and to be honest, I'm considering getting an apartment in town if it's affordable/necessary, so it has nothing to do with you.  I mean that in the nicest way possible :).

Catch you all tomorrow.

Martyrdom

There are languages that haven't been heard in heaven.

Today Floyd talked about the fact that our passions need to be in line with God's passions for the following reason: God is perfect, and so deserves to be worshipped and receive full glory.  How does he receive this?  Through us.  How do we worship God and give Him the fullest glory?  By having His passions become our passions.

Floyd then went into a long rant about martyrdom, which to be honest didn't sit so well with me.  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against martyrdom at all.  In fact, back in the summer I had somewhat of a vision of myself being imprisoned for my beliefs, and a couple days later had a dream about being shot in the head/killed for not denying my faith in Jesus Christ.  I was totally OK with it.  I think it's almost exciting to be martyred for your faith--but I don't treat it like it's a necessity.

Floyd spoke about martyrdom(namely being murdered for our faith) as being the highest honor and glory we can give to God.  Which again, I don't necessarily disagree with, but to me it seemed as though Floyd was making martyrdom the point as opposed to introducing others to Christ.  I spent an hour and a half in prayer about this right after we watched the video, and through a bit of a dialogue with God about it, I came to the conclusion that Floyd is wrong.  Martyrdom is not and should not be the ultimate goal of christians.  Then we'd all just be running into gunfire to, "die for God".  I literally had an image of Floyd charging happily at a man who was pointing a gun at him and letting fly.  Floyd accomplished nothing in that death.

The ultimate goal and thing that God has charged us with is to love Him, love our neighbor, and share that love with as many people as possible.  If we end up getting killed because of it, so be it.  But if not, that's not a bad thing.  I'm not afraid to die for God, but I'm also not foaming at the mouth for that.

Floyd also made it seem as though being a missionary is the only thing any christian should be doing.  I disagree.  What about all the people in your home town?  Never mind all the people over seas--there are plenty of missionaries for them--what about all the people in your own town or city who have never found God?  If you feel called to missions, GREAT!  Do it!  And do it with a passion!  But if you don't, don't feel bad!  Whatever thing you feel called to probably involves people, and that's all that matters.

I think those are my full thoughts for today.  I am currently exporting the sailing documentary.  That is extremely exciting.  Catch you all tomorrow.

Passion

Your passion drives you to do things your brain doesn't believe in.

We're talking about passion this week, and because our speaker for the week cancelled, we have to watch dvd's from a guy named Floyd McClung that I'm pretty sure are early 90's.  Yet somehow, it's still relevant.

Floyd wanted everyone to get to the core of their beliefs--beyond what they believe in their brain--and get to what they're passionate about in their heart.  He said the best way to find out your true passion is think about when you've gotten angry at someone and why you got angry.  If there's a common denominator, you may have found a passion of yours.

I discovered a very peculiar, oxymoron of a passion in myself.  I hate judgementalism in myself and in others.  Whenever I'm judgemental of myself, I catch it and quietly scold myself for putting myself above others, and when I see it in others, it takes all my energy to keep from screaming at them and reminding them that they've got their own mistakes to worry about.

I also really, really hate complaining.  There's nothing that annoys me more than well-fed, well-dressed North Americans bitching--pardon my language--about the traffic or the weather or how their food isn't perfect.  Even average people.  You're way more well off than the millions who slept in the rain on concrete last night.

Floyd then told us the root meaning of the word passion is, "to suffer for".  In other words, what would you be willing to suffer and die for?  You've just found your passion.  I'm still trying to answer that question, but I know truth is pretty high up there(that probably raises a ton of questions about what truth is...but that's for another post).  Then Floyd brought up an interesting point: the bible is constantly saying Jesus had COMpassion for others.  Jesus wanted to join others in their suffering, and eventually He died for them.

Nothing super crazy revelationary has come up yet, but I'm sure this'll be an interesting week.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Contradiction

Today was a day full of contradictions.  Not noticeable contradictions--but contradictions nonetheless.

We went for a walk downtown today.  We didn't really have a specific goal in mind--just to talk to homeless people.  Despite having no real goal, this walk was far from spontaneous.  Wes takes a van full of us downtown Toronto every week to basically just get perspective on the homeless situation and possibly--God forbid in today's society--talk to some of these people living on the streets.

Our walk took us to the hot spot of protest in Toronto at the moment: tent city.  I don't know where exactly we were, but it was some park in the middle of Toronto, and it was covered in tents.  These tents have been set up there for quite a while, and it was actually a legit city.  They had classes teaching various arts, little performances/demonstrations being made, debates, discussions, and even a sort of city hall!

The protest reminded me a lot of what I've been told about the protests in the sixties.  Most of the people there were hippies, and most of them were just there for the sake of protesting--but they weren't entirely sure what. 

The main focus of the protest was the infamous, "occupy" protest that has started spreading throughout North America.  The protest's basic outline is that 1% of the world has 90% of today's wealth, and that's not fair. 

Technically, if you're sitting in a tent whining about it, and the guys with all the money are working, it is fair. 

Not to say, I am ok with the disgusting amounts of greed that make up our world leaders today, but I also know that there are wealthy people who give away most of their money, and I know that the key problem isn't money.  I think that was the main problem I actually had with the protests that I was seeing: the poor people are acting just as greedy as the rich people--they want all the rich people's money. 

From the mentalities I was seeing, I would bet ten thousand dollars that if any one of those individuals was offered a job on wall street, they'd take it.  They'd probably have good intentions, but those would fade quickly. 

I felt--and everyone with me agreed--that the whole protest seemed fruitless, vain, and pointless without God in the equation.  People don't need money, the need equality.  When you factor God in, you realize the equality of humanity, and so everything you own suddenly gains far less value than the thousands of lives surrounding you.  I don't think I do the thought justice when typing it out, but that was the gist of it.

We then decided to leave tent city, and after about thirty minutes of walking we came across four drunk, native homeless guys.  To be honest, they were some of the friendliest people I've met in Toronto.  I had an easier conversation with those guys then I do with most people I know--save for the close ones of course. 

Despite enjoying my conversation with those four men, I couldn't help but leave the encounter feeling like a fake. 

What in the world did I accomplish by talking to them?  Yes, I showed them the kindness and friendliness of Jesus Christ which is so hard to come by these days, but I'm never gonna see them again!  We didn't even really talk about God--one of them told me he was a buddhist, but he started talking about something else before I could ask any more questions. 

Homeless people get enough of christians, "doing their good deed" by coming and talking to them.  Wes said he had a homeless person tell him once, "It's like we're the monkeys in the zoo and they're coming to watch us play".  Going and having one conversation or handing a ten dollar bill to a person you're never gonna see again isn't Christ--it's a Christ attitude to treat others with that kind of kindness--but people like that don't need one good deed here and there...they need a relationship.  A friendship. 

Too many christians say, "Let's go feed the homeless!" which isn't a bad thing, but why are we categorizing them?  We need to treat them like human beings, not homeless people. 

I don't know if my thoughts make any sense, but I really feel like today was contradictory and counter-productive.  Again, I don't think what we did was wrong...just not enough at all.

Catch you tomorrow.

Holy Tired-ness!!

Every day only comes once. 

The above statement doesn't have anything to do with what we talked about today, but at the same time it has everything to do with everything we talked about this week.  Every day only comes once, and everything matters to God.  Not just big, massive moments of praise or big, massive miracles, but also the little things too.  Like talking to a friend, riding a bike, sitting on the shoreline and enjoying a sunset...writing a blog.  God created everything that we know as matter, and everything God created, matters to God.  Matter matters.

Today Nat talked about the Holy Spirit.  He talked about how the Holy Spirit is not an, "it" and The Holy Spirit is completely uncontrollable.  The Holy Spirit is God, after all.

Nat mainly talked about how the Holy Spirit moved within the church, and how the Holy Spirit is almost completely disregarded in modern churches.  He gave us the following quotes:

"The church is the church only when it exists for others.  To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need."
-Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison

"Every day
I am afraid
That He died in vain
because He is buried in our churches."
-Dorothee Soelle

Nat then posed us with a question: Is Jesus ACTUALLY the Lord over your entire life?  At the beginning of the book of Acts, Jesus is literally Lord and King over the community.  Every thing they do is with Jesus in mind first and foremost.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit were the ones who made it possible for humanity to sit down with God and be in relationship with Him.  Nat said this: "The Spirit brings us into Jesus' story, and by entering Jesus' story, we enter into God's story."

Nat talked about the Holy Spirit in regards to suffering.  A lot of people get frustrated when they suffer and don't see results from their suffering for God, and their suffering inadvertently becomes about them, and not God or the church.  Nat presented the idea of Stephen again.  Stephen was stoned to death after giving a radical statement.  Stephen's stoning opened Paul's eyes, and that led to a massive spread of the gospel.  Stephen never saw the fruit of his suffering, but He trusted that God/The Holy Spirit was using His suffering in the greater story.

Nat then left us with a final quote considering suffering and The Holy Spirit: "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad, petty, unsexy ways every single day."(David Foster Wallace).

Then Nat left, and we had several hours of intense prayer/worship/fellowship.  It was awesome, but extremely tiring.  So I'm gonna go, and I can't promise I'll make a post all weekend just so I can relax.  But we'll see.

Catch you all later!

Faithful Doubt

A healthy doubt creates a stronger faith. 

This is the statement we discussed today, and it was by far my favorite discussion to date in this school.  Nat got into all the different aspects of faith, and a lot of the aspects which we think are a threat to faith. 

He started with rationality, and how a lot of atheists say that faith is completely irrational.  Nat's argument was that they are completely right, but they are also completely wrong.  There is a lot that is irrational about loving someone that doesn't love you back, or that is a very revolting person.  There is a lot that is irrational about believing in a person that you can't see or physically touch.  But there's also a lot of rational arguments for a God.

The next thing Nat got into was the illusion of faith being about us as individuals.  Faith is not about our story.  It's about God's.  This is what I wrote down in my notes: "When we define our story as God's story, our idea of a, 'happy' ending changes dramatically.  When we see our lives as part of a greater and grander story, we don't worry about a personal happy ending.  We are concerned with God's story".  The best example for this is Steven.  He was stoned to death, but to him that was probably the best ending he could have had: being persecuted and killed in the name of God's great story.

Nat then talked about faith of what God is.  He said this is where a healthy doubt is key.  If we make up concrete ideas about God and how He works, then we in a sense making up a pagan God.  We are making our own image of God.  We know nothing about God, except that He made us, He loves us, and He's interested in being involved in our lives.  We don't know how or why or anything other questions, and as soon as we start to make up answers for questions we hardly even understand in the first place, we are destroying our faith.  If we make God into a scientific hypothesis, then atheists are right.  God is a living being, and He is completely unpredictable.  A God we can manipulate is a God not worth worshipping.

Then Nat touched on indifference versus faith.  All I wrote down for that was this quote: "If Christ is not risen, then nothing else matters.  If Christ is risen--then nothing else matters."(Jaroslav Pelikan).  Everything matters.  God created everything.  Everyone matters.  Many people say they believe in God, but that's it.  They do nothing with their, "faith".  Faith should be life-altering.  Too many, "christians" are indifferent to the world and the people in it.

We then began discussing Faith and the art of lamenting.  Too many christians have no idea what to do in an emotional situation.  Someone in small group shares something deep and starts crying and everybody kinda backs off like, "whoa".  Or someone gets up in church and shares that they just aren't feeling God and are having a hard time loving God.  Everyone freaks out like being upset is an evil sin from the pits of hell.  Those christians haven't read the Psalms.  Or Ecclesiastes, or Lamentations, or Jeremiah, or the part of the crucifixion where Jesus Himself cries out, "My God!  My God!  Why have you forsaken me??".  We read Psalm 88(I think that's what it was).  It is one of the darkest Psalms ever written.  The last sentence is as follows: "You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend".  Faith is trusting that God is big enough to handle how we feel about Him--even if we are supremely angry at Him.  Israel was not afraid at all to tell God how they felt, and we shouldn't be either. I really connect with the art of lamenting, because I think it is huge in the world of film and the arts. 

As a last point for the art of lamenting(that last paragraph was getting too big so I started a new one), Nat made this statement: "If the church is to be the body of Christ, how can we expect to not suffer?  How can we expect no pain when the physical body of Christ endured crucifixion?  How can we expect to not carry our own cross?".  The idea that life is fun and easy is a twisted illusion.

Next was faith versus uncertainty.  Certainty is not a good thing.  We are in relationship with God, and anyone who has been in a dating relationship or very good friendship knows that a relationship is about throwing your whole self into it, and making yourself so vulnerable that the other person could definitely hurt you if they wanted to.  We can never be certain of anything with God, other than His love and existence.  To create other concrete things about the image of God is dangerous and usually wrong.  Nat gave us this quote: "Those who believe..without uncertainty, without doubt...believe only in the God idea, not God Himself."(Miguel de Unamuno)

Nat then told us a story about a Physics student who nearly failed an exam in which everything was perfect save for one question.  The questions was something along the lines of, "how to find the height of a building with a barometer".  The correct answer was to measure the air pressures at the top and bottom and somehow find the height with an equation, but the student went at it differently. 

The student said tostand at the top of the building with the barometer attached to a rope.  Lower the barometer until it touches the ground.  Then measure how much rope you have used.  The student had several other answers, all unconventional, but all perfectly good ways to measure a building using a barometer. 

The point of this story is that faith invites us to see the world in a whole new way.  If our faith is not changing the way we see things, we don't actually have faith.  We have ideas.  Faith is participation in God's story.

Nat's final statement to us today was this: "One must first dwell in the sheer wonder of the Christ event before trying to make sense of what it demands of us."

Catch you all tomorrow.

Gay Penguins

I read an article about penguins yesterday that claimed they were gay because they spend the majority of their time together.

Give me a break.  Just because two animals of the same sex spend the majority of their time together, doesn't make them gay.  I spend 90% of every second I can with my best friend, and we are by no means gay!  We love each other, but neither of us would ever even entertain the thought of doing anything sexual with each other!  That's disgusting!

I feel like society is just trying to be like, "HEY LOOK!  ANIMALS CAN BE GAY TOO!!  GAY IS REAL!!".  I know homosexuality is real and that people are born with genes more similar to the opposite sex, but I really feel like society is confusing people by telling them that if they have a best friend of the same sex then they must be gay.  That's not how it works.  If you're not SEXUALLY attracted to someone of the same sex, you're not gay, you just have a really good friend.  Don't be afraid of friendship.

Two penguins that spend 90% of their time together are not gay, they are just companions.  And they live in a zoo for goodness sakes!  It's not even their natural environment!!

I realize this is going to ruffle people's feathers, but I don't care.  I hope people will start seeing that calling, "friendship" or, "companionship" a sexual relationship is highly misleading and no more of a help to sexually confused individuals than ignorant and irate, "christians" protesting and picketing.

The Long Fall

The beginning and the end are all part of the same story.

Contrary to what I thought, Nat did not continue to talk about the book of Revelations today, he instead jumped all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis, and showed us a video of Ricky Gervais making fun of the creation story.

Ricky Gervais is right, the creation story does seem a bit absurd.

Nat led us through a long process this morning of understanding how the Jews of Jesus time understood the creation story.  To sum it up, they basically did not take the creation story literally.  It was acknowledged as poetic mythology.  They knew God created the earth and everything in it, but they weren't sure about everything else.  Regardless of what they thought, it was still considered a respected ancient text, but never held up as the absolute exact story. 

The more we learn from Nat, the more I realize that western culture's christians are stupid.  Really, really stupid.  We've been following terrible traditions for centuries, and we haven't been taking in the story of the bible the way it was meant to be taken in.  For all we know the garden of eden and the serpent/tree were metaphors for something else.  We have no idea what, but that's not the point/doesn't really matter anyway. 

The two core things about the creation story are this: God created everything we know--including us--and God was pleased with it.  We are God's creation, and He loves us.

We then got talking about sin entering the world and Jesus coming to reconcile that.  A lot of people wonder why God would allow sin to enter in the first place, but Nat said to look at it from a different perspective.  He believes that the Christ event was pre-ordained before anything else, and then all the other key pieces were put into place.  I can't really explain it the way he did without making it sound like we are just God's entertainment, but he kept saying that we are part of a grand story, and that every piece of the bible fits.

We then spent the afternoon watching a film called, "The Sunset Limited"  It's a movie directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and the only two actors are Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.  In fact, the film only takes place in one room: Samuel L. Jackson's living room.

Samuel L. Jackson's character has just saved Tommy Lee Jones' character from suicide(He was jumping in front of a train called The Sunset Limited) and it turns out that Samuel L. Jackson is a christian, and Tommy Lee Jones is a professor living in absolute despair.  The whole movie is a conversation about God and the meaning of life. 

It sounds very simple, and to be frank it really is quite simple, but it's also very, very good.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is considering watching it.  It raises a lot of questions, a lot of points, and a lot of everything you would expect it to rise.

On a side note, I just finished doing the rough edit of Day One for the sailing documentary!  Catch you all tomorrow.

Prayer and Revelation

Today was a very mind-exhausting day.  We started off with Nat discussing the issue of eternity and heaven and hell. 

Interestingly enough, the bible never says it in black and white the way today's church has been doing for quite some time.  Jewish people never actually believed in eternal life until Jesus started talking about it.  Even then, to them it was crazy talk.  And Paul even stated that people who are dead are asleep.  Never in the bible does Paul talk about our souls leaving our bodies and going to heaven. 

We went through a lot of nevers like this.  And then we went through the actually's, and to be honest I can't remember what they all are but I know we confirmed them through scripture and discussion.  In our conclusion to that discussion, we saw that the promise of the afterlife is that EVERYONE is going to experience some form of judgement.  When ancient Christians were dying they wished for a slow death so that they could put everything right, reconciled, and in order before they met God.  People today want to die a quick death so it will be painless. 

The ancient Christians feared God more than they feared death.

We also got talking about heaven and hell and how they exist.  The Jews never believed anyone went to heaven.  To them that was just where God lived.  They didn't even really believe in an afterlife, they just believed in the here and now.  I'm being very vague because my brain is totally fried so I apologize.  Our discussion of whether heaven or hell led to the question of why did Jesus die in the first place if it wasn't to get us into heaven when we die?

The answer is simple: to break the separation between God and man.  God wanted to bring heaven to us, and He made that possible through Jesus, and used Jesus to show us what heaven on earth looked like.  The whole heaven and hell thing isn't for us to worry about right now.  It's good to discuss, but ultimately God gets the last say in that, and He'll take care of it when we die.  Right now what we do know is that God has commanded us to love Him with all our heart soul and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourself.  That's all we should be worried about, and everything we worry about should stem from that commandment.

The thing we got into after our heaven and hell discussion was the good old hated/ignored book of Revelations.  We actually didn't get far today because we were running out of time with Nat, but just from scratching the surface we discovered that Revelations is a prophesy, and that if that prophesy had been written for modern times then it would not have been written at the time it was written.  God would have revealed that message now. 

Through out history, when God made prophesy, He made it within 50-100 years of it happening or less.  The people who heard it witnessed it--except for the prophesy of Jesus...which is why the Jews were so impatient about waiting for their Messiah. 

From what we read, and what Nat told us, at least part of Revelation was prophesy about what was going to happen to Rome, because the Romans were oppressing the Christians big time.  That's literally where we left off, so I'll keep you filled in on how that goes.

We then had someone named Richard come in and talk to us about prayer.  He talked about a lot of stuff which most of us already knew, but one thing I found fascinating was when he started talking about the authority God has given us. 

A lot of people understand that God has given us authority to pray for people who are possessed and to cast out those demons, but those people then misinterpret that as us being able to pray over the spiritual warfare that is happening completely outside of the physical realm.  Richard had several friends who would constantly pray over things like that, and they were constantly sick. 

Through prayer and careful reading of the scripture, Richard came to the understanding that God has given us authority over anything on the earth and in the physical domain.  The only time we have authority over the spiritual realm is when it is given exclusively or when a demon has possessed a fellow human.  Things in the spiritual realm are beyond our authority.

What we are supposed to do is pray for the individual, and when that individual is set free, it lessens the enemies' kingdom.  Praying against the enemies' kingdom is dangerous, because we don't have that authority so they will take advantage of us huge.

That's all for today.  My brain is fried.  Catch you tomorrow.

Imagio Dei

God made man in His image.  Unfortunately, man returned the favor. 

This week's topic is, "imagio dei, missio dei" or, "image of God, mission of God", and our speaker is awesome.  He's not as interactive as the last few have been, but he is coming at this in a whole new perspective--though most of our teachers have done the same.

Today he started with language, communication, and story.  Everyone has a story, and everyone's story influences the way they interpret/look at life.  Our speaker(his name is Nat) told us about a college professor who was also the head of chapel at the college.  Every time a new student arrived at the school, he would send them a letter saying he would like to meet with them personally at least once.  Most of them came in rolling their eyes not wanting to be there, and pretty much every single one of them would say something like, "look, I don't know what your plan is or whatever but I'm pretty secure in the fact that I don't believe in God".  He would respond with a simple question, "What God do you believe in?".  For those who don't believe, the answer was almost unanimous: "A creator God who lives in the sky"(Nat's description was a little more elaborate but I don't remember it word for word).  The college professor/chapel would then respond with, "Well that's interesting because I don't believe in that God either."

Most students walked out because they thought he was crazy.

Everyone's story has defined God for them.  We have not allowed God to define Himself, we have simply gone by the traditional English church assumption--which to be quite frank is wrong.  He is not telling us He knows how to define God, because the best definition any theologian or philosopher has come up with for God is that He cannot be defined. 

To me that statement is simple logic.  How can mankind define something that exists outside of their understanding of space, time, and dimensions?  This is why I get annoyed when people start pointing the finger at God and say, "You're doin it wrong!".  How on earth--literally--would you know?  You have only existed for less than one hundred years out of the eons that earth has been around, never mind God.  I know it's cheesy to say, "His ways are not our ways." but it's also exactly true--especially in North American culture.  God's ways are not always to be financially safe and have a family that you can leave a will to...for some people they are..but not everyone.

Nat then showed us this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU
I highly recommend you watch it--several times.  This was the end of Nat's teaching for the day.  On that note, we'll be trying to understand the image of God for the week.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Week END

Hello folks!  Sorry I missed yesterday's post, but it turned out to be a very busy--and very fun--night. 

Rebekah came for a visit!  Josiah dropped her off around 3 in the after-noon, and I can only stand by a statement made in a previous post: you never realize how much you mis someone until you actually get to see them again.  It was absolutely lovely seeing Rebekah, and it was absolutely wonderful spending time with her even if it was only barely twenty-four hours.

About an hour after Rebekah arrived we went to help out at the soup kitchen run out of the same church we have class in.  It was amazing.  All we had to do was help set up, and then we just had to spread out and spend time with the people at the soup kitchen.  I had some of the most lovely conversations I've had in a very long time.  Seriously, people who aren't well off are way more pleasant and easy to talk to then people who are, "financially safe".

I remember as I was talking to one lady in particular--her name was Gracie--she was telling me a story about the church she attends and how they do their annual fall cleaning, and suddenly I could feel God saying, "This is my beloved child, I delight in her".  It repeated itself through my head for the rest of the night.  Then several hours later everyone was hanging out in our apartment listening to worship music/hanging out, and I closed my eyes and I could see Jesus' face--He was smiling.  He said simply, "What you have done for the least of these, so you have done for me."

Finally, we watched Tron--the new one.  I actually thought it was a huge metaphor for the bible.  The main character--played by Jeff Bridges--makes a huge video game world in which you can actually enter, and the programs essentially have minds of their own.  Whenever the creator enters the game, a light appears at the top of the tallest tower of the city, as that is the location of the portal into the game.  The characters talk about the light being a signal of hope because they know their creator is amongst them.  Whenever the creator enters the room, the aura shifts, and everyone knows it. 

The creator creates a clone of himself to run the place whenever he leaves to be in the real world, and over time this clone becomes conceited and sees himself as better than his creator(satan).  There's all kinds of other metaphors, but I won't get into them right now.  Just watch the movie.

It was a fantastic night last night, and today was just as good.  Rebekah and I went out for lunch at some vintage fish and chips diner--delicious, and went for an extremely pleasant walk.  We finished the day off by watching flushed away until Josiah showed up to take Rebekah home. 

And now here I sit, in full realization of how much I miss that wonderful girl, and looking very forward to February.

But at the same time, I'm so excited for everything else that's gonna be happening in between.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Courtrooms

Today was awesome.  I wonder how many times I'm gonna say that while I'm here.

It started with worship.  It was fantastic.  We played, "trading my sorrows, awesome God, and blessed be your name".  All of those songs are so triumphant and joyful, and I love when worship is triumphant and joyful.  It is, after all, supposed to be a time of praise, and what better way to praise than joyfully?

Our teacher then spent five minutes talking/reviewing what we've talked about all week, and then told us that our task for the next two hours was to plan out a drama representation of what a modern courtroom scene would look like concerning the situation in Philemon.  I was chosen to play the judge, and it was a ton of fun.  Every time I get a chance to act, I realize how much I love it!

I hope God provides more opportunities for acting in the future, cuz I will gladly take them.

We then finished our day with more worship and prayer, which was even better than in the morning.

It may not seem like the most eventful day to those reading, but I think today was one of the most wonderful days I've had while here.  Catch you all tomorrow.

Core

Today was great.  We got into looking at the different depths of scripture, and the different messages put into the same book.  It was very interesting, and quite eye-opening to the fact that Paul didn't just write letters.  Paul was extremely specific in what he wrote, and when you begin to study everything he wrote, you being to see that he did it on purpose.

There are a lot of things which are written outside of today's context within the scripture.  This has led to a lot of misguided church, "laws" or understandings of scripture.  We didn't get into that very much, but I'm sure it's something that will come up later on.

We then got to the core of the book of Philemon--because it's the book we've been studying all week--and found the core principle Paul is trying to communicate through this book is that of forgiveness.  The next hour was spent in meditation and contemplation/prayer with God about things we need to forgive people for/reconcile ourselves with.

The hour after that was spent sharing those things, and then we spent some time in small groups continuing in prayer and sharing.  Our small group actually spent quite a bit of time discussing pride and how it relates to forgiveness--especially when we get offended by things that aren't even really offensive...we're just letting our pride get the better of us.

Then the afternoon was spent planning for outreach and the soup kitchen on Saturday.  It was fun, but I won't bore you with any details.  If it's really that important to you then you can personally message me and we'll discuss it there ;).

After that, I interviewed Wes for the five minute documentary on Greenhaven, and got 30 minutes worth of him talking...which I was expecting due to Wes being known for rambling, but every time Wes gets talking about broken, homeless people you can just see the passion and hear in his voice how much his heart breaks for those people.

Now here I sit, listening to worship practice and loving every moment God has given me with these fantastic people.

Lady Gaga's genius

Lady Gaga hit the nail on the head.  God makes no mistakes.  After that her views and opinions drastically contrast that statement, but the statement within itself is quite sound.

I don't remember much about the lesson we had this morning.  It was more discussion and in-depth study of the epistles.  Not to say it was boring, because we did several dramatic re-enactments of different people living in the time that the book of Philemon was written, and we learned even more about the context of that 20-something verse book which so many people simply glaze over as if it means nothing. 

As a matter of fact, doing subjects like this which are not as interesting as others train our minds to see God in everything--not just the things we want to see Him in.

It was dessert discussion today that took the cake--pun definitely intended--because it actually led to a slightly heated debate.  We of course left the building laughing and joking with each other, but at the mid point of the discussion I'm quite certain half of us hated the half that wasn't comprised of us. 

Which, by the way, is the problem with the church today: they never get past the disagreements.  But that's a whole other subject.

We watched an hour and a half video of Lenda Cope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GAlgnnn0mw
talking about the image of God.  You can watch the video if you like, or keep reading, or both.  I recommend both so that my bias of opinion doesn't cloud the actual message Lenda was trying to get across.

Now, when you think of the image of God, you usually expect a lecture talking about what God looks like.  Or, if you're a more, "in tune" Christian, you expect it to be about how Christians are supposed to represent Christ.  I won't say you're wrong, but in this scenario that is not at all what Lenda was talking about.

The trinity is the Godhead three in one and one in three.  We think this to be a mind-blowing thing, and for those who have a human perspective it really can be quite mind-blowing--or can it? 

The creation of mankind began with Adam.  And for a while, it was just Adam.  We look at this and don't comprehend the implications of, "Just Adam".  "Just Adam" means that the original Adam was a hermaphrodite.  This may seem as heresy to many traditional Christians, but if God created many other species to be hermaphrodital(take worms for example) then there is nothing that could stop Him from making man the same way.  God said it was good.

It was good, but God decided He could make it better.  God took stuff from Adam to make Eve(side note: Lenda called them Adam 1 and Adam 2 because they didn't get names until sin entered).  The idea that God took something from Adam means that everything that was needed to make Adam a fully functional physical and spiritual being was there.  Now it was in two.  Two in one, one in two.  "And they shall become one flesh". (I don't have a bible handy, but you can google that phrase and get the exact verse it's from).

Men and Women are created with the same idea that is the trinity.  The trinity is a relationship between three forms of God.  They are a perfectly harmonious relationship.  You never hear the Holy Spirit asking God the Father, "Why'd Jesus get the body?!?!?!".  They are in perfect harmony, and there's no sex involved.

The world today is obsessed with sex, and it is how we are told to define our identity.  The example God gives us for a perfect relationship doesn't even involve sex.  That's just like an awesome gift that God threw in with mortal life.  God's example of a relationship is separate parts that originate from the same thing and come together to work in perfect harmony.

God has created men and women each uniquely and individually, but they are derived from the same being--first God, and then the original Adam.  Men and women are told from day one to find their identity in their gender.  If you are born a man, x is what you do.  If you are born a woman, x is what you do.  God didn't intend it like that.  My favourite quote from Lenda is that the world--and church--of today has put the two genders in their own box.  God didn't create boxes.  God created a kaleidoscope. 

Not all men are what society calls, "manly" but they are definitely exactly the way God intended, and He's more than willing to give them purpose and identity in life beyond how much they can dead lift.  The same goes for women.  God didn't create women to have their value placed in breast implants.

Lenda then went into this big spiel about the process of a fetus which I fully grasped but not enough to be able to repeat it in writing as I don't know enough about the terminology.

Lenda's main point was that humanity today is searching in vain for an identity in sexuality, but their true identity can only be found in the image of God.  Men and women are definitely different, but they are also very much the same in that they were created to be in harmony, just like the trinity lives in harmony.  Sex is just a bonus.

I feel like I've already completely done the video no justice whatsoever, so I highly recommend that you take the time to sit down for an hour and a half and watch it, because it is awesome, and is something that the church doesn't address enough--and in some cases not at all.

In fact, I'm making a rule.  I forbid you to comment on this post until you have watched the video, because my presentation has a bias of my opinion of what the original content is.  Thank you.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Blah

When you do kind things for those in need, is it to make yourself better(selfish ambition) or is it because you genuinely care for these people?

We dug more into Philemon and the Epistles today, but there was nothing that we came across which I found to be interesting enough to remember or write down. 

We also watched a documentary on Japan, which only increased our excitement to go there!  We also had a short language session, which was hilarious and mostly disastrous, as Japanese is preposterously different to the English language.

We then proceeded to have small groups, which is where the initial question of this entry was brought up.  I thought it was interesting, and I implore you all to answer the question for yourselves.  Because, to be honest, I kind of feel that if you are simply helping the needy without actually caring, you're not helping at all.  You're simply making them feel more and more insignificant, because your helping them out of pity only makes them feel more pitiful.  Food for thought.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Listless Study.

Today began as yesterday ended.  With indifference.  I still don't know why exactly, but after having a fantastic session on the piano with Marvin, my spirits were slightly uplifted.  This was followed by working on my research project and helping plan our JAMM Cafe skit(fund-raising event for travelling).  After these things took place I fell asleep doing some reading/prayer, and went to worship practice shortly after waking up. 

I now sit watching 1000 ways to die, wishing the narrator would be more graceful when he talks about the victims of these quite often ironic deaths.

Our speaker/topic this week is on the theology, context, and overall depth of the bible.  We began by reading the book of Philemon this morning.  It is a total of 20-something verses long.  I'm not entirely sure, but I think it is the shortest book in the bible. 

The book of Philemon is a letter from Paul to Philemon about a former slave of Philemon's that Paul is sending back to him, and Paul is imploring that Philemon treat the former slave(Onesimus was his name) as a loved brother and equal--something Paul and the church have been fervently pursuing ever since. 

Through study and cross-referencing, we discovered that Philemon was of the church of Colossia(Colossians), and a whole plethora of other interesting factoids concerning the people and places mentioned in Philemon.  It can be argued that this study was in vain, but it put things into context for us, and anyone who has ever tried to read the bible just by glancing and reading a couple verses, will completely agree that it seems totally irrelevant, unorganized and just generally strange.

I love putting the bible into context, so hopefully my mood will improve over the week and God will give me the grace to enjoy and soak in the teaching we will be receiving.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Indifference

I wasn't going to make an entry today.  For some reason I've been feeling slightly indifferent about certain things lately.  I wouldn't say in a bad way, but not necessarily in a good way either.  Then again, that kind of defines indifference.

For example, as I write this blog post I feel pretty darn indifferent about it, and feel like I don't really care about it or want to write anything in it.  Yet, I must write, because I told myself I would keep this up daily.  So I suppose I'll ask myself this question: how did I see/experience God today?

I think this is part of the problem with my indifference; is that I woke up this morning feeling extremely indifferent about anything, and therefore was indifferent to God...something I don't want to be.  And yet, He still managed to catch my attention..then again..how could He not?  You know, being God and all.

We were having worship practice, and the leafs game was on, so I just kind of played along to worship but mainly just watched the game--feeling indifferent once again--but during the second intermission, we practiced, "You are God alone".  I can't remember the lyrics, and I can't remember hardly even how the song goes...probably not good seeing as we have to play it tomorrow...anyway.

All I remember is hearing the lyrics being sung by Steve and being completely sobered by them.  The song talks about God being God and what that implies...so they're quite sobering to begin with.  I found myself in quiet repentance before God for my indifference and my act of throwing Him aside in my life today.  I know He was smiling, and I know He wanted nothing more than to wrap me in a big hug saying, "It's ok, I forgive you, and I love you."

And yet, here I sit, still feeling slightly indifferent to things.  I think part of it is being tired, and having spent the weekend being rather busy compared to past weekends...hopefully I can get more used to being busy on weekends because I know they're only going to get more busy from here on.

I'll catch you all tomorrow.

Family

Today was absolutely wonderful.  I didn't do anything other than spend my evening/afternoon with my family, but that's what made it so awesome.

We went out for Thai food, went to Ikea, went to see Johnny English Reborn, and then went out for coffee for about an hour and I got spend time with Jacob one on one which was awesome.  You never realize how much you love your family--especially your siblings--until you spend a good amount of time away from them. 

Nothing exciting or significant happened, and there was even some good old fashioned friction between us...but it was extremely valuable to me, because I just got to spend time with them.  It put some perspective on our relationship with God.

He doesn't want every encounter to be super spiritual or meaningful.  Sometimes He just wants us to be there with Him, even if we're in a bad mood at the time.  He enjoys our company no matter what, and that's what it was like today with my family.  Thank you God for my family :).

See you all tomorrow.

Flying

So I sat down to write about what we talked about today, but I'm completely drawing a blank.

I know it was nice, and the speaker was great as usual, but I don't remember anything significant coming out of today's discussion.  So I guess I'll tell you about what I just finished doing.

On my way back to the apartment after class, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was outside.  I remember saying yesterday, "God, if it's a beautiful day tomorrow, I'm getting my rollerblades out." so I did just that. 

First I went to the local skate park, and quickly realized that it isn't really a very fun skate park.  I was ther for maybe 15 minutes.  I then proceeded to skate some of the local walking/biking/skating trails.  That was wonderful.  I had switchfoot's new vice verses album blaring in my ears, and I simply felt on top of the world, especially as I skated to the end of a fairly long pier close to the hotel.  There wasn't really anyone out tonight, save for the odd couple cuddling on a bench, and so I just felt extremely free as the wind whipped through my hair and musical magic floated through my mind.

I didn't have any spiritual revelations, and I didn't have any crazy God encounters.  I just enjoyed the freedom I have been blessed with.  I did sit down and try and quiet myself to spend some time with God, but I almost instantly felt Him say, "Are you enjoying yourself?".  My obvious response was yes. "Then keep skating!".  So I did.

It's going to be a lovely weekend.

Relationships

It's always hilarious talking about relationships.  There was a great deal discussed today about relationships between people of the opposite sex, and pretty much all of it I agreed with, so there's no real new revelations or super interesting thoughts to share.

The only thing about today that I thought was interesting was the following quote: "Love is friendship caught on fire".

Obviously there was more that we discussed and some things that I wrote down, but again it was sort of a review of much that I already know.  Please keep in mind I am not saying that in a proud and, "I am superior in knowledge way".  I actually found it refreshing.

We then spent about an hour organizing into groups who are going to be helping at the local soup kitchen, groups who will be going out in vans on Thursdays to feed the homeless, and groups who will be simply walking downtown to talk to homeless people--not preaching to them mind you.  Simply being a friend to those who are considered, "unfriend-able". 

I'm on dinner duty today, so I'll catch you all tomorrow :)

Disciples

Today was awesome.

We're supposed to be talking about relationships and identity this week, and I'm not completely sure how what you're about to read(a.k.a. what we learned today) ties into that, but regardless, I learned something and broke down more walls in my faith! 

We did a lot today, but the coolest and almost most significant thing was our discussion of Jewish customs and how Jesus related to it.  We discussed how kids were brought up studying the scriptures.  Boys studied the Torah(first five books of the bible) and girls studied the Psalms.  When they got to be around 12 or 13, they would have their respective, "mitzvahs".  Boys had a bar-mitzvah and girls had a bat-mitzvah.  This is fairly common knowledge, but necessary in the awesome knowledge I am going to relate to you.

After their coming of age, girls would be sent to learn how to keep a house with their mothers and older sisters.  Boys would have the options of continuing in study, or going into the family trade(fisherman, carpenters, etc.).  In order for the boys to continue study, they would have to be tested on their knowledge of the Torah and all 613 laws it contained(yes, 613 laws are contained from Genesis to Deuteronomy).  If they didn't pass the test, they were sent to work in their family business.

If they did pass, they followed a Rabbi(teacher), and studied under him in how to apply the Torah to life, and they also studied the other books of scripture(Psalms, Proverbs, Prophets).  In some cases, there would be an exceptional Rabbi who had another name attached to the title of Rabbi(I forget what the word is) and it meant, "Authority".  Regardless of what kind of Rabbi it was, the boys were considered that Rabbi's disciple.

Jesus called working men to His side when looking for disciples.  In other words, Jesus called guys who had been deemed, "unfit" to be disciples.  That's the first bit of knowledge, but you probably already know that too.  The next part comes out of a story in one of the gospels(I forget which one).

The disciples ask about the tax, and Jesus explains that they are to pay the tax because it belongs to Ceasar(look it up for yourself for the details).  Jesus sends Peter to catch a fish that will have enough money for two people's tax to be paid(Jesus and Peter). 

How many disciples are there?  Twelve.  That means that including Jesus, they would need thirteen people's tax money, not two.  One assumption is that the other disciples could pay for them self, but that wouldn't make sense as they dropped everything to follow Jesus.  The age at which one was required to pay tax was 20.  This means that the only disciple over twenty was Peter.

The disciples were all teenagers save for Peter.  This is actually really comforting for many reasons, most of which I'm sure you can sort out yourself.  A big one, however, is that it helps us understand why the disciples said some really immature/stupid things thorugh out the scripture.  Some times they tried to get Jesus to rain fire down on people because they weren't allowed in a town.  That sounds like a teenager instead of a mature thirty year old man.  At least, I hope that's what it sounds like. 

Anywho, that's what I found exciting about today.  It rips out a lot of doubts I had and does a whole lot more that I find difficult to put into words.  Take it as you will

Catch you tomorrow :).

Gay Christians.

If all sin is equal, why is some sin treated so much differently than others?  More specifically, homosexuality.

Everyone knows it.  The church comes close to ears in fear every time the words, "gay", "homosexual", "lesbian", or other similar words are mentioned.  Why is that?  According to God, lie-ing is just as bad.  Premarital sex is just as bad too, but that happens all the time within the church!  It's as if everyone in the church is a sinful human being or something!

There are people in the world today who have homosexual feelings, but also have a deep love for Christ.  They have spent hours on their knees and in deep, lamenting prayer for God to lift the burden from their minds, but they simply are not attracted to the opposite sex.  Many of these people attend church, but are afraid to say something about their struggle because they know that if they do, the church will pounce upon them like wolves, and throw them on the street after they have ripped them to shreds.  Every sin is equal.  If we treated every human being the way we seem to treat homosexuals, there wouldn't be a church.

Of course, there are churches which do the opposite.  Many gay couples have been married in churches by a pastor or priest.  To me that is the equivalent of handing a serial killer a knife, or a sex addict a porn magazine.  You're encouraging sin. 

There are also some churches which accept homosexual christians onto their leadership staff.  Again, to me that is like a attaching a casino to your church for everyone to go to after the service. 

I get the feeling that some people will read, "homosexual christian" and cringe, because to them that is an oxy-moron: you can't be a christian but have homosexual feelings at the same time. 

Hold on a second.  Are you saying that everyone who is gay is automatically never going to spend eternity with their all loving Father in Heaven, who so desperately wants to be with them that He bore the torture and pain that was intended for us so that we don't have to?  What happened to all men being equal?  Why does homosexuality suddenly set someone apart as the devil's minion? 

What if I said, "gambling christian" or, "sex addict christian" or, "greedy christian" or, "alcoholic christian?"  That probably seems wrong too, but that's because we're looking at the sin and thinking it impossible to be a christian if we live in sin.  And yet, in order to be a christian in the first place we have to acknowledge that we are imperfect humans who live in sin.  For some people, their sin is an addiction, or something that takes place in the mind which is very hard to deal with, even when God is helping them work through it.

Here's my point(brought about by today's dessert discussion).  The church needs to stop kicking homosexuals out of their congregations.  To admonish a homosexual for being homosexual is to commit judgement, and judgement is a sin as well.  Christ came for everyone to be loved and accepted.  We certainly don't condone the act of homosexuality, but we love the person who was struggling, and do our best to help them get through it.

I hope this made sense.  I have to go to worship practice now, catch you tomorrow.

Lord of the Rings

12 hours.

We had the day off today, so last night we decided to set up a projecter and host a lord of the rings marathon in our room.  We managed to get a hold of all three extended editions.  They are each four hours long.  That's 12 hours.

At around 3 in the morning, I woke up and realized I had missed part of the last third of, "The Two Towers".  I went to bed.  This morning, I woke up to find out everyone went to bed after the second movie was over, because only two people were still awake at that point.  Those of us who missed the end of two towers watched it with breakfast, and tonight we'll be starting the third movie at 7 so as to be in bed by 11. 

I love Lord of the Rings.

I spent the rest of my day going out to get a birthday present for my brother--he's visiting this weekend!!--and waiting for dexter to load so I can get my weekly fix.  Hopefully this is an easy week, because I don't feel like doing anything crazy.

Catch you tomorrow.

Isaac

Today was pretty awesome.  Our task was extremely simple.  Go and spend time with Jesus for just over an hour.  Sort of like yesterday, but this time we didn't really have anything in specific we were supposed to be doing, other than enjoying God's presence.

We read Psalm 139(I think that's the one) and then were sent to the park.  It was awesome.  I didn't read my bible searching for answers, I didn't ramble on to God about how I'm sorry for being dumb most of the time, and I didn't really talk at all.  I just sat with Jesus by a pond and enjoyed the quiet time together.  We chuckled at the odd thing, like a goose tipping over in the water for food after it watched a duck do it(I have never seen a goose do that) or a goose honking and cocking its head at its own honk. 

That was pretty much how it went.  Just some quality time with a very good friend.  It was extremely relaxing and calming.  Then we spent the afternoon telling each other things that we found encouraging about each other, and then Jeff did this thing where he would point to someone and get everyone to say words they thought of when they thought of that person.  I wrote down the ones people said about me(they were very confirming by the way). 

-Decisive
-Cheerful
-Calming
-Hilarious
-Relaxing
-Bright Smile
-Contagious/Infectious Smile
-Kind.

Jeff said that if these are things that people agree I am like, then I should stop trying to be other things, and focus on my strengths.  Kevin told me that he thought it was ironic that my name means laughter and that I am such a happy and friendly person.  It brings joy to my heart to know that I bring joy to the hearts of others.  God made me this way, and I love Him for it.

Seriously, I get teary-eyed thinking about it.  People love having me around because I bring a light-heartedness and happiness with me!  I don't even try!  It's hard to explain the emotions I'm going through thinking about this, but just know I'm extremely thankful and joyful.

Tomorrow's a lovely, well-deserved day off.  We're not doing much other than planning on watching Lord of the Rings, so I'm gonna go do something before we start that.  See you tomorrow!

Windy Day

Why do we only ever question God's will when we think His will will make us uncomfortable?  Why don't we question God's will when we're perfectly comfortable?

Jeff had us all go for a walk out in the park today for solitude.  We had an hour and a bit to talk to God and search out some of our weaknesses and our brokenness.  I don't know if I'm just not searching myself deep enough, or if God has worked a lot in me previous to YWAM, but I didn't find a lot of crazy brokenness within myself.  Some people had some heavy stuff today, stuff that really sounded like a crazy and awful place of brokenness..I hurt for them.  But I don't find that about myself!!

This is what I wrote in my journal after hearing everyone share(I'll get to how God spoke to me in a minute).

"Why do I not identify with all these people in their brokenness?  Is it because God has blessed me with such loving and incredible parents who didn't do a lot of emotional damage?  Is it because God has healed much of the brokenness I have already suffered?  Have I had brokenness to the extent these people have?  What is my brokenness?" 

If you wouldn't mind praying that God would aid me in answering those questions, It would be muchly appreciated! 

Ok, so how God spoke to me in the hour and a bit we had today.  To start off, I went out on my walk listening to quiet music in order to quiet my spirit and provide a little more room for clarity.  In that process, I realized when I arrived at a nice spot to sit down that I had completely forgotten what exactly Jeff had told us to do with this time.  So the first thing I said was, "well, God, what's up?".

Again, listening to very quiet and relaxing music to quiet all the busy-ness that is part of every human in the modern world.  I told God I had no idea what the heck Jeff wanted me to talk to Him for, and God reminded me of a question Jeff told us to ask God last night.  So I asked God, "How do you feel about me?".  Instantly my head was flooded with, "I love you, I care for you, I need you, I want you, etc".  No matter how much I know that in my head, every time God reminds me of it He brings a huge smile to my face.

That was wonderful, but I knew there was more I was supposed to be asking/talking to God about, so I asked another question we were told to ask--found in my notes--"What voices are robbing me of my destiny?".  In other words, what are the lies in my head that are keeping me from moving forward with God?  God caught me off guard with this one.

"You don't/can't love anyone"

This is a voice that was a lie, by the way--God would never tell me I am incapable of loving another..which is what He was trying to communicate to me.  Often times I find myself asking God for help to love others because I can't do it on my own--especially people who annoy me.  But God made this very clear to me today: "You are perfectly capable of loving others.  I programmed it into you.  I made you in my image!  It's in your nature to love others!  You just need to stop telling yourself that you can't love, and you will be able to love!"

Next, I sat in silence for quite a while with nothing, and so I started reading my bible; mark to be more specific.  I was searching for some sort of word for God, but the wind kept blowing my pages around which I found extremely frustrating.  Out of frustration I said, "Fine!  Maybe God is interrupting my reading for a reason!" so I just let go of the pages.  They stopped flipping on the title page of mark, despite the wind seeming to be pretty consistent in its blowing.  I almost turned the pages again out of more frustration, but I stopped and contemplated that title page.  "The Gospel according to Mark".  Mark was written by Mark.  God wanted me to stop studying the scriptures to find a word from Him, and just listen, or let Him do something...or something.

The wind started turning the pages again, and I read wherever my eyes fell on whatever page the wind chose to stop.  This is what I wrote in my notes.

"When I was a child, I think I had the same perception of God as I do now(it deteriorated and then matured again over the past couple years).  What does that say about the beauty of the innocence of children? 
-I study scripture too much.
-God desires mercy and not sacrifice.  "You have received free of charge, give free of charge".

That last note was made out of two seperate verses.  The first one(God desires mercy) appeared and I asked God what He meant by mercy.  Almost instantly the page flipped and I noted the second verse(you have received free of charge).  It was like God was reading to me via the wind!  It was lovely.

I didn't write anything after that, and I don't remember hearing anything else.  I got up to head back to the church but I felt like God wanted me to go to the lakeshore first.  So I did, and I stood on a barren rock overlooking the vast emptyness of the lake.  The sun was shining through the clouds in rays like a picture of some sort.  God gave me this thought, "This is pretty awesome, but this is only a sliver of a glimpse of the glory you will one day see from Me."

It was a lovely day.  Catch you tomorrow.