We've heard reports from some of the teams that are out on outreach! Over the last couple months we've had short-term teams working in Cambodia, India, the Kimberley (northern Australia), Switzerland, Thailand, and Denmark!
- In Switzerland 50 people gave their lives to Jesus in 3 weeks!
- In Cambodia in a village of 700 people one of our teams led 100 people to the Lord!
- In India a team got to share discipleship teaching with 400 local Christians!
Some highlights from two of our base ministries:
- Over the last year ARMS (Australian Relief and Mercy Services - a ministry run by YWAM Perth and in cooperation with the local government to reach out to families in crisis) aided 184 families!
- Over the last year NEXWAVE (a YWAM Perth ministry that works with Christian and non-Christian youth by doing camps and in-school seminars on values, relationships, etc) worked with over 17,000 youth in Perth and in other cities in Western Australia!
I think it's worth noting that Nexwave is a ministry comprised of about 10 staff (from between the ages of 18-30 something). It's amazing what God can do through just a few willing people!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
God on the loose
God doesn't fit in a box.
This week's DTS topic is relationships. The ywam base director Shirley Brownhill has been sharing with all three Discipleship Training Schools (Sports DTS, Music DTS, and Classic DTS - the latter I staff). Most of the time she has been sharing about the importance of deep relationship with God. It has certainly not fit in the 'box' of typical relationships teaching. It would be very hard to sum up all that she has shared. Some of the main themes that have been coming through are: the importance of living a lifestyle of hunger for the Lord, His desire and ability to heal us and transform us - out of hurts and into freedom, and our deep need to look more like Jesus to a world that is burned out on Christian hypocrisy.
God has been moving deeply in the hearts of the students and today we took a moment to respond to God - to simply pray out loud whatever was on our heart in response to what He was saying through the teaching. People were praying out deep, heartfelt prayers of surrender, of hunger for the lord, pushing aside passivity and committing to seek Him, prayers of repentance for the way we have not lived out God's character, prayers of praise for how good and beautiful He is. After probably 4o bursts of individual prayer there was a lull... and then another voice... this time in song. Boldly without warning or instruments to support him, one of the students started singing. We all joined in and it kicked off a long period of spontaneous acapella worship. Some of the students (from the music dts no big surprise) were drumming on their chairs and on the walls, there were crescendos and diminuendos, and joyful clapping. Towards the end the voices quieted and just the charged rhythm of the chair drums continued. Then all at once we just started shouting Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! A demonstration of the joy, love, and passion that come with a surrendered, seeking heart.
It was such a precious and powerful time. God stirred up hunger, desperation, humility, gratitude, commitment, love, passion, praise, adoration, worship and desire. In those moments nothing else mattered but Jesus. We completely lost track of time (it turns out what was going to be just a few prayers said out loud turned into nearly two hours of response to the Lord!) It was not just a nice prayer time, it was a deep time of communion with the Lord. And it was just a glimpse of the glory that God calls us to, the kind of life he wants us and enables us to live.
This week's DTS topic is relationships. The ywam base director Shirley Brownhill has been sharing with all three Discipleship Training Schools (Sports DTS, Music DTS, and Classic DTS - the latter I staff). Most of the time she has been sharing about the importance of deep relationship with God. It has certainly not fit in the 'box' of typical relationships teaching. It would be very hard to sum up all that she has shared. Some of the main themes that have been coming through are: the importance of living a lifestyle of hunger for the Lord, His desire and ability to heal us and transform us - out of hurts and into freedom, and our deep need to look more like Jesus to a world that is burned out on Christian hypocrisy.
God has been moving deeply in the hearts of the students and today we took a moment to respond to God - to simply pray out loud whatever was on our heart in response to what He was saying through the teaching. People were praying out deep, heartfelt prayers of surrender, of hunger for the lord, pushing aside passivity and committing to seek Him, prayers of repentance for the way we have not lived out God's character, prayers of praise for how good and beautiful He is. After probably 4o bursts of individual prayer there was a lull... and then another voice... this time in song. Boldly without warning or instruments to support him, one of the students started singing. We all joined in and it kicked off a long period of spontaneous acapella worship. Some of the students (from the music dts no big surprise) were drumming on their chairs and on the walls, there were crescendos and diminuendos, and joyful clapping. Towards the end the voices quieted and just the charged rhythm of the chair drums continued. Then all at once we just started shouting Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! A demonstration of the joy, love, and passion that come with a surrendered, seeking heart.
It was such a precious and powerful time. God stirred up hunger, desperation, humility, gratitude, commitment, love, passion, praise, adoration, worship and desire. In those moments nothing else mattered but Jesus. We completely lost track of time (it turns out what was going to be just a few prayers said out loud turned into nearly two hours of response to the Lord!) It was not just a nice prayer time, it was a deep time of communion with the Lord. And it was just a glimpse of the glory that God calls us to, the kind of life he wants us and enables us to live.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Doomsday
This week was the uh oh topic: Lordship. The scariest week of DTS, where we look at the absolute worthiness of God to be Lord of our whole lives; for us to live lives of 100% surrender. This is the week where all the fears come to the surface, and all the things we hold behind our backs, "out of God's view", get exposed. The classic hangups arise: "But if I surrender everything to God.... He will send me to go live in a mud hut in Africa... I'll never get married.... I'll be sick and miserable the rest of my life." If we're honest with ourselves we maintain tight control of our lives because we are afraid of what He will do if we let go. We then often wonder why are lives are a bit dull and our relationship with God is a bit trite.
"The problem isn't that we're lukewarm, halfhearted, or stagnant Christians. The crux of it all is why we are this way, and it is because we have an inaccurate view of God. We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way. We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives. Jesus came humbly as a servant, but He never begs us to give Him some small part of ourselves. He commands everything from His followers."
- Francis Chan, Crazy Love
The truth is He does demand everything. Just read the things Jesus said to the people who wanted to follow him but weren't prepared to do it wholeheartedly. Lordship week on DTS is taking a look at what things would hold us back from following Jesus completely, and then removing them.
So on Friday, ("application day") the students made a choice. They made the choice to never have a choice again; to let God be Lord of not parts of their lives, not some of their decisions, not one day of their week, but of ALL. You would expect this to be a very serious and somber occasion. Painful tears of fearful surrender.
But instead there were mostly tears of joy, sighs of relief, deep freedom, and a lifting of heavy burdens. Because yes God demands everything. He is very clear about that. But this same God who demands everything is the covenant keeping God, who in His own words promised His people: "I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and... in faithfulness."
We must surrender to Him because He is worthy. But we also get to surrender to Him because He's sooooooo good. If we lose our lives we will gain it. The students caught a glimpse of that ironic promise on Friday and I believe they are prepared to live it out.
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