The long weekend is past, the students are back, and we're back to work here at the base. This week's topic is spiritual warfare. Now that we've dealt with the base concepts of being a disciple and relationship with our heavenly father, we can get to the meat of what it is we're sent to do.
Ephesians 6:12 -- "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
It's one thing to read a verse like this, it's something else to experience it. When 24/7 Church first started, we occupied one of the most popular nightclubs in southern Ontario. A year almost to the day later, attendance had dropped significantly (for no apparent reason) and they went bankrupt leaving 24/7 with a fully functioning facility to call our own. That's the point in my life where I learned that the spirituality of a place is a real thing. If you don't think what we do as people really makes a difference, think again. There is a war going on, it is everywhere, and it is important!
2 Corinthians 4:4 -- "In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God"
Watch what you let into your home. What are you watching on TV? Things to build you up? Or things to just distract you? Are you reading and listening to the words of the Lord on a regular basis? Or are you distracted by the shiny things of our culture?
Take a moment today to ponder about this. Are you more focused on what is temporary, or what is eternal? This is especially important in America where Black Friday (the day where materialism is truly scary) just happened.
The enemy doesn't take a day off. Keep that in mind, and that's what we're focusing on this week here.
Keep the faith,
Christopher
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Gobble Gobble Gobble
'Ello all!
It has been a crazy busy week this past week. I've spent the bulk of this week inside a semi trailer of one sort or another. Last Saturday we had our Thanksgiving food drive, so the first half of the week was spent counting, then bagging all the food we got. We ended up with close to 400 bags of food (which include corn, green beans, stuffing, mashed potato mix, gravy, some sort off desert and a stick of butter). Saturday was our big delivery day. We were able to purchase over 450 turkeys. I spent close to over 10 hours running around town giving out meals in housing projects here, as well as at homes the schools have identified as needing aid. Then in the evening we had some extras so we did some spirit-led handing out which was quite rewarding. We walked up to one house Tna picked out and we give a lady the meal and her daughter who is about six or seven ran up yelling "is that food, they're bringing us food!" All our hearts broke. Also our big van broke down (again) so we got to have an adventure trying to get the thing out of the busy intersection. It started after it sat for 20 minutes, but we don't trust it so it needs some prayer. We still have a few meals to hand out for people t hat weren't home on the weekend, but it's winding down nicely. I also spent a bit of time over at a Baptist Church here which is the local drop off for Operation Christmas Child loading all the shoeboxes on their trucks. So a lot of heavy lifting was done this week, and I'll be going back this afternoon. Mondays are their busiest days.
Thursday is Thanksgiving here, so we have a half-week this week. Cam Speer, who just came to staff here after finishing a School of Biblical Studies (a 9-month intense Bible course) in Montana, is doing a Biblical overview the next two days. So he'll go over what the Bible is, why it's considered reliable and authentic, and how to get a lot out of it. Wednesday we have a half-day and then... I have four days of nothing to do because I already had Thanksgiving. I'll see what work I can get done while it's quiet around here.
The church I sort-of attend and plan on actually attending called Forest Hill is going through a series on Justice. This week was about sex-trafficking which is the big issue on my heart. Sex-trafficking is said to be one of the world's largest industries, similar in scope to drug-trafficking. The average age of targeted girls is 12 years old. Twelve. Let that sink in a moment. This isn't an issue that only exists in poorer countries. Charlotte is a major North American hub. One of the members at the church became entwined in it at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte Campus. She was raped repeatedly and blackmailed to continue. She thinks she would still be involved if the FBI hadn't picked up her blackmailer for something else. She goes to my church. Don't turn a blind eye to justice. People are being abused on our very doorsteps. As the Church, it's our job to bring hope to the hopeless, and these girls don't have a lot of hope.
It's my goal here to get involved with the University. Not just to start another university group, but to utilise what is already there and expand it to not only evangelise, but to stop stuff like this from happening. That's my call, and that's my purpose. /endrant
So yeah, that was this week.
God Bless everyone,
Christopher
It has been a crazy busy week this past week. I've spent the bulk of this week inside a semi trailer of one sort or another. Last Saturday we had our Thanksgiving food drive, so the first half of the week was spent counting, then bagging all the food we got. We ended up with close to 400 bags of food (which include corn, green beans, stuffing, mashed potato mix, gravy, some sort off desert and a stick of butter). Saturday was our big delivery day. We were able to purchase over 450 turkeys. I spent close to over 10 hours running around town giving out meals in housing projects here, as well as at homes the schools have identified as needing aid. Then in the evening we had some extras so we did some spirit-led handing out which was quite rewarding. We walked up to one house Tna picked out and we give a lady the meal and her daughter who is about six or seven ran up yelling "is that food, they're bringing us food!" All our hearts broke. Also our big van broke down (again) so we got to have an adventure trying to get the thing out of the busy intersection. It started after it sat for 20 minutes, but we don't trust it so it needs some prayer. We still have a few meals to hand out for people t hat weren't home on the weekend, but it's winding down nicely. I also spent a bit of time over at a Baptist Church here which is the local drop off for Operation Christmas Child loading all the shoeboxes on their trucks. So a lot of heavy lifting was done this week, and I'll be going back this afternoon. Mondays are their busiest days.
Thursday is Thanksgiving here, so we have a half-week this week. Cam Speer, who just came to staff here after finishing a School of Biblical Studies (a 9-month intense Bible course) in Montana, is doing a Biblical overview the next two days. So he'll go over what the Bible is, why it's considered reliable and authentic, and how to get a lot out of it. Wednesday we have a half-day and then... I have four days of nothing to do because I already had Thanksgiving. I'll see what work I can get done while it's quiet around here.
The church I sort-of attend and plan on actually attending called Forest Hill is going through a series on Justice. This week was about sex-trafficking which is the big issue on my heart. Sex-trafficking is said to be one of the world's largest industries, similar in scope to drug-trafficking. The average age of targeted girls is 12 years old. Twelve. Let that sink in a moment. This isn't an issue that only exists in poorer countries. Charlotte is a major North American hub. One of the members at the church became entwined in it at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte Campus. She was raped repeatedly and blackmailed to continue. She thinks she would still be involved if the FBI hadn't picked up her blackmailer for something else. She goes to my church. Don't turn a blind eye to justice. People are being abused on our very doorsteps. As the Church, it's our job to bring hope to the hopeless, and these girls don't have a lot of hope.
It's my goal here to get involved with the University. Not just to start another university group, but to utilise what is already there and expand it to not only evangelise, but to stop stuff like this from happening. That's my call, and that's my purpose. /endrant
So yeah, that was this week.
God Bless everyone,
Christopher
Monday, November 12, 2012
Shake and Bake!
Back home from the YWAM South East Conference in Talladega (which spell check tells me should be spelled
'Gallbladder'). It was nice having a week with little responsibility. I
could go where I wanted, when I wanted. It was a nice break from the
craziness of day to day life here in Charlotte. I got to sit in on all
the sessions spoken by Paul Hawkins. The week was about the Nature and
Character of God. It's kind of the backbone of the idea of Youth With A
Mission, "Know God, and Make Him Known". YWAM's schools aren't theology schools. The main school isn't
about a download of knowledge, it's about getting to know our creator
more intimately. One's theology should come from the knowledge of our Creator, not our knowledge of our Creator coming from our theology.
So Paul Hawkins has been in YWAM for years. He's pioneered a few things in his time. He spends all his time now going about and speaking about God's character. He calls himself a loose cannon inside YWAM, and he really is. I have mountains of notes to go through. Most people don't really trust God's character, so Paul exists to fix that.
The election was a thing. There was some cheering, there was some jeering. Most people I've talked to aren't big fans of either. The important thing is to pray for the leader, no matter your opinion of him or them (like the Fiberals in Ontario). So someone woke me up at 9am last Saturday asking me to vote for Obama. Waking someone up on their day to sleep in is counter-productive to securing a vote, just if you find yourself in that position ever.
One thing that stuck with me last week is that our God is the only god of any religion who is both infinite and personal! Hindu God's aren't infinite. Allah isn't personal. Just an interesting thought.
On Thursday I went for a walk in the woods. It's beautiful there at the conference centre, and the first thing I learned on my walk is that I'm out of shape. The second thing I learned is that if I go a half-mile in any direction I get cell service, but at the conference centre itself I have no service. So I had no phone last week. Kara and Aaron were gracious enough to text-bomb me with over 100 text messages that I received as we were leaving Friday morning. I think my phone used most of it's battery power vibrating. So the walk was beautiful. I got a little confused at one point because the trails weren't well marked. I prayed for help and God told me quite clearly that I had a map, a GPS and the sun to show me direction. I was just like "oh, yeah. I actually know how to do this". So I noticed an hour and a half into my walk that the sun was rather low. I check the weather. Sunset was at 4:45. I looked at the time, 4:45. Oops. So heading back it was a little dark. I made it to a road at 5:15, and got back at 5:30 and it was pitch black, but I had a fun adventure. The alone time was nice when I'm usually constantly surrounded by people.
This past Saturday we had our food drive for Lord of the Harvest. Our outreach to give the less fortunate families in the county here a Thanksgiving meal. The idea behind it is that every family should have one day where they have no shame for not being able to put food on the table. So over the day we made $1500 and got 72 turkeys (they were on sale. A normal year we only get about 20). We figure we need $4000 to get all the turkeys we need, and we're pretty much there. I spent the morning counting cans of food we have in the back of a semi trailer sitting in our parking lot. There is nearly a 1000 cans of corn. We'll rent a truck on the weekend, a forklift at Walmart will put pallets of frozen Turkeys in the truck. It was a blast last year, especially to see the gratefulness of most of the families.
This week we're also loading shoe boxes onto trucks for Operation Christmas Child.
'Tis going to be a crazy week, but I'm excited.
God Bless,
Christopher
So Paul Hawkins has been in YWAM for years. He's pioneered a few things in his time. He spends all his time now going about and speaking about God's character. He calls himself a loose cannon inside YWAM, and he really is. I have mountains of notes to go through. Most people don't really trust God's character, so Paul exists to fix that.
The election was a thing. There was some cheering, there was some jeering. Most people I've talked to aren't big fans of either. The important thing is to pray for the leader, no matter your opinion of him or them (like the Fiberals in Ontario). So someone woke me up at 9am last Saturday asking me to vote for Obama. Waking someone up on their day to sleep in is counter-productive to securing a vote, just if you find yourself in that position ever.
One thing that stuck with me last week is that our God is the only god of any religion who is both infinite and personal! Hindu God's aren't infinite. Allah isn't personal. Just an interesting thought.
On Thursday I went for a walk in the woods. It's beautiful there at the conference centre, and the first thing I learned on my walk is that I'm out of shape. The second thing I learned is that if I go a half-mile in any direction I get cell service, but at the conference centre itself I have no service. So I had no phone last week. Kara and Aaron were gracious enough to text-bomb me with over 100 text messages that I received as we were leaving Friday morning. I think my phone used most of it's battery power vibrating. So the walk was beautiful. I got a little confused at one point because the trails weren't well marked. I prayed for help and God told me quite clearly that I had a map, a GPS and the sun to show me direction. I was just like "oh, yeah. I actually know how to do this". So I noticed an hour and a half into my walk that the sun was rather low. I check the weather. Sunset was at 4:45. I looked at the time, 4:45. Oops. So heading back it was a little dark. I made it to a road at 5:15, and got back at 5:30 and it was pitch black, but I had a fun adventure. The alone time was nice when I'm usually constantly surrounded by people.
This past Saturday we had our food drive for Lord of the Harvest. Our outreach to give the less fortunate families in the county here a Thanksgiving meal. The idea behind it is that every family should have one day where they have no shame for not being able to put food on the table. So over the day we made $1500 and got 72 turkeys (they were on sale. A normal year we only get about 20). We figure we need $4000 to get all the turkeys we need, and we're pretty much there. I spent the morning counting cans of food we have in the back of a semi trailer sitting in our parking lot. There is nearly a 1000 cans of corn. We'll rent a truck on the weekend, a forklift at Walmart will put pallets of frozen Turkeys in the truck. It was a blast last year, especially to see the gratefulness of most of the families.
This week we're also loading shoe boxes onto trucks for Operation Christmas Child.
'Tis going to be a crazy week, but I'm excited.
God Bless,
Christopher
Friday, November 2, 2012
It's Friday!
It's Friday!
It's been a busy week here at YWAM Charlotte. Last Friday Christopher Vengala and I engaged the class in a little practice evangelism. I played an Atheist, and he played a Muslim/Hindu. I think it really showed how important it is to not only be able to say "I believe in God because of this event, or this feeling" but be able to logically back up your beliefs. I did pretty well as an Atheist until Christopher became a traitor to the cause and switched sides. He then tried to box me into agreeing that morals have to come from a higher being and that was an adventure to try and squirm around that. We then later prayed the filling of the Holy Spirit and there was some first time tongues going on. Good day.
Last weekend was a free weekend, and it was nice to be able to sit and relax in a quiet house. It's normally so busy, so having most of the students gone for the weekend was a welcome change of pace. Sunday I had an amazing time at Forest Hill Church but all too soon it was back to the grindstone.
So this week the students are learning about Original Design. So they're going over things like pride and passivity and other detrimental attitudes that aren't part of our original design. Vicky Hedgepeth who is one of the base leaders is teaching this week. I haven't been able to go to any of the lectures but I hear good things. A lot of the staff are in class this week taking part so I've taken a few extra shifts in the kitchen.
Wednesday night we had our first annual Fall Festival which is a Halloween alternative dealy for the local children in the neighbourhood. We had snacks and some games set up as well as a prayer booth. All evening we also had live music preformed by the staff and students (also, if anyone wants to donate a sound system it would be appreciated). Overall we had 17 children come. It takes a while for this area to get involved in anything, but every year we do it we'll get more and more people. Seventeen is a very good start.
On Sunday we leave for Talladega, Alabama for the YWAM South-East U.S. Conference. Last year's conference was incredible, so we're all very excited. It should be a spectacular week.When you stick 500+ YWAMers in a room, big things happen.
God Bless everyone,
Christopher
It's been a busy week here at YWAM Charlotte. Last Friday Christopher Vengala and I engaged the class in a little practice evangelism. I played an Atheist, and he played a Muslim/Hindu. I think it really showed how important it is to not only be able to say "I believe in God because of this event, or this feeling" but be able to logically back up your beliefs. I did pretty well as an Atheist until Christopher became a traitor to the cause and switched sides. He then tried to box me into agreeing that morals have to come from a higher being and that was an adventure to try and squirm around that. We then later prayed the filling of the Holy Spirit and there was some first time tongues going on. Good day.
Last weekend was a free weekend, and it was nice to be able to sit and relax in a quiet house. It's normally so busy, so having most of the students gone for the weekend was a welcome change of pace. Sunday I had an amazing time at Forest Hill Church but all too soon it was back to the grindstone.
So this week the students are learning about Original Design. So they're going over things like pride and passivity and other detrimental attitudes that aren't part of our original design. Vicky Hedgepeth who is one of the base leaders is teaching this week. I haven't been able to go to any of the lectures but I hear good things. A lot of the staff are in class this week taking part so I've taken a few extra shifts in the kitchen.
Wednesday night we had our first annual Fall Festival which is a Halloween alternative dealy for the local children in the neighbourhood. We had snacks and some games set up as well as a prayer booth. All evening we also had live music preformed by the staff and students (also, if anyone wants to donate a sound system it would be appreciated). Overall we had 17 children come. It takes a while for this area to get involved in anything, but every year we do it we'll get more and more people. Seventeen is a very good start.
On Sunday we leave for Talladega, Alabama for the YWAM South-East U.S. Conference. Last year's conference was incredible, so we're all very excited. It should be a spectacular week.When you stick 500+ YWAMers in a room, big things happen.
God Bless everyone,
Christopher
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