So I need to say sorry for when I get preachy - I don't want to fill cyberspace with more BELIEVE MY WORLDVIEW or I AM PERFECT or I AM COOLER THAN YOU.
Although, I am cooler than you.
So i'm going to be trying to make this blog a space where i'll just try to tell the truth about my life. Words like missionary still kind of bring me out in hives. Words like sin and prayer and Bible and freedom and healing need to be dusted off and tried again,
re-communicated,until maybe we can see through them and glimpse something real. Through the veil.
Maybe we could take the veil away.
This is where I reach my meandered point - we're running a Discipleship Training School.
I've always been a bit snobby about YWAM's 'University of the Nations' ('it's not a real university' etc etc) (and it's not) but it doesn't need to be. It's better. It's something else. It's not trying to be the jaded institution where I wrote essays on old books and then someone gave me a bit of paper that reassures potential employers and my mum that I was able to attend at least half my classes and tick the boxes and say the right things and prove myself an independent thinker as long as I was reading the right books.
Disclaimer: Education is wonderful, and as a woman I am only just realizing how privileged I am to have been raised with the expectation that I would get a degree. The opportunities and career options offered by having a degree are still exciting and beautiful, and I loved my time university. Proper, proper loved it.
But the reason I loved it? Apart from the obvious things like thinking I was a grownup because I cooked my own meals and sat in a library dressed like a boho scholar filling my mind full of interesting things? And because I love exams?
I loved it 'cos of Jesus.
I will always treasure the three years where I fell in love with Him and discovered what adventure feels like.
And that's why we're running a DTS, because even though the world scorns Bible College and all the concepts therein, I don't care because DTS saved me from stagnant, selfish, stupid Christianity.
DTS took my lukewarm (ish), constrained faith and blew my brain into a million pieces. God used those 5 months to take this wounded heart and breathe peace, child, into my lungs. Filled my head with stuff that actually matters. I wrote that the teaching felt like a sunrise, and it still does every time I open my notebook. Cheesy. Don't judge me.
And now we're halfway through staff training, tired and brain dribbly and aware that we're not Holy enough to disciple other people, but standing grateful and glad to be trying. So pray for our next month as students ask to come along and we say 'sure!' and then try not to freak out as we look down the barrel of a travelling outreach with small babies. As we start trying to be strong or kind enough to not alienate someone from the process of letting Him in.
It's going to take grace. I think that's ok. But pray? 'Cos we're going to try to take the veil away.
This is where I reach my meandered point - we're running a Discipleship Training School.
I've always been a bit snobby about YWAM's 'University of the Nations' ('it's not a real university' etc etc) (and it's not) but it doesn't need to be. It's better. It's something else. It's not trying to be the jaded institution where I wrote essays on old books and then someone gave me a bit of paper that reassures potential employers and my mum that I was able to attend at least half my classes and tick the boxes and say the right things and prove myself an independent thinker as long as I was reading the right books.
Disclaimer: Education is wonderful, and as a woman I am only just realizing how privileged I am to have been raised with the expectation that I would get a degree. The opportunities and career options offered by having a degree are still exciting and beautiful, and I loved my time university. Proper, proper loved it.
But the reason I loved it? Apart from the obvious things like thinking I was a grownup because I cooked my own meals and sat in a library dressed like a boho scholar filling my mind full of interesting things? And because I love exams?
I loved it 'cos of Jesus.
I will always treasure the three years where I fell in love with Him and discovered what adventure feels like.
And that's why we're running a DTS, because even though the world scorns Bible College and all the concepts therein, I don't care because DTS saved me from stagnant, selfish, stupid Christianity.
DTS took my lukewarm (ish), constrained faith and blew my brain into a million pieces. God used those 5 months to take this wounded heart and breathe peace, child, into my lungs. Filled my head with stuff that actually matters. I wrote that the teaching felt like a sunrise, and it still does every time I open my notebook. Cheesy. Don't judge me.
And now we're halfway through staff training, tired and brain dribbly and aware that we're not Holy enough to disciple other people, but standing grateful and glad to be trying. So pray for our next month as students ask to come along and we say 'sure!' and then try not to freak out as we look down the barrel of a travelling outreach with small babies. As we start trying to be strong or kind enough to not alienate someone from the process of letting Him in.
It's going to take grace. I think that's ok. But pray? 'Cos we're going to try to take the veil away.
And here's Beth. Because I know you're all like 'but where's BETH?' and crying and stuff.
She dribbles a lot. I made some bibs. She dribbled them to death. Now my sewing machine's broken. Wheeeee!
Good night. xxxx
Good night. xxxx
Great post! You guys are great and will do awesome in the DTS. The invitation for a visit is still on the table if you need it before all the fun begins :)
ReplyDeleteDo you need a new sewing machine? Can help.
ReplyDelete