The past two weeks here have been something else. So much stuff has gone on during the lectures that I am bursting at the seems to share it. This is just what I have experienced, and I know that I have friends out there who are not Christians and that this stuff may not make sense, but it is what I am up to and what I'm going through, and it is very real.
Last week's lecture was about The Cross, what happened, what it meant and how do we respond, or apply its significance into what we do. We also looked a lot at something else that my family is well acquainted with: choice. We looked at some scripture in a light I had never seen it before. In the Story of Jesus' betrayal right before his crucifixion, he was arrested right after praying that his Father in heaven would take the burden of suffering that he was about to go through away from him. What response did he receive to this prayer? When Peter pulled out a sword and attacked the guard arresting his Lord, Jesus rebuked him and told him that if He asked for it, His Father would send him 12 legions of angels. TWELVE LEGIONS that's something like 72,000, and if one angel can kill all the firstborn in Egypt, or make armies flee, what with 72000 of them do? Was that the answer Jesus received from his prayer?
"Well Son, if you don't want to go through with it, we can pull the plug on this plan of salvation and you can come home."
If that was the answer Jesus received from his prayer and he still decided to go through with everything that he suffered....I can't use words anymore...WOW!
And that's just one thing I got from last week...;) If anyone wants more on choice send me a message and I will SO share other things that I learned, cause I'm so excited about them
This week we've gone a direction of learning about Walking with Jesus. What the heck does that mean? Well the focus of the teachings has been from our speakers experience that God wants intimacy.
Oh sure the creator of the universe wants to hang out with us individually, do you detect my sarcasm?
Well here's a few things that I've come to realize. God's will, or calling on our life is NOT the best place for us to DO something for his kingdom, but the best place to get to KNOW HIM and hang out with him as in a close relationship.
Another thing, we often feel like we can't get close to God because we've got so much junk in our lives, so we try to change and get ride of the junk so that we're able to get closer to God. But, if he's forgiven us of our junk and he's not paying attention to it, why should we? If we focus our attention of who He is and trying to get to know him the result is that we change. WOAH! Crazy. And out of that comes this; everything that we want to do for God will be an overflow our of intimacy with him. The closer we get the more we want to do for Him.
I don't know about other people, but for me that's about 180 degrees different from how I used to think about it.
Want a true story? Well I'm still struggling for the money to pay for this trip, but the other day I had some donations come in that allow me to pay for my school fees to YWAM. Unfortunately they were not enough to pay the activity fee, which is a snowboard pass. This is not a big issue for me. I have back country equipment, and I love hiking, so walking up a slope that no one else is riding and then riding back down is something I would love to do. At the moment there is not enough snow for that so I wait. However, this morning, after our community open night last night, sitting on the table in the community room was an envelope, labeled, "Matt For Snowboarding Pass" and inside, was more than enough required to purchase a pass. Which is a sum of 1160 CHF. WOW! God really is good and wants to give us gifts. Someone might ask about people who are suffering in the third world and why God didn't send the money to them. I don't know the answer to that. but after this week's lectures about intimacy with God and His provision I feel like this...I've heard stories of crazy provision from God and have believed them, but never thought that they would happen for me. Yet here's God, giving me a gift through an anonymous person, to do something that is considered extravagant. God's calling on our life takes us to the place where we are able to come to know Him more, not to do things for Him, He's God, He can do things for Himself pretty handily.
Let's end here,
Matt Clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Unchartted Territory
Outreach
Well here's a cool story that I shall enjoy typing up for your enjoyment as a reader, or so I would hope that you're enjoying it because you are after all the one who is reading it.
So as some know and other are finding out, as a part of the Discipleship Training School (DTS) we get to go on an outreach. For this DTS program the outreach is allotted 10 weeks. So that means, for 10 weeks we will be splitting up our group of 25 people and heading out into the world to reach different people groups, and different people as individuals, because we care about them too, with the love that we have felt in Jesus Christ.
"Oh, cool, you get to go traveling with a bunch of friends on a 10 week holiday." WRONG!
Outreach is not easy, but it is rewarding. Now I've never lead an outreach, and I've never even been on the leading side of an outreach...until now. Since my only experience on a DTS outreach is as a student, this will be an adventure into uncharted territories. Now, perhaps you may be wondering just where exactly I will be going on outreach, but I'm going to use a little trick I've seen used in many great novels and keep you in suspense a little while longer.
The other day I was approached by the school leader we conversed and then discussed and then concluded that I would be the team, well, leader. Now unfortunately we are a leadership team (operating in teams just happens to be a YWAM value) so team leader is not an appropriate title. Perhaps Team Keeper, or Team Captain might be a more precise tittle for describing what I will be doing. Uncharted Territory!
Now, here's the cool part of the story.
The outreach locations were made known to me during staff training and the options were. Drum roll please: Japan, Vancouver Olympics/South America, Afghanistan, South Africa, India. Let's look at the ones thats tuck out to me. 1) India, well I just came from there and loved it. God did give me a desire to go there when he asked me to start praying for the country earlier this year. 2) Japan, A team is returning there lead by the same people as last year, so some good foundation to work on is nicer than plowing your own fields. 3) Vancouver Olympics/South America, in praying for outreaches I got a verse from Jeremaia 33:3 I think, Set up way markers and return to your cities...Gee golly gosh what's my city VANCOUVER!
So I planned on going to Vancouver, totally excited, and ready to rock it. Excited about being able to visit friends, my home church, my rugby club and taking the group to my favorite snowboarding spots. Finally I felt that since I had been willing to give up my dream of being a part of the Olympics, that God was now giving that back to me. However, through a conversation with my school leader, God challenged me to give up the Olympics, one more time. I felt like he was telling me that I was going to be used in either place, but if I wanted to grow as a disciple, then South Africa was where he's teach me the good stuff.
And so, in concluding, I will indeed be traveling to South Africa with an outreach team of 10 people. We now have begun the process of building this outreach from the ground up. Where in SA? What types of ministries: children, poor people, sports, schools? How long for each location? The basic questions. Again, UNCHARTED TERRITORY!
Well as i head out to see what's there, I'll definitely be going big.
Matt Clarke
Go Big, or Go Home!
Well here's a cool story that I shall enjoy typing up for your enjoyment as a reader, or so I would hope that you're enjoying it because you are after all the one who is reading it.
So as some know and other are finding out, as a part of the Discipleship Training School (DTS) we get to go on an outreach. For this DTS program the outreach is allotted 10 weeks. So that means, for 10 weeks we will be splitting up our group of 25 people and heading out into the world to reach different people groups, and different people as individuals, because we care about them too, with the love that we have felt in Jesus Christ.
"Oh, cool, you get to go traveling with a bunch of friends on a 10 week holiday." WRONG!
Outreach is not easy, but it is rewarding. Now I've never lead an outreach, and I've never even been on the leading side of an outreach...until now. Since my only experience on a DTS outreach is as a student, this will be an adventure into uncharted territories. Now, perhaps you may be wondering just where exactly I will be going on outreach, but I'm going to use a little trick I've seen used in many great novels and keep you in suspense a little while longer.
The other day I was approached by the school leader we conversed and then discussed and then concluded that I would be the team, well, leader. Now unfortunately we are a leadership team (operating in teams just happens to be a YWAM value) so team leader is not an appropriate title. Perhaps Team Keeper, or Team Captain might be a more precise tittle for describing what I will be doing. Uncharted Territory!
Now, here's the cool part of the story.
The outreach locations were made known to me during staff training and the options were. Drum roll please: Japan, Vancouver Olympics/South America, Afghanistan, South Africa, India. Let's look at the ones thats tuck out to me. 1) India, well I just came from there and loved it. God did give me a desire to go there when he asked me to start praying for the country earlier this year. 2) Japan, A team is returning there lead by the same people as last year, so some good foundation to work on is nicer than plowing your own fields. 3) Vancouver Olympics/South America, in praying for outreaches I got a verse from Jeremaia 33:3 I think, Set up way markers and return to your cities...Gee golly gosh what's my city VANCOUVER!
So I planned on going to Vancouver, totally excited, and ready to rock it. Excited about being able to visit friends, my home church, my rugby club and taking the group to my favorite snowboarding spots. Finally I felt that since I had been willing to give up my dream of being a part of the Olympics, that God was now giving that back to me. However, through a conversation with my school leader, God challenged me to give up the Olympics, one more time. I felt like he was telling me that I was going to be used in either place, but if I wanted to grow as a disciple, then South Africa was where he's teach me the good stuff.
And so, in concluding, I will indeed be traveling to South Africa with an outreach team of 10 people. We now have begun the process of building this outreach from the ground up. Where in SA? What types of ministries: children, poor people, sports, schools? How long for each location? The basic questions. Again, UNCHARTED TERRITORY!
Well as i head out to see what's there, I'll definitely be going big.
Matt Clarke
Go Big, or Go Home!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
A Day in the Life
Hmm, this is an interesting conundrum. I'm sitting here in Davos Switzerland busy almost every day all day and I can't think of anything to write about, go and figure that one out. So I've decided, just now in this very moment that if you've got any requests I can certainly write about anything.
Let's go with A Day in the Life
So, I wake up around 6:30 or so and hit the snooze button like any normal person right. I then make myself get out of bed before 6:45, put on some clothes, and no, they are not necessarily clean ones, and head out to the community room. Once there I make sure that there is music and room for Coach Powers. CP being our physical trainer; he doesn't actually show up each day we just use his program every other morning to keep in shape and ready for the slopes. CP is half an hour long and is followed by breakfast of bread/toast with jam and a bowl of cornflakes. I have of late taken to buying my own eggs as I'm not eating meet and like having some protein in my diet. After eating we come together as a group for a morning devotional or mini sermon called a sermonette and then we disperse for quiet time, or seeking God's face. This can be sitting quietly and contemplating, playing/listening to music or, my favorites, journaling and reading the bible.
After we come back together we participate in worship be it music, singing, drawing or some cool way in which to glorify God, intercessory prayer, and/or lectures with our weekly guest speakers.
Well, you may be thinking to yourself, that sounds like a busy day, and it is. But we're only up to lunch time. After eating it's straight into staff meeting for me. And each afternoon holds something different. We get chances to do a bible study with the students, prepare for outreach, read one of the required reading books, work on our journal or book reports, prepare a teaching or sermonette and do research for and prepare for outreach.
Once we've done that, and help the students with their work duties, we get to eat dinner and jump into the evening schedule. Fun times, parties fires and marshmallows, or small group hang times where we get a chance to process the day, local outreaches and open nights of inviting the local people to our base for an evening. Of course this doesn't all happen in one night, but it all happens in a week.
Then we go to bed get up and start the next day. It is also, of course, a snowboarders DTS, so when in all of this do we have time to ride? Well we make time. We've got most weekends free to go and ride, and we will be making the most of them. This weekend is the first weekend that the slopes are open and I believe that most people are going to be so tired, how tired? SO tired, that they is gonna crash HARD in the evening.
It is unfortunate that I can not think of any good stories to tell. I know that cool stuff has happened, like we started climbing this mountain and it was cool to see these avalanche barriers and all these old walls that are almost 100 years old and were probably built by slow manual labor and brining the rocks up a few at a time with donkeys or horses. There are some cool pictures, but I don't have them :'( I know. oh wait, maybe I can find a link for you...Sorry, not at the moment, maybe later.
Oh, fun news, one of the buys here has a video camera that I can use and have some fun with. So it'll be good times all around. Perhaps I'll get some videos on line tomorrow morning. That'd be sweet eh?
Oh here's a funny story. Among my fellow staff are 3 Swiss Germans, 1 Swiss Italian 1 fellow Canadian and myself. Of all of them, the hardest one for me to listen to was the other Canadian. None of them are difficult to understand, it was just the strangest accent for me to hear. I told you it was a funny story.
Until next time,
Go Big or Go Home!
Let's go with A Day in the Life
So, I wake up around 6:30 or so and hit the snooze button like any normal person right. I then make myself get out of bed before 6:45, put on some clothes, and no, they are not necessarily clean ones, and head out to the community room. Once there I make sure that there is music and room for Coach Powers. CP being our physical trainer; he doesn't actually show up each day we just use his program every other morning to keep in shape and ready for the slopes. CP is half an hour long and is followed by breakfast of bread/toast with jam and a bowl of cornflakes. I have of late taken to buying my own eggs as I'm not eating meet and like having some protein in my diet. After eating we come together as a group for a morning devotional or mini sermon called a sermonette and then we disperse for quiet time, or seeking God's face. This can be sitting quietly and contemplating, playing/listening to music or, my favorites, journaling and reading the bible.
After we come back together we participate in worship be it music, singing, drawing or some cool way in which to glorify God, intercessory prayer, and/or lectures with our weekly guest speakers.
Well, you may be thinking to yourself, that sounds like a busy day, and it is. But we're only up to lunch time. After eating it's straight into staff meeting for me. And each afternoon holds something different. We get chances to do a bible study with the students, prepare for outreach, read one of the required reading books, work on our journal or book reports, prepare a teaching or sermonette and do research for and prepare for outreach.
Once we've done that, and help the students with their work duties, we get to eat dinner and jump into the evening schedule. Fun times, parties fires and marshmallows, or small group hang times where we get a chance to process the day, local outreaches and open nights of inviting the local people to our base for an evening. Of course this doesn't all happen in one night, but it all happens in a week.
Then we go to bed get up and start the next day. It is also, of course, a snowboarders DTS, so when in all of this do we have time to ride? Well we make time. We've got most weekends free to go and ride, and we will be making the most of them. This weekend is the first weekend that the slopes are open and I believe that most people are going to be so tired, how tired? SO tired, that they is gonna crash HARD in the evening.
It is unfortunate that I can not think of any good stories to tell. I know that cool stuff has happened, like we started climbing this mountain and it was cool to see these avalanche barriers and all these old walls that are almost 100 years old and were probably built by slow manual labor and brining the rocks up a few at a time with donkeys or horses. There are some cool pictures, but I don't have them :'( I know. oh wait, maybe I can find a link for you...Sorry, not at the moment, maybe later.
Oh, fun news, one of the buys here has a video camera that I can use and have some fun with. So it'll be good times all around. Perhaps I'll get some videos on line tomorrow morning. That'd be sweet eh?
Oh here's a funny story. Among my fellow staff are 3 Swiss Germans, 1 Swiss Italian 1 fellow Canadian and myself. Of all of them, the hardest one for me to listen to was the other Canadian. None of them are difficult to understand, it was just the strangest accent for me to hear. I told you it was a funny story.
Until next time,
Go Big or Go Home!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
The Weeks Go By
And so they will continue to so, some seemingly longer than others. These past few have however been of the short variety. Days filled with lots of stuff to do, people to talk to and things to learn.
As a DTS staff member I'm seeing first hand now how much goes into a school from the planning and organizational side, and It's haunting how much more goes on that I don't know about. God bless the school leaders around the world.
I'm not really certain what to write today, but I felt that I should write something. It's snowing here! That's pretty exciting news, and the mountains are opening next weekend, I hope I'll be able to get my pass by then.
The students have been here for one week and we're really diving in and they're already blowing me away, can't wait for outreach. On the other hand, Beginning to plan the outreach and all the little things that go along with that is all new ground for me, so not only is it a little daunting, but I don't even know all of the things that I need to consider. That's kind of fun eh? What an adventure it will be.
Oh yeah, as for outreach, I'm still praying as to where I will be going to be leading a team. Does anyone think they have a word from God about where he wants me to go?
So, funny story, I learned this new game called Ninja, where you get to be a ninja and we play it quite often. I recommend being a ninja as often as possible :)
Oh we have a ping pong table and a fössball table, so I must away and go play.
Matt Clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
As a DTS staff member I'm seeing first hand now how much goes into a school from the planning and organizational side, and It's haunting how much more goes on that I don't know about. God bless the school leaders around the world.
I'm not really certain what to write today, but I felt that I should write something. It's snowing here! That's pretty exciting news, and the mountains are opening next weekend, I hope I'll be able to get my pass by then.
The students have been here for one week and we're really diving in and they're already blowing me away, can't wait for outreach. On the other hand, Beginning to plan the outreach and all the little things that go along with that is all new ground for me, so not only is it a little daunting, but I don't even know all of the things that I need to consider. That's kind of fun eh? What an adventure it will be.
Oh yeah, as for outreach, I'm still praying as to where I will be going to be leading a team. Does anyone think they have a word from God about where he wants me to go?
So, funny story, I learned this new game called Ninja, where you get to be a ninja and we play it quite often. I recommend being a ninja as often as possible :)
Oh we have a ping pong table and a fössball table, so I must away and go play.
Matt Clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
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