Week Ten -- Spiritual Leadership

Our speaker this past week was Dan Thoemke from Hillside Community Church, who taught on Spiritual Leadership. It was a really cool week, where we looked at the lives of Moses, King Saul, King David, and Jesus. We talked about what leadership looks like, what the struggles are, and how to be someone who leads while glorifying the Lord.

Dan Thoemke

One thing Dan asked us was who has had the greatest influence on our lives. We went around the room and shared who it was. Most people said their parents, a few said siblings, aunts, etc. But it was really sweet to see that the people who have the greatest influence are common people.

Leadership really isn't skill-based. It's about being faithful and consistent.

"In every age, there comes a time when a leader must come forward to meet the needs of the hour. Therefore, there is no potential leader, who does not have an opportunity to make a positive difference in society. Tragically, there are times when a leader does not arise to the hour."

~Winston Churchill

We were reminded that Biblical leadership is not limited to the Christian community. We have opportunities to lead all the time. It's just a matter of recognizing them.

"The enemies we do not destroy in our strongest moments, will be the same enemies that will destroy us in our weakest moment."

~Tommy Tenney

A huge focus of this school has been cutting stuff off at the root--dealing with our junk now so that we don't get down the road in ministry and 40 years from now realize we fell prey to the same thing that the enemy used against us in our youth. This place, the environment I'm in, is the perfect place to deal with that stuff. It's easy to deal with it here because people are wanting to help us be accountable. But in other places and most scenarios, you have to make yourself accountable to people. It's a lot harder when you're outside of a discipleship bubble. I encourage you to ask people to speak into your life more often. No, it's not very fun. :) But we should have relationships with people we respect and know have our best interest in mind, where we can receive the hard truth. I want to create a culture where I can receive correction and then bring it before God so He can really deal with my heart.

Another theme God really highlighted to me this week was literally loving your neighbor. What do we think Jesus actually meant when He said, "Love your neighbor"? I've grown up in a house where we honestly haven't done that effectively. We are cordial to neighbors and have light conversations, but now I want to be intentional about building relationships with them. Real relationships. This earth is as close to heaven as some people will ever get, and I don't want to take that lightly.

We had the opportunity to close our week of teaching with a Q&A time with a panel of really awesome men and women of God who are leaders in the area. We had a couple pastors, a detective/chaplain from the police department, and a man who just stepped down from an official "pastor position" to go into real estate. We asked them hard questions like, "What's something you wish you'd have known 25 years ago?" and "How do you deal with failure as a leader?" We finished out the week with really asking ourselves, "Am I okay not doing formal ministry?" We should be! I think the answer to this last question shows who we're actually doing ministry for.

The panel during class time

Saturday was our third and last of what we call, "Service Saturday." Service Saturday is simply a day where the students and staff at YWAM Denver disperse across the city to different organizations and just serve whatever needs they have. My small group along with two others went to do four hours of children's ministry with Burmese refugee kids. We taught about the fruits of the Spirit and how much God loves us. We also sang songs, played games like musical chairs, and decorated Christmas cookies. :)

The precious kids decorating cookies

This day reminded me of outreach in Costa Rica. It made me miss it!

Our fun group!

Two weeks to go! Please keep me in your prayers as I wrap up my school and have a few final projects to finish. Thank you!

~LC

Week Nine -- Comparative Religions

Brenda Lewis was our teacher this past week on "Comparative Religions." It was a lot of review for me because I took philosophy and worldview in high school, but it was a fantastic week nonetheless! Brenda is a YWAMer who lives in Colorado but spends several months in India each year, where she has safe houses for kids who are taken out of human trafficking. Her passion for India was absolutely contagious, and I think most of my school was ready to go with her by the end of the week! ;)

In this picture, we were listing off all kinds of adjectives and aspects of Jesus' character and nature. It didn't take long to fill the white board.

The focus of the week was the importance of knowing what we believe and why we believe it, while also learning what other people believe so we can understand where they are coming from and therefore reach them with the Gospel.

We spent a lot of time looking at and discussing pantheistic worldviews, such as Hinduism and Buddhism (which was born out of Hinduism).

What I think is so interesting in different worldviews, is at some point, they are all inconsistent with what they say they believe. For example, Buddhism says that people have no value. However, it also acknowledges suffering as a problem and wants to eliminate it, but why would that matter if we have no value? Also, I've heard people ask, "If God is real, then why do the innocent suffer?" But if there is no God, what makes them innocent, and who cares if they suffer? Christianity alone says that we are significant and have value!
The list of inconsistencies goes on and on...

The conclusion that we came to is that all people want to know two things:
1. Is God good?
2. Does He love me?

We went on to analyze monotheism, specifically Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
It's interesting to see that other worldviews are also SO motivated by works. In others, you work to be accepted by God. But for Christians, we work for Him because we are accepted! It's out of love.

Some great points from the week are:
-We only believe that which motivates us to action.
-To know what someone believes, look at their life.
-Thoughts-->Choices-->Actions-->Habits-->Character-->Destiny
-Every emotion is the slave of what you think.
-Christianity is the only worldview that will satisfy the belief that we are significant and have value.
-Love is unconditional, but relationship is conditional because it is always reciprocated. 
-Law protects value! This is easy to see simply by asking people, "Why do we have laws?" They would say, "For safety." But to protect what? The answer is obviously people, because people have tremendous value.
-The first 4 commandments protect God's value (love God), and 5-10 protect our value (love others).

Wednesday evening was the start of our 4-day Thanksgiving break. Heather Miller, one of our school staff, invited a bunch of us girls over to her place for the holiday! She is wonderful, and we had a great time cooking all day and feasting later. :)

Heather is the angel in the middle :)

This weekend was also our final weekend to work on our Outreach Project. One of the requirements of this school is to set up a mock outreach, where you budget all your needs and get contacts overseas to set up ministry times for the standard two-month outreach off of a Discipleship Training School. The outreach I set up is to Hong Kong for the majority of the time, with the last two weeks spent in Newcastle, Australia. It was really cool to contact YWAM bases all over the world, ask about the ministries that go on there, and get more of an idea of what it looks like to plan/lead an outreach!

I have less than three weeks here in Denver until graduation day... It's been an incredibly enriching couple of months, and I'm excited for what the next few weeks have in store :) 

Thank you for all your prayers and love!