Adventures for the Lord: Week 3: The Reality of Walking with Jesus

Ericka and I eating frozen yogurt - literally yogurt that I

put in the freezer - DELICIOUS and reading our assigned book.
I highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet.
Is That Really You, God? by Loren Cunningham, Founder of YWAM

Last week was week three of our lectures. I cannot believe how fast time is flying by here. Dave Gibbons was our speaker for the week. He was part of the Leadership Summit 2009 Speaker Line Up, so if the name sounds familiar, that may be where you heard it.

"Dave Gibbons is the founding pastor of Newsong Church, a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-continental, multi-site church in Irvine, CA, named as one of the most innovative churches in America by Outreach Magazine. Gibbons also leads the Newsong Global Alliance, a catalytic church organization with expanding, worldwide reach into Asia, Central America, and Europe. The author of The Monkey and the Fish, Gibbons is a vision-oriented leader known for his insightful thinking on the future of the church. He brings expertise on “Third Culture” leadership and the top skills and experiences every leader will need to reach our global culture with the gospel." - Excerpt from http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/2009/david-gibbons.asp

We did a very interesting activity one of the days of Dave's teachings. We were asked to complete 3 assessments. First, I was to draw a time line of my life. I could draw pics and/or use words to identify key people, places and events through my life. The second task was to create a 2x2 matrix. Each quadrant would contain info from one category. The four categories were who energizes me, who de-energizes me, what energizes me, what de-energizes me. The final assessment was to draw my home when I was ten years old. I then needed to draw my family members and myself where I saw us in the home at that age.

When reviewing the assessments, we were taught to look for patterns, reasons and places to confirm the cause of why someone currently has a certain thought pattern or belief, and most importantly the fingerprints of God's hand throughout the person's life. The assessments also revealed to many people the sources of deep pain and hurt that may have previously been undefined or buried so deep they were more or less unaware of its existence.

The principles to remember when reviewing the sssessments:

It's more about your weakness than your strength. We can see why and how God uses certain pains. Weakness becomes a gift if we allow grace to transform us.
It's more about pain than pleasure. Although we most likely won't understand that at the time, the pain in life will become each person's connection to the world. People won't connect to one's achievements through life, they will connect to one's pain.

Though it may not look like it from the notes I have included here, this was definitely a week of realizing deep hurt, forgiveness and healing. I became aware of hurts that I never had even recognized as problems. After lots of tears and headaches from crying, now I understand that God did not want certain events and relationships to take place the way they did. This week has also taught me that God can and will use pain and hurt from my life to benefit others. God gave me a gift that no one else has - my story. My suffering is a way that I can reach and relate to the rest of the world.

A few key phrases from the week that I am praying about deeper and allowing to sink in.

The purpose of a word is to catch an idea, once the idea is caught, the word is forgotten
Success in God's eyes is often a failure in man's eyes
The key task of a leader is to build trust and bear pain
As I better understand who I am, I'll be able to better flow with the Holy Spirit
The best leaders aren't even noticed by the people they are helping
God is my main entree, people are my dessert
Healing happens as we go

On Friday all the students and staff in our school declared it PINK day. So, we all searched our closets, friends' closets, Wal-Mart and raided the Boutique (the on-campus free thrift store) for Pink garments for the day. Wow! Some people got very creative! Here is a picture of our school with Dave Gibbons (center) and his friend, Mike Wang, who came with him to teach for the week.