Hey hey! Welcome to my second newsletter! I'm still trying to figure out the format right now, so things might change. If it's not sustainable I will move to bi-weekly or monthly newsletters but right now I'm liking weekly. Antioch ChurchThere's a ton of local churches in the area here. It's a city of about 201,000 people, but the churches are very small (around 15-100 people). I'm not used to that size but it does not diminish the service whatsoever. These past two weeks we've gone to a church called Antioch and on a typical sunday there's about 50-70 people maybe? and they don't have their own building yet so we walk 25 minutes from base to a little wedding venue. As a church they're going through the book of Mark right now, and Pastor Luke's sermons are really well put together. Something that I haven't seen done before in a protestant church is, they take communion every sunday at the end of service (with real bread!). Over all a lovely, spirit led church. I love trying new churches in other countries.
Basically the entire building in this photo right here. (We already cleaned up the chairs haha) Youth Elective & AliveThis week was the first week of our elective time. Electives are something we chose when we applied for our DTS. I chose youth ministries because I'm very passionate about young people and their faith. This week those of us who are in the youth ministries elective had our first elective time. Which for now mostly consisted of us getting to know better why we all picked it, and what we want to see come out of it. I'm super excited for the topics we're going to go through in the next few months.
Creative things But what about Alive?Alive is a weekly ministry that is held at our YWAM Presinct which is a 2 minute walk from campus. Those of us that chose to are serving as youth leaders there weekly. It's very different from our church youth group though. It's open to the public and all youth, with optional "tracts" for those that want to dive into the bible and such. It's a unique mix of all types of people and I can really see God's heart behind the ministry. Giving young people a place to hang out and make friends in a safe place, with the option to dig deeper if they'd like. One of my absolute favourite things though is that every thursday we also share a meal together. This week we ate burgers together and just had tons of good conversations. I know it's not really pheasable to do it at home because we have a much bigger group but there's just something about having meals together that really brings people closer. Sharing a meal is wonderful. I forgot to take a photo of the presinct but heres one from google:
In the photo you can see the high ropes course, cafe, and then behind the cafe is the "warehouse" which is just a gym where we hang out just like at home Rugby?!Went to my first ever sports game, and it just so happened to be rugby.. I made it a point to do absolutely zero research, so I knew barely anything but I learnt quick, and it was a fun experience. There's a
They moved me to the edge when I used the bathroom haha. How's God working?So much in so little time. Led by Lloyd & Naomi Lindee, this week was all about the character and nature of God. 4 hours a day of lectures, and I still feel like we could have spent another three weeks on the topic because there's just so much to his character. I mean, we spent the entire week in the first three chapters of Geneisis (Two pages!). I'd never thought we could spend that much time on so little scripture. Nature is who God is, and character is what God does. We learned about the difference between head knowledge, and heart knowledge and how to bridge the gap. Basically, most of what we learn is head knowledge, but for it to become heart knowledge we must go through experience, and revilation. It's okay to wrestle with God because it can lead to revilation which is Good. We learned about the trinity, about how we are partners with God, and how much really happneed in the creation story. How interlinked and personal our relationship with our creator really is. He is not distant, he is incredibly close and intimate while also being vast and infinite. He is not unreachable. He walked the very ground we're on, and he formed us with his hands, and gave us breath. He didn't observe from above, he was very involved. A really cool thing to learn was the difference between punishment and consequence. This came after a conversation on how in control God really his, and where our free will comes into place. "God is soverign and has ultimate control of history, while taking into account the very real choices of people" was a good explination that I liked. Back to punishment and consequence though! It's interesting to see how 90% of the bad things that happened in the bible were not punishments from God but rather direct consequences of the peoples actions for which they had control over. The choice to disobey God was made, and the consequences folllowed. But God is loving, and patient, and Gracious. When he destroyed Sodom and Gommorah, or put the plagues on Egypt, he gave plenty of warning for years. But Exodus 34:6-7 says: "Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty." Did you know that's the most quoted piece of scripture in the Bible? Ahhh! There's so much more I'd like to share but I can't just type out my entire notebook that'd be boring! Prayer Points
If God has placed on your heart to give at all, it would be a huge blessing! Thank you so much! The End!You've made it to the end! Thank you so much for reading this far. If you have any questions, send an email to jakeloewen@proton.me |