SoM: Father-Heart Week

Okay, the last six days have been intense. I’m not going to be able to sum up everything in the teachings, plus all the extraneous stuff that happened in my heart…

Father-Heart Week.  The week that every intern and second-year student says messed them up the most, the week where almost everyone cries their eyes out at least twice.  We basically spend five days seeking revelation of the love of God as a Father.  Because this pretty heavily involves Him filling in the gaps in areas where our own parents might have failed us, it tends to hit some pretty deep wounds.  I heard a lot of crazy stories.  I kind of was a crazy story.  For obvious reasons, I’m not going to go into many of those details on this blog.  Coming into the school, I already knew I had some serious issues with both my parents that I’ve been working through. So God acknowledged those.

And then He was like, “Look at these other hang-ups you didn’t even know you had!”  And subverted all my expectation for the week.

I had one really good cry, on Monday.   I actually spent a lot more time laughing.  Joy was a definite theme of the week for me—I think God’s trying to get it through to me that He isn’t passive about me.  He delights in me.  There was one fantastic activation we did yesterday (normally I dread activations, because they usually involve uncomfortable prophetic encounters with people you don’t know well):  the speaker told us we were going to invite childlikeness.  So we did it really literally—we blew up balloons, and blew party horns, and had a dance party to songs that were popular in the ‘90s.  It was crazy awesome, definitely one of my highlights of the week.

It wasn’t all fun and games, though.  There was one message, on Thursday, that was really hard to hear:  it was about having a spirit of sonship (or daughterhood, as it were)—especially towards your natural parents.  Part of me was listening to the message going, “Oh!  This is really relevant!  Hurray!” and another (bigger) part of me was going “WHOA, I’m not ready to hear this; I can’t do this.”  I think the events of my family life in the last two years have so changed the way I relate to both of my parents that I don’t even have a frame of reference right now for how to apply this message.  Intentionally being God’s daughter?  Okay, that sounds awesome.  Intentionally being a daughter to my parents?  That idea really threw me for a loop, and I wasn’t expecting it.  I didn’t even know it was an issue.  So that’s going to take some time to unravel.

We also had ministry team training—basically, practical instructions on how to (and especially how not to) pray over people.  Now, I’ve actually had similar training for my young adult group’s prayer team back home (which I never really served on), but it’s still incredibly intimidating.  For me, coming to the SoM was largely about overcoming fear and being equipped to do just this sort of thing without freaking out, so I’m trying to just say “yes” and listen to the Holy Spirit.  Whew.

A nutshell version of what God’s been telling me this week:

• He is my defender and deliverer.  
• He just loves it when I try; He doesn’t push me to do better than my best, even if my “best” seems to me to be not very good.  
• He wants to protect my heart so I don’t have to do it all myself.
• He’ll keep His word, and/therefore I can/should take Him really seriously.
• Spending time with me is tons of fun for Him.  His investment in me is always 100%.
• I can be as fanciful in my imaginations of heaven as I want, and I won’t be wrong or disappointed.  (I had a crazy hour-long vision about this one, guys.  It involved part of Revelation 19 and took me seven pages to journal about.  It was amazing.)
• This time at the school isn’t about whether I have what it takes, it’s whether He does…and yes, He does.

It’s a lot, right?  It’s a lot.  And next week is about “Healing Life’s Hurts.”  Ooh boy.

I’d be happy to talk to anybody about anything more in-depth, by the way! Or just to catch up with Kalamazoo! Totally feel free to message me on Facebook (or Skype me! I have Skype now!) sometime.  My schedule’s not super full until the end of September, so sometime in the next week and a half would be an especially good time.  

* A note to my fabulous commenters:  If you do leave a comment and are not signed into your Google account, please sign your name in the comment so I know it’s you—I had three anonymous comments on my last post that were very lovely, but one was unsigned and I couldn't tell who it was from!  :)  Thanks so much for keeping up with me!

Catch the Fire SoM – week one!

So I’ve been in Canada for just about a full week!  In some ways it feels like I’ve only just arrived, and in other ways it feels like I’ve been here for ages.

I won’t spend too much time detailing my arrival.  My and Emily Wright’s drive up from Kalamazoo last Monday was mostly uneventful, save for a three-hour delay at the border because the customs officer didn’t like our immigration letters and almost didn’t let us through (thank you Jesus for favor!  Getting turned back would have been so awful).   We arrived at registration for the School of Ministry on Tuesday bright and early (half past noon, a.k.a. too early:  I spent an hour and a half milling around the parking lot feeling awkward while all of last year’s returning students and interns were gleefully reunited).  

This is my American-ness showing, but I’m a bit geeked out by how international this place is.  There are about 60 students total, plus 20 interns and staff, in the building.  Only (I think) 6 are from the U.S.  There are a lot of Canadians, several Brits (a few Englanders, two Welsh folk, a Scot, and an Irishwoman), quite a few Germans, several Scandinavians, and one guy from Singapore. One of the interns is a New Zealander. There’s also an American woman living long-term as a missionary in Uganda.  I love hearing all the accents and comparing cultures.  It’s great fun, and it’s so amazing to see all the diverse people bond as one mini church body.  We had a social on Thursday night at which we all dressed up in costumes, played competitive trivia games, and had a dance party – all of which agitated my social anxiety much less than I feared it would.

We got settled into our rooms without a hitch (especially since we started off by setting up a communal stash of chocolate and tea)!  I have three lovely roommates:  Linda and Kelsey from Canada, and Christina “Teeny” from Germany.  They’re super fun.  :D  Community living is less fun, at least for an introvert like me.  The hallway right outside my room is proving a popular place for late-night card game tournaments and guitar practice.

Last week we heard teachings from Mark Virkler on hearing God’s voice.  In a nutshell, he gave us four keys:

1. Still yourself (remove distractions).
2. Fix your eyes on Jesus.
3. Tune to spontaneity (realize that God speaks through thoughts that may seem to come from nowhere).
4. Write down what you hear as you go!

Most of it was familiar to me – my home church teaches pretty much the same methodology – but Mark Virkler was very detailed and full of super practical advice (and charts.  He liked charts).  He made us practice multiple times in the middle of the teaching, though, and then share our journaling with another student.  This was really intimidating, but since we also have to do this on a weekly basis with our small group (yikes!), it was good practice.  It’s a good way to kick off the school – foundational, but really encouraging.  You know you’re starting off on the right foot.

So here you have it – my first official update from the School of Ministry!  I will blog more in-depth posts about the teachings and other awesome goings-on as the days go on.  I also plan to blog more often than once a week, so I can write shorter posts on more focused topics.  Yay!  Thanks so much for keeping up with me. 

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