Today started off with a slightly different breakfast to normal. We were told by the YWAM DTS staff that they were going to cook us breakfast, and we were to be ready for 8am. So we waited outside the dining room, and saw several nice looking breakfast items being delivered inside. While we were waiting, we were all given a piece of paper with a number on it. We were then told to sit at the table with that number. I was on table 4, where there was cereal, milk and water. Table 5 had more cereal and some toast, I think, and table 6 had bacon, eggs, baked beans, and a waiter, as well as other nice food. Table 3 was the floor, with a bowl of rice, table 2 just had bread and water, and table 1 was a bin with fruit and a slice of toast in it. The staff then informed us that the tables were a metaphor for the world's wealth distribution. The two people on table 6 had all they could ever want, and those on table 1 had to cope with whatever has been thrown away by others. It reminded me of a school assembly I used to do with my previous youth work job, where you take the various sizes of Mars bar to represent the wealth distribution, then have the volunteer children cut them up into equal pieces to show how they can all be shared and everyone will get the same. However, when it came to our breakfast, we were not allowed to share, so the top table got to eat everything they wanted, and I managed to eat some cereal. We then prayed for the people who live in the conditions we represented.
We started our lecture series on "Missions" today. These are looking like a good set. We started off looking at how we should be:
- Rooted in the past
- Focused on the future
- Engaged in the present
The Israelites were told by God to have parties to celebrate and remember certain events in their history. They had to remember their past to know where they were going. The same is true for us. The lecturer then talked about how we were told to be "Salt and Light". Salt wouldn't be in clumps in the potatoes, and similarly, we should be spread out in the world, adding the right flavouring. If you got home and flicked the switch and the light didn't turn on, you wouldn't think all your objects had been painted black - you'd blame the light being broken. In the same way, we as Christians should be bringing light into situations, and if there is no light, it is because we are not bringing it.
We then discovered three ways of looking at history:
- Important People
- Impersonal Force
- Faithful Minority
The first two make the individual unimportant in the course of history, the third relates to those who make themselves available to God, and want to be sent out to do his will. We then looked at worldviews: there are several, but they basically come down to:
- There is no God
- Everything is God
- There are many gods
- Allah is God, and he has no son
- Yahweh is God
- Jesus is the Son of God
In today's world, many would say that you can believe anything you want, but if 5+5 is anything but 10, then it is wrong - even 9.9 is wrong. Worldviews deal with the questions:
- Who am I?
- Where am I from?
- Where am I going to?
- What are my values?
We then looked at how God existed before gender. We often think of Him as a male, but He made male and female in His image - it takes both to see a fuller picture of who God is.
Then we took a look at the history of the world in four steps:
- Creation
- The Fall (where man chose to turn away from God, and brought in the problems of the world, such as death and suffering)
- Redemption (Jesus died to pay the price for the sin we commit, and we can come back in to right relationship with God by trusting in Him)
- Consummation (the coming of the new age once all people groups have been blessed by the good news of Jesus)
We are between 3 and 4. We need to co-create with God to shape the future.
Then we looked at God's rescue plan for all nations, which is the key to understanding missions. In the beginning, God made man and told him to fill the earth and bring God's kingdom to it, but we disobeyed. After the flood, God again said to fill the earth and bring God's kingdom to it, but we disobeyed, and tried to stay in one place - Babel. So God confused the languages so people had to go off to all the earth. Then with Abraham, God promised to bless all peoples through him. God does not break promises, so the world will not end before all peoples have been blessed through Abraham's descendants.
Another important thing we learned about was "Relationship based law". We saw that before anything was created, relationships existed in God - the Father, Son and Spirit live in perfect relationship with each other. That is why laws passed looking to strengthen people's relationship with each other should work better than others. We finished off looking at Exodus 19:6:
and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel
God wants Israel to be a nation in communication with Him, and enabling others to come to Him.
There was quite a lot said, and it was all good. It was as if we were being given a great summary of many of the previous week's teachings. They were also repackaged in such a way that they are inspirational for our impending mission trip.
After lunch and our usual Community Care duties, I helped out setting up for the carol concert we had here this evening.
In the afternoon, we had a seminar on Hope in Europe, given by the lecturer for the week. This was also quite inspirational, and helped me see that some of what I may have believed in the past is not true. First of all with defined "hope", as "a positive expectation", and saw that the Biblical symbol for hope is an anchor, as in Hebrews 6: 19-20:
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
This means that Jesus has anchored our hope in the future, where peace has come and the world has been renewed. Our hope, it was said, is based on God, who is love:
- The Father, a good God
- The Son, who has Resurrection power
- The Spirit, a deposit for the future, and the power to live for today
In terms of Europe: the history of Europe is only as it is, because the Word of God has been preached here in the way it has, since when it has. Europe's world view has been shaped by the Bible, and without the Bible, Europe will loose hope. For example, science has, for the most part abandoned it's Biblical roots, and now there are many fears over what is being invented (human/animal embryos, for example).
There are many signs of hope for Europe though:
- The shakings of God: Nothing is permanent - the Roman empire fell, the Greek empire fell, Marxism fell. It now seems the economic empire is falling. Only the Kingdom of God will survive.
- New spiritual hunger: people are looking to spiritual aspects of life.
- Prayer movements: people are praying more, and so God will be answering more prayers!
- New expressions of "Church": Alpha, house churches and other new forms of church are revolutionising the way we meet as church.
- God is bringing people from all over the world who have spiritual gifts to help those in Europe
- A growing climate of unity and co-operation
- Recovery of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God: the church has quite often reduced the gospel to just a means of personal salvation, but there is so much more than that. The Kingdom coming in to the world through the faithful minority is at the heart of the Gospel too, and that is now being rediscovered.
After the seminar, we had dinner, and then got ready for the Christmas Carol Concert. I helped set up, then serve the drinks as the guests from the outside world arrived. Then I went to listen to the concert for a bit. Now I'm finishing off writing this blog post, while watching "Miracle on 34th Street"
It has been a very long, but enlightening day!
"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
