Hola amigos! Como estan? Bien? Bueno.

I´m writing from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our team has been here for a couple weeks now, and I thought it was about time to update this blog.

I bet it´s pretty cold in Minnesota, but here it´s, well, not cold at all. Today, it´s just over 100 and it´s always pretty humid here. So I´ve been drinking a ton of water and eating a ton of ice cream. The ice cream (helado) here is amazing.

So we´ve been staying at a church here and they have been incredibly nice and hospitable to us. They cook for us every day and night and the food is amazing. And they´ll offer you seconds and thirds and I´m sure they´d give you ninths if for some inhuman reason you made it there. They just love to feed us and help us out and hang out with us.

Our ministry has consisted of mostly dramas and testimonies and some preaching. We go to a lot of churches around the area - there seems to always be a church service somewhere, every time and day of the week, not just Sundays. We also have just set up shop in certain public places. There is a walking area in downtown Quilmes (the suburb area of Buenos Aires where we are staying) where there are tons of shops and always tons of people. We´ve done some programs there and some people stop to watch and listen to us. It´s pretty cool. And we pray for divine appointments to be set up and we can already see that taking place sometimes. For example, a few days ago we did a program in a park where afterwards some guy came up to Mark (one of our leaders) and said he had come there to just think and he was really moved by the dramas.

The churches here are pretty sweet. None of them are very modern and nice, but man, do they worship. You can really see the passion here and it´s inspiring. I love it. It´s also pretty spontaneous. Back home when I help lead worship for North Heights or wherever else, I´m used to knowing what songs we´re playing a week ahead of time or something and then practicing with the band 2 hours before the service and always having chord sheets. They wanted me to play the past couple evening Sunday services at the church we´re staying at here and I had none of that. No practice, no chords, no words. Just play. It was actually pretty fun and it was actually amazing. It was the most intense time of worship I´ve experienced in my life, let alone led. We were singing a Hillsong tag over and over that goes ¨Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Our God Reigns¨and we probably played that for at least 20 minutes straight. People were crying, on their knees, hands in the air, and it was just so cool to worship with mixed culture like that.

Please pray for our team, that we would continue to be unified and build deeper connections with each other, and just that we would be excited about our ministry, that it wouldn´t just become routine and boring. I really want to be open to the Spirit´s calling and what God has for us, but most importantly, those we meet. I want to give this outreach my all, otherwise I won´t get everything out of it that God has planned. That would be a bummer. So please just pray for excitement and motivation and inspiration and a heart for the lost, so that we can show them at least a glimpse of hope. At least a glimpse of true life. A glimpse of Jesus.

LoveChris

shooting

I'm going to just paste an email I sent out to friends and family:


Hey everyone, so I'm sure you all have heard of the recent tragedy here at YWAM Denver. I want you all to hear from me personally. Early Sunday morning around 12:30, a gunman entered our base and shot 4 staff. I was coming home from a concert in downtown Denver, just pulling into our parking lot when I (along with two other guys) heard the shots. We didn't know what they were at first, then seconds later saw the gunman running out of the building towards the lake behind our base. He got away before we could get out of the car and see who he was. At this point, though, we still didn't know what was going on. Then a student ran out towards us and was yelling and obviously distressed, but we still couldn't make sense of what she was saying. Then a staff member opened the door the gunman had just run from and she was yelling, "Somebody call 911! Call Peter! Go get Peter! Call 911!" Then I looked towards the door and I saw Tiffany (staff member who was shot and later died) lying near the door and I saw the blood. Then it became real.

Anthony (staff member intending to drop us off at the base) told us to get back in the car, so we did and we drove to Peter Warren's house. Peter is our base director. We told Peter and his family and a few minutes later left to go back to the base. By this time, police were all over the place. An officer had a pistol pointed at us and yelled at us to stay back. So we left and headed to Anthony's house, all the while in absolute shock. It was unreal. I was shaking like crazy. I have never experienced such terror in my life. The minute we arrived at Anthony's house, we got a call to go back to the Safeway parking lot by our base to talk to police. So we did that, sat there for a few hours, eventually got on a bus and headed to the police station.

We were at the police station all night. I was considered an eye-witness and I was interviewed for an hour or so. It was at 4 a.m. or something like that and it seemed like forever. I got no sleep that night and around 11 a.m. we got on a bus to go up to Eagle Rock, which is YWAM Denver's second campus, located about 40 minutes up into the mountains. We stayed up there until this afternoon (Tuesday), because until yesterday it was unknown whether YWAM's shooting and New Life Church's shooting was linked and whether the YWAM shooter was still on the loose.

This afternoon we moved back into our base. Tiffany and Phil's memorial service is tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at Faith Bible Chapel - right by our YWAM campus. Peter and others continue to declare that this is going to be a celebration of their lives, because we know that they have never been more alive than they are right now. I did not know either of them too personally, although I have talked with them multiple times.

Personally, I've experienced waves of pain, sadness, anger, confusion, depression, fear, shock, and just plain numbness. But I'm not lying when I say that I've never been more thankful to be alive. I ask 'why' a lot, and we may never know the answer to some things life and why things happen, but I do know this - God is good. God is faithful. God is love. And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the one constant in life. Wow, all I can say is my life is not my own. It is Christ's alone. And to be honest, I've never been more excited in my life to just.... live. And to live for Christ alone. There's nothing better.

And that's what I'm learning through this experience.

I can't tell you how much it means to me and how much it means to us as the YWAM Denver community to hear from all of you and the prayers and support from you. Let me tell you, when you pray for us, it's doing stuff. I can already see it, even though it's been just a couple days since the event. I'm so excited to see how God is glorified through the aftermath of this tragedy.

Our team still plans to leave Thursday for Argentina. Please continue to pray for us as far as our outreach and also just for healing and the families of the victims and just this community.

The past couple days, everyone asks everyone how they're doing. Yesterday when someone asked me that I said, "I'm ok. I'm alive. And if I wasn't... I'd be even better." That's the hope we have in Christ.

I love you all.

Chris

Outreach

Hey. Life is good in Denver. God is good, God is faithful, God amazes me.

So a couple weeks ago I went home for Thanksgiving and was able to be with family and friends and it was wonderful. And then I was sick last week. But now I'm getting better. And in just a few days we're heading to Argentina! Wow. These past two and a half months have just flown by for me, and I'm really excited for outreach. Here's our team:

This past week we had outreach prep, which was preparing for outreach with dramas, learning how to preach, learning how to teach English to kids, skits, songs, games, and other things. I'm in our dance, one skit, and three dramas. My two favorite are Marionettes, which is a really creepy "attention-getter" drama, where I act as a demon and control someone else. It's weird and creepy, but I think it's way sweet. And it'll definitely get people's attention I think. My favorite is Forgiveness, which we act out to a song by Underoath. It's intense at the end, and I think it will definitely move people. I play Jesus.

This week we have one last speaker come in to speak on Bible study. Hopefully I'll learn some good stuff. Then on Thursday at noon we leave the base for the airport. And off to Argentina. Pray for us. Love you all. I'll update if and when I can on outreach. Until then, adios amigos.

OUTREACH UPDATE

So we're not going to Spain and Morocco anymore. It is virtually impossible to get VISA's for 2 of our leaders and one student, so the leaders decided to go for South America, and we will most likely be headed to Argentina now. Good stuff.

This week we were up at Eagle Rock again and had Dean Sherman speak to us on spiritual warfare. He had lots of good stuff, and I learned a lot. He based every single point he had on Scripture, none of his own opinion, so I really respected that. Some of his teachings were that Satan has two major agendas: to discredit God and to divide people. But, as believers (and ALL believers) have the power and authority to push back the darkness. We have the power to silence the enemy, and he knows that... but do we know that? "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). Dean told us that we don't ever fight physical people, but in reality it is always the enemy and his demons we fight against. (Ephesians 6:12). How do we fight you ask? Simple. Pray. (Eph. 6:18). And God does stuff through us and our prayers, because we have the authority, we have the keys. (Matthew 16:18-19). Alright.

I'll be home in a week at this time for a few days. See some of you then.

Chris

small groups / Red Rocks

We have official small groups here at YWAM. My group has been dubbed the "extra small group" because one guy went home because of a health issue a couple weeks in, so now it's just three of us including our leader. It's myself, Garth from North Dakota, and our leader is Darren from, ya you betcha, Minnesota. We have official small group time on Thursday mornings and we also hang out sometimes on weekends and whenever besides that time. Small group time is actually one of my favorite times. It's just fun to hang out with those guys, but I also love the discussion, which gets quite deep and fruitful sometimes. I've always been sort of class-shy and don't interact a ton, but small group discussions are different. They are just basically conversations and it's good stuff.

Anyways, yesterday for small group we went to Red Rocks amphitheater, which is a famous outdoor concert venue about 15 minutes away from our base. Bands like The Beatles, U2, Coldplay and so many more have played there, and it's, from what I've heard and read, one of the best places to see someone play live. It actually won an award for greatest concert venue by some magazine (forget which one) so many times that they pulled it from the competition and just named the award the "Red Rocks Award." And U2 played there in 1983, and have not played there since because they said it was such an amazing experience that they don't want to go back and ruin it.

So yesterday I walked around on the same stage that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bono, Chris Martin, and (insert rock star here) performed on at some time. Sweet.

Red Rocks amphitheater from the top

Darren, me, Garth on stage

There were no bands playing yesterday, but they leave the amphitheater open to the public basically all the time, so we just went there and walked around.

Yeah, Red Rocks is cool. And I decided I'm going to play there someday.

Today we just got back from the GO! Conference in Estes Park. We were there all this week at the YMCA of the Rockies. DTS's from all over the U.S. came together to worship and learn about missions. There were about 350 students I think and about 600 people total. We had lots of worship and speakers every day, so it was always a full schedule.

Jim Stier, Dan Bauman, Fred Markert, and Darlene Cunningham (co-founder of YWAM) were the main speakers. Not gonna lie, it was a little long sometimes, but there was also some pretty good stuff. Dan Bauman and Fred Markert were my favorite speakers.

Fred talked about missions in general, and where we're headed with them as Christians. He was a crazy, hyper, funny guy and it was really interesting to see how God is working through missions today and the potential we have now. He showed how from about 2001 to 2005 or so we (Christians as a whole) were doing so much to support and send out missionaries and how it was really thriving, and then how since then we have held back with support and stuff (sending, praying, supporting) and therefore missions has not been flourishing as much. He talked about how this made him wrestle with the idea of letting God do His work through missions, or whether it's up to us to do everything, or both. After throwing plenty of statistics and strategy at us, he said he came to the current theology that.... "we must do stuff." Good observation, Fred.

We're back here at the base for this week, then back up to Eagle Rock for another week. It seems like we're always all over the place. Probably because we are...

Anyways, it's crazy our lecture phase is already almost halfway done. Time is going fast. I'm excited to come home for Thanksgiving too to see family and friends.

I guess that's all for now. Later.

Chris

It's been almost three weeks here now. We've had two weeks of classes. Last week we had Jeff Pratt speak to us on the Father Heart of God. It was an intense week to start off the lecture phase with. The first few days were about God's love for us, Wednesday was a personal spiritual-emotional healing day which was sweet, and Thursday was more about persevering through struggle. We so often put our feelings in front of us. Jeff stated that we either have emotions and feelings, or we are our emotions and feelings. Sometimes we don't feel like praising God or we don't feel like God is anywhere near us at a certain time in our life, but we can still declare truth. And the feelings will always come back. I experience that (lack of) feeling sometimes. The worship here is awesome, but one day last week I just didn't want to worship. I just didn't feel like it. I was tired and maybe I wasn't into the music or whatever it may have been. So my mind wandered and I kind of just stood there. Then halfway through, it hit me. I don't worship God when I feel like it. I want to worship God with my life. All the time. And now we're worshipping through music. So, yes, I don't feel like worshipping God now, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to declare that God is holy and good and mighty and worthy of my praise. God is holy and good and mighty and worthy of my praise all the time. Not just when I feel like praising Him. So I want to let my knowledge of truth carry my emotions and feelings, not the other way around. It's a good practice.

The last day of Jeff Pratt was convicting. Which is sweet.

"Often we want our comfort more than we want God's will"

Phillipians 3:10 says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings." It doesn't stop at the power of his resurrection. It goes on to say "the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings." To really know Jesus, to really know God, we must suffer for him. Not all the time. But sometimes in life there will be sufferings and God is testing us. God wants to trust us. God wants our love. Not our conditional love based on how much blessing he gives us. True, real love. Unconditional love.

"God has so many servants, but few friends." I want to be God's friend. Jeff called these times of suffering times of captivity. In captivity we will feel the farthest away from God we have ever felt. He's still there. We're building his trust. And our faith. Although we may not know it. In these season's of silence, DON'T LOSE HOPE. Because in captivity, our love for Jesus is purified.

Pure love for Jesus. That's what I want.

"MORE OF HIM and LESS OF YOU. It's worth the suffering."


Pastor Blake Mattocks spoke this week on the Character of God. It was more so our character through knowing God. Which was good.

He let us know that we're world changers. I believe him.

Also:

"Learned truth has to become living truth."

"The world is sick of religion." This is huge. And true. I think too often our faith isn't so much faith as it is religion. I'm guilty. Jesus didn't come into this world with religion - why are we living religion? We need to live love. True, real love. It's so obvious that Jesus hated religion without faith and love. We can't be going around the world telling people they need to stop doing this and start doing that and throwing rules and regulations at them - "Rules and regulations without relationship breeds rebellion." We need to love. Through love we let people know what we know, and that they can have what we have. Life.

Sort of the same type of thing as earlier in this blog - "What shapes your decisions - feelings and emotions or convictions based on the word of God?" Pretty challenging stuff if we're truly honest with ourselves.

"Commitment always comes before accomplishment."

Doubt is a thief.

We had a session on contentment. This hit me hard. I'm often not content with what I have or where I am right now. Discontentment is only focusing on what we don't have. 1 Timothy 6:6.

There have a ton of amazing testimonies so far here from many different people. Think God doesn't work miracles these days like in Bible times? You should hear some of these testimonies. Jeff Pratt would not be alive speaking to us if God didn't. Why wouldn't God be big enough to work miracles these days? He is. But at the same time, I don't think we can be looking for signs just because we want to see them. Do I want to see it? Absolutely. But Blake said something that really hit me - "Believers don't follow signs, signs follow believers."

Good stuff.

As much as I just typed, that is still just a tiny, tiny taste of all the stuff we talked about and learned and experienced so far in lecture phase. Wow. I like it.

And also we have quiet time every morning and right now I am studying John and 1 Corinthians. I have already discovered and learned new things and have been inspired through that too.

This weekend we're going up to Eagle Rock till Thursday to have class with the Eagle Rock DTS, so that should be fun. Then we come back till Monday and then head up to Estes Park for the Go Conference - a conference on missions (I think?) with DTS's from all around North America. I'm excited for that.

That was a long blog. Enough for now. Bye.

Chris

First Week

Well, I've been in Denver for a week now. Today is our first day of official classes, although our speaker for this week couldn't make it until this afternoon so we have this morning off. Thus I blog...

Last week was just sort of a crazy get-to-know-everyone-and-everything-week. We had sessions on this and that about the base and just the DTS in general. This week we'll be getting into the normal routine - wake up, breakfast, worship/intercession, class, lunch, class, work duties, dinner, free time. Monday nights we have inner-city outreaches. Tuesday nights we have stuff too (team-building or something like that).

This weekend was pretty sweet. We went up to Eagle Rock - YWAM Denver's second campus, located in the mountains about 40 minutes out of Arvada. We stayed in a nice big cabin and had bonfires, went hiking, ate food, hung out, shot stuff, carved pumpkins, went to a little mountain town, and successfully pulled off a stealthy prank on the Eagle Rock DTS on Saturday night.

These are the guys in my DTS as well as some of the leaders.

This is the view from atop Eagle Rock. It was awesome.

Lunchtime.

Later

Chris

My DTS director called me the other day and I found out that I am headed to either Spain or South Africa for outreach. Sweet.

So I'm leaving for Denver a week from this coming Saturday, on the 29th. First of all, I've been so blessed by all the support I have received over the summer from family and friends. Thank you so very much to all who have supported me, financially and through prayer. I also worked a ton this summer at Asphalt Driveway Company, which has really helped a lot as far as getting money for YWAM. My last day of that was last Friday, and now I'm just hanging out with friends and family, getting ready, and yes, sleeping in. It's wonderful.

I won't know where my international outreach will be until I get to Denver, but I will definitely try my best to keep this blog updated often with that and other happenings during this year.

On a side note, I was looking at this the other day - I found out that there is a Chipotle pretty much right across the street from my base in Arvada, Colorado. Oh yeah. I know... I just wasted 5 or 10 seconds of your life by telling you that, but hey, I think it's sweet.

Anyways, feel free to email about anything and everything at bartels.christopher@gmail.com or if for some reason you might ever feel inclined to snail-mail it, the Denver YWAM base address is:

12750 W 63rd Ave
Arvada, CO 80004

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Chris

I've been reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Clairborne. It's not a book where you read it and set it down and say 'Yeah, that was good stuff.' Well... I guess.... it could be. But what I mean to say is that it's definitely important stuff. That's for sure. And convicting. A couple excerpts:

(This also is the same story brought up by Jim in the comments of my last post. Fancy that)

"I heard one of the teaching pastors at Willow Creek speak on the rich young ruler text that Rich [Mullins] had talked about in Wheaton's chapel. The teaching pastor said, "Now this doesn't mean you have to go sell your rollerblades and golf clubs," and he went on to "contextualize" the teaching to show that we just need to be careful not to make idols of our things. I wasn't so sure about that. Jesus doesn't tell the man to be a better steward, or to treat his workers fairly, or not to make money an idol. He tells this highly educated and devoutly religious young man that he lacks one thing: giving up everything he owns to give to the poor. Rich Mullins used to say that's because there are a lot of people coming to the Banquet, and God doesn't want all the luggage to deal with."



Shane did a survey, wherein he asked Christians about what he called their (mis)conceptions of Jesus.

"I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor."

Wow. Good... uhh... I mean, important stuff. Convicting stuff. He ended the chapter with:

"I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end."

Yesterday I was just thinking:

'What are my words worth if I don't live them?'

The Christianity Thing

I've been working for Tradition Valet for a month or two now. I drive sweet cars around. Yesterday I was at Marquette Hotel. It was boring because we just stood around for the most part. I started talking to the doorman. Small talk at first, of course. He asked me about school and all that kind of stuff. I told him about YWAM this fall, and he thought that sounded cool, then he asked me what I wanted to go into as far as a career. I told him some type of ministry or music or both. I got an immediate response.

"Don't do either one!"

"Don't do either one?" I asked, inviting an explanation. He said exactly what I knew he would say. "Eventually you're going to have to make a living and provide for your family. You're not going to be able to do that with either one of those career paths."

I listened some more, and it was definitely understandable from where he was coming from. I'm sure almost everyone would agree with what he was saying. It was logical. It was reasonable. It was normal.

Is God calling me to be logical and reasonable?

Is He calling me to be... normal?

Is God calling you to be logical and reasonable?

Is He calling you to be normal?

I told him that if God calls me into ministry (as a career path - because whatever I do and wherever I go, I am called into ministry; we all are), I'm going to go. I said it's not all about the money for me.

"It will be," he said with a grin.

Will it? Is it?

"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless."
- Ecclesiastes 5:10

"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
- Luke 16:13

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
- 1 Timothy 6:10

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
- Hebrews 13:5

I only picked a few. Obviously, Scripture has a lot to say about the love of money. It's not hard to see that they are all sort of getting at the same thing - don't let it 'be all about the money.' And why not? What's the big deal? Because of this promise:

"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."
- Philippians 4:19

I want it to be about the riches in Christ Jesus for me.

Back to my doorman friend. I told him I disagreed, and explained why. He said that yes, I was young, and that I have many years ahead of me.

"Well, that's good. Do the Christianity thing for a couple years, then figure out how you're going to settle down and provide for a family after that."

Wait. 'The Christianity thing?' Is that what my faith is? A thing? A phase? So I should do 'the Christianity thing' for a few years, and then come back to normality and get a normal job and live the normal American life? So my faith and my life are two different things?

No. There is no 'Christianity thing' for me. That's it. My faith in Jesus Christ is my life, and without Him I have nothing.

So, doorman, I understand where you are coming from. It's logical and reasonable. It's normal. Wherever I go, though, I am not called to be normal. God calls us to be different. We live in this world, but not of it. That means seeking God before wealth - whatever wealth may be (money, status, love, etc.) Also, my prayer is that my faith is not just a phase. My prayer is that I would have the heart and the will to take Jesus with me everywhere.

Do you want to take Jesus with you everywhere you go?

Holy Ground

Last week I went to a Worship United event. Worship United is a worship band that two of my friends are in. They do all the common, well-known contemporary worship songs (Crowder, Tomlin, Redman, etc.) and sort of add their own style to it. It was really good worship.

While I was worshipping, I kept getting the sense that I was standing on holy ground. Really. So I took off my shoes.

This kind of thing happened to some guy named Moses a few years ago.

“When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’

‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’”

- Exodus 3:4-5

The specific site of this incident at the burning bush is unknown, other than the fact that it happened somewhere in the wilderness between Egypt and Palestine. But it was holy ground, wherever it was.

In ancient times (and still today in Islamic tradition and some other oriental religions) people would take off their sandals before entering temples or synagogues. This was a sign of deepest respect for that place, with the belief that it is holy ground – because God is present.

Last Friday night I felt like I was on holy ground, so I took off my shoes. It obviously wasn’t quite as direct as the command to Moses, but I did feel it, and I do believe it was God.

Then I started thinking.

Why was this holy ground?

God created this world. In seven days. When He made it, did He make it full of sin right off the bat? Nope. The Scriptures say that God made it good. In just Genesis 1-3, the word “good” is used 15 times. God kept making things and He kept making them good.

So when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the fall of man occurred, did everything all of a sudden become not good? Did everything that God made good all of a sudden become bad? I don’t believe so. Did it become fractured? Broken? Lost? Diseased? Absolutely. But it was still good. When Auntie Ruth whom you love so dearly gets cancer at the age of 64, is she, as a person, as Auntie Ruth, all of a sudden… bad? Do you stop talking to her and visiting her and do you forget about her completely? I sure hope not. You still love her just as much as you ever have. Because she is still Auntie Ruth. Same concept.

I believe when God made the heavens and the earth and everything in it, it was good because God was present. Everywhere. And always has been. God did not make the world, and then sit back and watch, leaving us and the world to itself. Nope. God’s here. He was then, and He is now. David knew it.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

- Psalm 139:7-8

And praise God for that. It’s a beautiful thing. Where I am right now is good, because God is here.

You know, it’s not a big deal or anything, but it always bugs me just a little bit when someone is praying at the beginning of a worship service or event and they ask God to come and meet us there.

As if He’s not already there.

Wherever I’m at, God is there. I just don’t always acknowledge it.

So, as I mentioned earlier, I started thinking.

Why am I taking off my shoes right now? Because this is holy ground. Why is this holy ground? Because God is present. Why did God command Moses to take off his sandals when he was at the burning bush? Because it was holy ground. And why was it holy ground? Because God was present.

Wait a second. We’ve just established the fact that God is always present. Everywhere. So yes… holy ground. Everywhere. I don’t know when and where you’re reading this right now, but I do know that you’re on holy ground.

I like Rob Bell. He’s sweet. So is his book Velvet Elvis. So I’m going to quote it.

“Moses has been tending sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? How many times has he stood in this exact place? And now God tells him the ground is holy?

Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time?

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?”

I’m not saying we should all walk around barefoot. I am saying, however, that wherever you and I walk at whatever time, we are on holy ground. Broken, fractured, and diseased ground? Yes. But it’s holy. It’s holy because God is there.

Acknowledge it. It’s a good thing.

Dear friends and family,

Thanks for stopping by. This is my first ever post for this blog. I will be using this blog for journaling experiences and sharing whatever I feel like sharing from my Discipleship Training School and School of Worship at YWAM Denver in 2007-08. Yes, that is quite a ways off from now, but I just felt like getting a blog going for it now anyways. Now, obviously I won't have much about YWAM until I, you know... start it... but for right now I might just randomly post about stuff that's just kind of on my mind - things I discover or wrestle with in worship, in prayer, in the Word, in class, through other people and their experiences, or whatever else.

I'll start today with what I've been reading in 1 Corinthians.

In case you don't know, I am currently a freshman at Concordia University, St. Paul. I have lots of music classes (choir, piano, voice and guitar lessons), New Testament, and "Honors." Honors is one class that focuses on many different "subjects" and areas all in one class. It's not a specialized class, really. So there's tons of work in Honors. And other classes. But hey, it's college, I don't really expect anything less. This semester in Honors has been all about focusing on the poor, or the marganalized of our world. This has been really awesome, and an area that I really feel that God is placing on my heart and mind. (Maybe another post I'll expand...) Anyways, we just finished reading the book The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman, Concordia's Book of the Year, sadly.

Sadly??

The book is all about globalization. That is, how the world is becoming "flat," because of the internet, uploading, downloading, companies outsourcing and digitizing everything, and all that jazz. The first half of the book is fine - Friedman gives a detailed account of what he believes are the ten biggest "flatteners" of the past 15 years. The second half, however, is where I lost it for this book. He talks about how best to thrive in this flat world. He stresses competition - you've got to "beat out" the competition. If you've got a low-paying job and you're struggling - get a better one! is basically what Friedman says. Easy for him to say (he's a columnist at New York Times and his wife is an heiress to a fortune of shopping mall property, making them one of the richest families in America), but what about the millions and millions of people around the world who live in quite an unflat world? What about the poor? What about the people who go day by day wondering what they're going to get their next meal? There is little regard for them it seems. Friedman spends almost all of his time on golf courses, in five-star restaurants, and 30,000 feet in the air in a first class jet.

But enough bashing Friedman. I have quite a ways to go with my outlook and my regard for the poor myself. God, open my eyes to those less fortunate...

Anyways, where am I going with all of this and what does it have to do with 1 Corinthians?

Well, with all this globalization talk, I've been reminded of how our society works - you go to school to better yourself, you learn to better yourself, and you use all that to get a job, to compete with other people (directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly) to BETTER YOURSELF. That's what I believe Paul would call the "wisdom of the world."

1:20 - "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"

Wow.

All that is foolish. God has made it foolish. Compared to God's wisdom, this wisdom of the world is foolish. So what then is God's wisdom? Verse 30 says, "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. God's wisdom is more than head knowledge. It is righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

So am I saying that we should all quit school, quit our jobs, and quit learning anything because God has made it foolish? Absolutely not. But if we are learning and striving towards something in this life and God has no part of it, then what's the point? Where is that getting us?

I pray that when I learn, when I work, when I live, that by the grace of God through Christ Jesus may I come to know the things of God, the wisdom of God, first and foremost. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom" (1:25).

And it is only by His grace, through the Holy Spirit, that I am able to do this. Thank you, Lord.




Please feel free to email me about anything and everything at bartelsc@csp.edu or bartels.christopher@gmail.com. Either one works.

Also, when I write like this, I'm just throwing my thoughts out there - it's pretty much sparatic, and I don't proofread or anything like that. If I am in the wrong somewhere, please let me know. I will be grateful, not offended. If you disagree with me on something, awesome! Let me know, I'd love to hear what you think. I'm claiming to be nothing more than a servant of Christ, writing down what comes to mind.

Chris