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
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, November 2, 2007
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
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
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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
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
Monday, October 8, 2007
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.
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
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
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 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
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