new blog address

Hey all. If you're here... well, you should be here instead:

http://chrisbartels.tumblr.com/

Love

Chris

It's been good

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported me financially, through prayer, friendship, discipleship, reading this, and however else I've been supported this year. It's been an absolutely incredible experience that I will never forget, both the Discipleship Training School and the School of Worship through Youth With a Mission Denver.

I've learned an absolute ton and met a lot of very cool people and made a lot of good friends.

If you want to hear my song that was on our School of Worship album titled "Arise," you can listen to it here:
http://www.myspace.com/findingwill

If there is one thing I can take away from this year it is I have learned what really matters in this life. Love. Love God and love people. "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Phil. 1:21)


Thanks again. Love you all.

Chris

I'm almost done here in Denver for the year. It's crazy. It's went by so fast, especially the School of Worship. We just have two jam-packed weeks left. We listened to our CD the other night, and it sounds pretty good. My song is the closing song and I'm definitely pleased with how well it turned out. The album name and theme is "Arise."

On the weekends and other free time during the week, a couple friends and myself have been recording some of our own stuff for fun. We set up in the Worship Center and track drums and then guitars and keys and vocals after that. It's pretty fun. We're going to try and do some more tracks before we're done here.



I feel like God has been working in me in a few areas of my life. Patience is one. I don't know exactly where I'm headed in life but I do think I have a general idea of where God has called me. Music. So, that being said, I just need to be patient and wait in anticipation as to where He places me and see what happens. It's also exciting though. I wouldn't want to know exactly where I'm headed. Where's the fun in that? So I'm just taking it one step at a time.

Also, I feel like I need to take risks and live outside of the world's norm. I don't mean being stupid, but I mean not always being so comfortable and secure. I mean taking risks for God and living my life out in faith.

My friend and "accountability staff partner" here was out to breakfast with a few of us guys this morning and he was talking just about this. He said he thinks one of the worst places to be is on the fence - one foot with God, and one foot with the world, and just getting torn to shreds. I don't believe that's where I am right now, but I know I have been there and I sure don't want to be there. He talked about how in Numbers 13 when there are 12 Israelite spies who go and scope out the scene in the promised land that God has for them. They all come back and say that yes, it's flowing with milk and honey and it's as nice as God says it was, but there's way too many foes there, and there is no way they can conquer them. But God had already promised this land to them. Then comes Caleb.

"Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." (Num. 13:30)

Look at this guy. What a rebel. He could have just agreed with everyone else and been comfortable in his place. But he had other plans. He knew God had promised them this land. He knew God would deliver them. It didn't look easy, I'm sure. I'm sure he was a little scared. But he was convinced to go for it anyway. He was living by faith. He was living by God's strength, not His own. Being a musician may seem like a lofty, risky thing to pursue. There's a risk that I may not make a lot of money. But if that's where God has called me, then I'm more than willing to take that risk. I want to be a Caleb.


Here's a few pictures of us recording and how we're set up. It's pretty fun.

Hey so it's about week 6 or so into the School of Worship here in Denver. That seems really crazy to me that we're already halfway done. It feels like we just got here. Time flies when you're having fun! Yeah!

Anyways, what have we been up to? Music. And more music. I like it. We've been writing songs and developing them as a band. I only brought my electric guitar here thinking I'd be playing pretty much only that. But considering we have three electric guitarists, one violinist, and one vocalist in my cell band that hasn't exactly happened. We all switch up according to each song and what that song calls for. So far I've played electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and I've sang for some songs. It's fun. I'm thinking about writing my next song on piano....

Here's a picture of my cell band:

(l to r) Erika (violin, piano, vocals); Tony (guitar, bass); Tommy (guitar, drums); me; Will (cell band leader); Sophie (vocals)

We have class each week in the morning, with topics ranging from Worship in the Word to "Worship Evangelism" to the history of worship and stuff like that. Last week we had Rob Morris and he was awesome. Hands down, my favorite speaker I've ever had in YWAM, DTS or SOW. His message was simple: Love God and love people. And we had many a good discussion over this. He was probably the most motivational and inspiring speaker I've heard, and he doesn't even try to be that. He just had conversations with us. He said God's heart is for justice, for the poor, the lost, the brokenhearted. Who did Jesus usually hang out with? He is the founder of the organization Love 146. Its purpose is to fight against child sex slavery, and provide safe homes and the like for victims. www.love146.org.

This week we don't have teaching. Instead, we are preparing to record our school CD. It will be 7 songs, handpicked by John Connor (former SOW Director and producer of the album) from the songs we have written as students. My first song, titled All For You was picked to be one of the songs, which I'm pretty excited about. I'll definitely do an update once the CD is out.

There you have it. Thanks for stopping by.

Chris

Back in Denver

That's right. I'm back in Denver. I apologize, I never plastered a final outreach post. Busy. And I forgot. It was awesome, though. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and made a lot of really good friends. Some of which I am now seeing back in Denver at different schools.

I'm back here for another 3 months and I am doing the School of Worship. We have 12 students in the school. There are two "cell bands" in which we each write songs and then as a band we work with those songs and play together. It should be interesting and a lot of fun. This first week is just legistical stuff, and we haven't played any music yet. I'm excited for us to do that. I'm ready to play.

It should be interesting to see how we're going to play songs in my cell band because we have 3 electric guitarists, 1 violinist, and 1 singer. No bassist. No drummer. So... yeah... it should be interesting. We'll see what happens.

I'm here with my good friend Jordan from back home. He did his DTS in Australia last year and went to school this past fall. He decided for sure he was going to do the SOW with me just about 2 months before the school began. So he dropped out of college for the time being, and started to apply. He didn't have any money. So he needed $3,500 in a month and a half. Kinda crazy, eh? Well, he worked a lot and sent out a bunch of support letters. He needed at least half of the money by the time we showed up at the base here (this past Monday). We drove down together and he still needed over $500 just for that first half. This was Saturday morning. By Sunday afternoon he had it all. Not just the half that he needed for sure. All of it. For the whole school. God is the ultimate provider. It was really sweet and really exciting to see Him come through. And now we're here together and it's going to be awesome.

Our first song is due Monday. The theme is "Arise." I haven't really started yet. These next three months should be sweet.

Chris

We are in Ushuaia. It is most definitely the most beautiful city I have ever been to. Mountains and ocean and wonderful people.

It´s usually around high 40s or lower 50s I would guess, and if the sun´s out, it really gets nice. Yesterday was our day off from ministry times, and as a group we went down to the ¨Fin Del Mundo¨ or the End of the World - the very, very tip of South America. Unfortunately the path to the very tip of it was closed for some reason, but we were about a 10 minute hike away from it.

We´ve been working with specifically 3 different churches here in Ushuaia and have done services for them and have hung out with the youth and we did a program on the main walking strip and a TON of people stopped to watch. It was really cool. Because there´s so many people (tourists and locals) walking there everyday.

This week should be really good. We have lots of cool things planned, and we´re really getting to know the people here, especially the youth around our age. It´s incredible how well you can connect with people and get to know them even with a language barrier.

We have an awesome opportunity this week too. We will get to personally meet and even do a service with Loren and Darlene Cunningham who are here this week for something. They are THE original founders of YWAM; they started it all up in 1960. It´s pretty exciting.

outreach update

Hey, so things have been pretty busy the past couple weeks here in Argentina. We spent 5 days up in Chaco, in northern Argentina. It gets pretty hot up there. It was consistently over 100 degrees everyday, and I wouldn´t be surprised if it hit 110 or 120 a few days when we were there. We wouldn´t do any ministry in the afternoons just because it was so ridiculously hot, nobody was out in public. We had siesta time, which are good for naps.... unless you´re in Chaco. I´d fall asleep and 10 minutes later wake up in a pool of sweat. So instead of napping, we just sat and talked with each other and the neighborhood kids. It was fun.

The people in Chaco were so cool. The pastor and his wife were so hospitable and made us great food. We did our drama called Forgiveness to the song ¨Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape¨by the band Underoath for the first time there. It´s a powerful drama. The first time we did it there, the pastor said to everyone that he never cries in front of other people, but during that drama we made him cry in front of his entire congregation.

We did a lot of work with the youth of the church, and they were so fun to talk and work and hang out with. One night we went down to the main plaza where a lot of people hang out at night and did a program, and a ton of people from the church came with us. It was a lot of fun. They were all about taking photos with us too. I swear one kid took about 6,388,298 photos that one night.

After the 5 days we headed to the bus stop where we would head out to Compana and when we showed up, the whole crew from the church was there waiting and they had made big signs for us and even gave us all gifts. One sign had all our names on it and another said ¨Thank you for come to Chaco!¨ Awesome.

The past 3 days we spent in Compana and it was a similar story. We spent a lot of time with the young kids and youth there. We did a night out at the plaza there too, and earlier in the day we had even taught the kids from the church some of our dramas and they performed one.

We had 3 services in 3 days while we were there and performed dramas and taught at every one. The first night I gave the message. I talked about finding true, lasting joy that comes only through Christ. Later on, I´d like to post a blog on just that message, and the whole idea of it. Last night I played electric guitar in the worship band. Like I said in my last blog, the worship is so laid back and spontaneous compared to back home. About 5 or 10 minutes before the service started, they told me they wanted me to play guitar. Then I (hopefully) find out the key of the song and from there we play. No chords, nothing but the guitar and wing it. Fun stuff. Then they wanted Rosie and I to play a worship song, and that was another just ¨Ok, come up and play¨deal. No practice or prep or anything. So we went up and played Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord. It went well, though, I think.

Now we´re back in Quillmes (Buenos Aires) till 4 AM this next morning and we head out on our 50 hour bus trip down to Ushaiua.


Please pray for me and the team that we don´t just go through the motions but that we really seize the opportunity we have here and give it everything we´ve got, because when we do step out and do that we´ve seen that huge things come out of it, and it´s totally worth it.

Until next time, chau!

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.