Something from the DTES...

It says "Be Bold or move to Suburbia". Any thoughts???

Vernon...

Things are good here in Vernon.
Prayer times are great here. I have a 24/7 prayer room attached to the back of my house, so I get to pray a lot.
I'm meeting some interesting people and I'm excited about some upcoming projects. I am going to be working a bit more on my photography, so that's cool.
Hopefully I can put some of those pics up here and you can give me some feedback.

I am learning, by God's grace, how 'mission' can look vastly different in various venues. After a year of constantly seeing people using, or involved in the sex trade, to suburbia where there aren't that many people out at night ... different climate - spiritually, culturally etc.
My deepest prayer at the moment is that I'll be able to hear God's voice and walk in obedience. When you know all the right things to say or do, you are in dangerous territory because you can 'fool' a lot of people into believing you've got it all together.
I'm fighting to hear God's voice. Last night I was literally crying out to God. We all are desperate for His presence, but sometimes the desperation looks different. Especially when your environment changes.

I don't think that I'm alone in this. I pray that you will cry out to the Lord and recognize just how much you need Him. It's when we are humble, and broken, that He can come and give us the fullness of His strength and healing.

Worship is Warfare

I had a really cool time in the 24/7 prayer room here in Vernon. I've been reading through this book called "Worship Warrior", and really looking at different passages from the bible about worship and what happens in the Spiritual when we worship. Essentially when we worship it is warfare. It is hallowing the name of Jesus, it is exalting Him, bringing Him honour and praise etc. and in doing this it is loosing the power of the Lord - He loooooves faithful and obedient worshippers.
(I'm skimming a lot to quicken this post, but if you want any scriptures of anything just drop me a line, there's tons of stuff I'm skipping).
Anyway, the Lord inhabits our praise and when the prayers of the saints fill up those bowls in heaven (Rev. 5:8) they get turned over and crazy stuff happens. Praise the Lord!
Anyway, all this to foreshadow my big revelation... When Jesus was entering Jerusalem and the crowds were praising him and shouting "Hosanna!" and giving Him glory, what happend next? He went in to the Temple to 'possess' it. He turned over tables and basically took care of business. He could have done this so many times before. I believe that it was the prayers and praise and worship of His people that caused Jesus to do what He did.
Our worship is warfare. I think it's in 1 Cor 10:4 that says "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." When we focus on Jesus and praise Him, He does the rest, He wins the battles, He gains victory, He is freed up when we let go and let Him take over.
So let us RISE UP IN WORSHIP. Let us turn our eyes to Jesus! Who's with me?!?

I miss you guys...

Unity

Here's something that I wrote recently for my research project for Steve Court. Let me know what you think... (It's part of a project that Dan and I did together, so a lot of it came out from discussions we had).

In many of the Western Churches there has been talk of ‘Worship Wars’ ad nausea. A constant battle seems to have been underlying church dynamics and a power struggle has existed concerning whose preferences should be upheld.
Denominational attitudes have come into play and crippled the larger church body. Divisions concerning church government, theology and expressions of worship have enlarged the chasm that exists between different church bodies.
The natural and commonsensical notion of proximity would reveal how this not only brings disunity but prevents (or at least slows down) the process of reconciliation if there lacks an intentional effort.
We acknowledge that each “church” is in itself an expression of the body of Christ. Hence the term “a church body”, yet we also agree with the truth that all the Saints together make up a larger body – the Body of Christ.
In varying degrees we can see unity in local expressions of the body, yet there appears to be a more severe neglect of the imperative need for unity and reconciliation of the global church. We must have eyes to see our need for one another.


“If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it,
and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.”
1 Corinthians 12:26
NLT

Goodbyes

Well, as hard as it is to believe, I'm at my summer placement already.
It was hard saying goodbye to everyone. I know that I'll see everyone again in 12 weeks, but it is such a blessing when we are all toghether, fighting alongside each other in the same physical location.
We had a GREAT party to end our time together.
"I love the mountains, I love the rocks and rills, I love the valleys...!" (it's an inside, I know).

There was a lot of reconcilliation that took place within our session on Friday, and PRAISE THE LORD for that. Saturday was so sweet because we were all on the same page and had soft hearts for one another. Like a real family. I miss you all!

Please pray for all the Holy Session on their summer placements.
Also, check out the Holy Session blog (also on the side) to see what we're all up to.

Grace to you all in the Name of Jesus Christ!

Dan and Darren - Way to Go!

This is a bit overdue, but on Sunday, Dan and Darren ran a marathon. I was so proud. Here are some pics. They both ran the full marathon in under 4 hours. Way to go guys! You trained well and it was an honour to cheer you on. Blessings

(click on photos to see them bigger)

Slap in the face

This is purely a comical blog about an experience that I had this week.

So I was playing poker with some friends on Monday, I think, and my friend Tara was there. Somehow we got to talking about aggression (the two of us) and I don't think that anyone else was listening. She asked me if I had ever slapped anyone before. "No". "I want to you to slap me in the face"
"No, Tara, I couldn't do that"
"Yes you can. Come on!"
"No, I'll do it and then you'll get really upset and it'll be really awkward."
"I promise not to get upset. Just do it."

Everyone started screaming at me "What are you doing"
all I see is Tara's face and then... "oh, that hurt a lot more than I thought"
Everyone burst out laughing.
It might have been one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was definately one of the funniest things that have happend this year.

Oh and p.s. I really did it hard. Haha. It was amazing.

Persecution etc.

A lot has been happening here lately so just to give you the quick sum up...

I got physically persecuted for the first time in my life. We were getting ready to go out for Open Air on Friday and I was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk and singing a worship song and this lady in the building behind me wasn't really excited about me singing/worshipping the Lord and so from the 3rd floor of the building, she whipped a bottle of lotion at my head... it hurt a lot and I got lotion all over my hair. I think the worst part was just that I didn't see it coming. When you get hit (especially in the head) without warning, it's usually just shocking.

In other news - the Lord is really good and gracious. He has been breaking my heart so much lately. The War College is getting ready to go out and do summer placements and I've been reflecting on all that the Lord has taught me and the things He has shown me etc. My prayer for myself and for the others in my session would be that we would have soft hearts that are humble. Humility is such a huge thing. Anyway, I won't get all into it now, but please keep me/us in prayer as we prepare to be sent off for three months. What an amazing privilege. Amen.

I am 24!

I had a wonderful birthday this past weekend. I celebrated my birthday all weekend long, thanks to my good friend Dan White who planned all of my surprises.
Friday night a few of us went to Granville Island (nice surprise!) to this lovely restaurant by the water. I was surprised there by my two cousins (Sarah and Johnny). After that we went to Death by Chocolate for dessert and coffee.
Saturday another surprise - we went to Deep Cove to go hiking. Rain did not stop us!!! We pulled a bit of a Garden State move and wore garbage bags.
Then the weather cleared up and Dan took me to my first soccer game ever - the Vancouver Whitecaps. Yeah :)
Sunday it was good to worship and praise the Lord. Thank you Lord for great friends, good health, and of course, Salvation.