And we’re back!

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Teaching Weeks Continued…

• Father Heart of God (Sean Griffin) – This week focused on God the Father, His care for us as His children, and His desire to heal all our broken places (especially regarding relationships). There is no love like that of a parent. I didn’t take photos of the teaching time out of respect for the students and personal nature of the topic. Thank you, Sean, for sharing your insight into the heart of God and always giving your all to bring His healing love to others.

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”  – Matthew 6:26

• Worship, Intercession, and Spiritual Warfare (Steven Hanratty) – While we humans are able to see only what is visible to our physical eyes, the spiritual world is teeming with activity all around us all the time, invisible but very real. During this teaching week, we explored what the Bible says about the importance of worship and intercession (praying on behalf of someone) and how each combats the spiritual attacks of the enemy.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  – John 1:5

In the video below, witness the vicious battle between good and evil that took place as we conquered our fears in a most sophisticated and dignified fashion: stuffing them into balloons.🎈 (Action starts about 13 seconds in.)

• Creativity and Identity (Danny + Mary Scott and team) – What does having a Christ-rooted identity look like for an artist? That’s what Danny and Mary Scott, two incredibly talented actors and directors from the UK taught about during this teaching week. Their passion for both God and art was infections and lit a fire of excitement and, yes Danny, frustration in our hearts. We discussed who God created us to be, examining first what the Bible says about our basic human cores and then layering on the dimension of art. Basically we asked two questions: (1) What does God say about His creation? (2) What does our creation say about God?

“God must’ve had a blast. Painting the stripes on the zebra, hanging the stars in the sky, putting the gold in the sunset. What creativity! Stretching the neck of the giraffe, putting the flutter in the mockingbird’s wings, planting the giggle in the hyena. And then, as a finale to a brilliant performance, He made a human who had the unique honor to bear the stamp, In His Image.”  – Max Lucado

We also explored our individual strengths and weaknesses, determining where each person fits best within a team. In case you’re wondering, my top two skills are motivating people and encouraging them to work together. My main takeaway from this week? God, an artist Himself, designed us with the ache to create. And if we keep Him at the apex of our thoughts, desires, and priorities, we can in fact use any type of art to glorify Him. Happily for me, it doesn’t even have to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. It can be real. #eeyorelivesmatters #melancholyme

“As Romans 11:36 states, all things are from God and to God. Beauty boomerangs from God into created beauty, then through the senses and soul of the image-bearer, and finally back to God with praise and glory.” – Steve DeWitt

On the last teaching day, Danny and his team anointed the students with oil as a symbolic sendoff into their artistic and spiritual enterprises.

On Thursday of the Creativity and Identity week, we held a creative jam night during which The Peeled Onions improvised a full set of incredible jazz music, Danny and Mary performed some of their own poetry, a fine-artist swirled spontaneous paintings, and we YWAMers had the chance to share our art if we wanted to. Cynthia and I chose to perform an original poem each.

Below, you will find four videos of the event that do much more justice than a handful of photos. The top video is of me performing my poem, “Godspeed.” The second features Danny performing a spoken word to improv jazz music, the third features the painter, and the fourth features each musician getting a moment in the spotlight. Enjoy!

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

• Relationships (Harry and Ani Höllerman) –  On special request from the students and this staff member, our very own Harry and Ani consented to spending a weekend offering personal and biblical wisdom about how to have safe, God-honoring relationships. (That includes platonic friends, family, and romantic partners.) These two beautiful humans have set some serious #couplegoals for me, and they both proved to be wonderful teachers. Mature, hilarious, and unacceptably cute, Harry and Ani consistently increase my gratitude for our friendship. I wish I could have known them sooner and learned the lessons of this teaching weekend from them instead of from my own bad decisions, but better late than never, right? We love and respect you guys so much!

“Men are like microwaves, and women are like slow-cookers.” – Harald Höllerman

Note: Harry also taught on Biblical Worldview, but I had already documented his other teaching weeks and was too busy to take new photos. In short, we discussed how different backgrounds (cultural, societal, familial, religious, and so on) shape people’s worldviews and explored how our own worldviews align or conflict with the Bible’s approach to the world.

“In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” – Job 12: 10

If you’d like to identify your worldview, here is a flowchart courtesy of Cru.

• Destiny by Design (Ernst Jan Nieuwland) – God didn’t create humans to sit around twiddling their thumbs. He gave us dreams! And He wants us to pursue them with confidence! (Ps. 37:4)

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

The wonderful Ernie Nieuwland (whom I have adopted as an uncle) spent this teaching week spurring us toward action and invested hours into helping each student and staff member pinpoint major life themes and dreams. We explored how to identify God’s call on our lives, how to trust God with our dreams, how to take steps of faith, and how to use our passions to positively influence the different spheres of society.

“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts—such is the duty of the artist.” – Robert Schumann

Ernie’s huge, boisterous, loving personality mixed with his especially terrible dad jokes made this week one of my absolute favorites, and thanks to his enthusiastic encouragement, I have finally taken the plunge into a dream God put on my heart this year and that I am BEYOND ecstatic about…but you will have to wait a bit longer to hear more about it. Just know that the sparks are flying. (I love you, Ernie!!!!)

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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And that’s it, folks! We’ve summed up all the teaching weeks of Lecture Phase. That means I can actually start writing about outreach!! Get excited. That said, there are a couple “bonus blogs” on their way that will include some fun, non-teaching events from Lecture Phase as well as Laura’s and my adventures to Bratislava and Hallstatt.

Stay tuned!