Glorieta

Last week was an amazing week. It was fun, challenging, and life changing. I was able to hang out with friends, learn about missions, God, and people, and I was able to get away from the rest of the world. It was great. There is a lot that God taught me, so buckle up.

One of the very first things our speaker told us was "Serving God is not a matter of location, it is a matter of obedience." This was a really good reminder for me. Sometimes I can get caught up in the thought that God is not going to use me as much here in the US as He will over seas. But that is a lie. God wants to use me just as much, if not more, here as any place on earth. So that set the tone for the week for me.

Suffering was the main topic of the week. It was really heavy stuff. Especially after 4 days of listening about different types of suffering, and why people are afraid of sharing the Gospel in different areas of the world. It was really good, and eye opening. But it really weighs on your heart. Once all of our sessions were done, and I was able to sit and meditate on what God was teaching me, I was really broken. On Monday, I wrote in my journal, " This week at Glorieta has been amazing, challenging, convicting, and heart breaking." And that is the honest truth. I was really struggling that day. I felt depressed because of the things that were being said. Not that they were bad, but I was really thinking that I had a lot to work on. And I do.

One of the first questions presented to us was "Is Jesus worth it?" In my heart I truly do believe this. Jesus is worth everything to me. But, I was challenged with the stories told of people who really lived that out. When our speaker told us that the needs of the lost are greater than the needs of the witnesser or believer. I realized that I had not been doing what God has called me to do as effectively as I should. I have been trying to build relationships with guys on my hall. I have prayed for them, talked to some of them, but I have never really been able to talk to them about Christ. And I think that has been because I am trying to do things on my terms and not God's. I am not really good at meeting people where they are. That is what Christ does, though. He meets us where we are. So I am going to try a lot harder to be with the guys on my hall when they are actually doing things. Not when I am not doing something. And I know that that will mean giving some time up with my other friends, but I believe it will be worth it.

Another thing that the speaker went over is excuses for people not to share the gospel with people in Muzlim and Islamic culture. One of the reasons was that they did not want those people to become Christians. So I was thinking that is not me. But as I thought about it some more I discovered I had a similar mentality. Sometimes I just don't want to witness to people. I get lazy and have no desire to share God's love with them. So what makes me any different than the person who says they don't want those people to become Christians. We learned that the greatest form of persecution is not telling people of Christ's love for them. Wow! That kind of sucks. So I really need to take advantage of every opportunity to share that gospel with people . Just like I Peter 3:15 in my post before.

The man who spoke has done a ton of research. He has interviewed hundreds of people from what I could tell. And his information was really good. He told about Muzlim culture and some of their reasoning for becoming Christians, and it will break your heart to hear these things. But they are important, because Satan is using them as obsticles for them to have to get around to truly know Christ. Also they are difficult for the missionaries to get around because of the warpe view that the people have of Christianity. The biggest thing for me was the fact that a lot of younger adults become "Christians" out of hatred for their dads. That was really hard to here because I can't relate to that. I have an amazing dad who challenges me to become more like Christ. Not to turn on him and do something that would absolutely dishonor him. But how do you tell them that what they are doing is wrong. I mean we have people here who say they are Christians all the time. But not for that reason. So things like that really just got to me as he spoke.

He also talked a lot about how to do mission work. It really changed my perception of mission work. All my life I have thought that I would go and evangelize a group of people that has never heard the gospel before and raise them up to be strong Christians. But that is not the way to do it. He talked about living the life of a Christian and having a native who is a Christian evangelise his people. Of course if they have never heard the gospel before you have to evangelise them to an extent, but ultimately it is the native people who are going to be able to relate to them the best. So if we can get one or two of them to become Christians and evangelise the rest of their people that is more effective. Also we are not to necessarily be the ones to baptise them. For some reason they think that if a missionary baptises them their christianity is more important or better. So we should let the natives do that. My job is to take the word of God in oral form and tell the stories of the Bible, and to tell the poeple to watch my life to see how a Christian is to live. He really emphasized presenting the Bible in oral form because 80% of the lost world is illiterate, and they can hear something one time and remember all of it. That is amazing! Especially since literacy is such a big deal here in America. But to be able to tell them the Scriptures in a way they can understand is really important.

One more thing that really stuck out to me is when he said not to give up in freedom what you would not give up in persecution. Satan brings about persecution so that we will shut up. Here in America we have not been persecuted, but we have been shut up under our own agreement. People keep saying that America is going to see persecution soon, but why would we if we aren't doing anything to deserve persecution. Most Christians don't share their faith with people. A lot, if not most, aren't even in the word. So why would Satan persecute us? That was really challenging for me because it made me realize that I have a fear of man. If I am ever going to go over seas I must overcome that. I must take action and live a life of obedience to God.

So that some of what I learned at Glorieta. The last couple of days were really fun. We were able to do whatever we wanted really. And I played a lot of cards and went to Sante Fe and stuff. But it was nice just to be with people for those last few days.

I did not post the speakers name simply because he is a very important person for his organization, and lives in an area where he could very easily face a lot of persecution if they found out what he was doing. If you want to know his name, call me.