8thWeeK

Week 8

Mystery Monday this week was a blast! We went laser tagging and did a little mini golf. I’m proud to say that my team did very well in the laser tag tournament. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to see who actually got first place but I was happy with our accomplishment. The mini golf was fun because it was all in doors with black lights which made it kind of hard to see but it was still fun. (I didn’t play competitively or else I probably would have gotten frustrated from my lack of sight.)

This week was a little different because our Thanksgiving break so we only had two days of speakers and on Wednesday we had our men’s bible study, small groups and accountability time which we usually have on Fridays.

On Tuesday Adam Donyes spoke to us on relationships or as he likes to call them REALationships. A few things that stood out to me that he shared with us was the three M’s. Master, Mission, and Mate.

Master - If they don’t love their Master, Jesus, then forget it. Lust is a feeling, Love it s commitment (2 Cor. 6:14-16 / Luke 22:41-43)

Mission - Often times the more we chase a relationship with others the less we chase Christ. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and   sin which clings so closely, and   let us run   with endurance the race that is   set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising   the shame, and   is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. “ -Hebrews 12:1-2 Our relationships with others should be an overflow of our relationship with Christ. We often drown out God’s voice by those we are infatuated with, but we have to let God be the voice in our life.

Mate - Relationships are meant to increase your relationship with the Lord, not decrease. Genesis 2:18 tells us “the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." It is good for us to find someone who will be encouraging to us in our walk with Christ.

On Saturday I will be headed to Kansas City with my brother Jordan to hang out with some extended family for Thanksgiving. I’m sad I won’t be going home to San Diego but am excited for this new adventure.

Until next time.

the 7th weeK

Week 7

What. A. Week.

It started out with an interesting Mystery Monday. We learned five important life skills with different stations. Changing a tire/checking oil, writing thank you cards (which can go a long way!), two-stepping (I am now a pro), how to manage yourself during an interview, and how to share the gospel. These, I thought, were all great skills to learn. They were all informative and fun!

A few hours after Mystery Monday ended we started our trek up to Kansas City where our Urban Entry was. We went straight to a house where we were welcomed with a meal catered by Oklahoma Joes. Now, this wasn’t the first time for me but if you haven’t had some Oklahoma Joes, you’re missing out. We hung out for a little bit, played some ping-pong, piano and played some games. The next day we headed over to the Hope Center which is a

“Christian community development organization that, out of our belief in God, is working diligently to renew the forgotten impoverished east side community where we live and serve. We are investing in its people, in particular the youth, anticipating that their transformed8 lives will offer the hope and leadership needed for our inner city community to flourish.”

This was such a blessing to be able to help out an amazing program. We did most of our work in a deserted church that is owned by the Hope Center and is right next to it. On Wednesday we got the pleasure of listening to DA Horton who is one of the best communicators I’ve heard. Here is a book he wrote called G.O.S.P.E.L., which I have not read but I’m sure it’s amazing and I cannot wait to read it.

What I took out of Urban Entry was how much more my worldview has expanded in knowledge just from what I’ve seen in one of the most dangerous cities in the US. And also in 2009 Forbes Magazine named KC the most abandoned city. To me this was very eye opening to see all of the hurt and abandonment where there is a lot of potential. A lot of the houses there are abandoned which makes the cost for some of the houses very inexpensive. The Hope Center recently bought a three-story house for $3,000 and made it livable for about $7,000 more. The demand for living in this area is so low. This was definitely one of my favorite weeks so far.

Pictures are not up yet but will be in the next few days @ Link Year's Flickr.

Until next time.

WeekSix

This week was legit. It started out with a Mystery Monday learning about nutrition from Marry Willis. This was very insightful. The main thing she taught us was the seven pillars to living healthy. They were Hydration, eating well, sleep and rest, exercise and movement, detoxification: filling in the gaps, and coping with stress-building community.

This week consisted of only two speakers. First, brother Marvin Daniels, who is the vice president of the leadership development program at Kids Across America, came and spoke to us about being Insulated in this world and not Isolated from the world referring to 1 John 4 where it talks about being in this world but not of this world. God wants us to be different as we are his divine representation of Him on Earth. We are to be the salt and the light to this world. He also talked about living above the influence where he references Daniel 3 and the story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego where three Jews were captured in a Babylonia culture who are worshiping other gods then the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are now standing in front of the king where he is commanding everyone to bow down and worship him and his image. Shadrach Meshach and Abednego knew that not bowing down to his image would cost them their lives and yet they chose not to. The king dared them by saying what god is going to keep you from my hands? They defined their position and said the God that we serve IS able to deliver us from your hands but even if he chooses not to, we still won’t bow. This transfers over to current day culture! Even if we may be threatened in our culture, or they call us names or talk down on the bible that we will not remove from our position from which God has compelled us and told us to do as His followers and disciples.

That’s deep.

And for our second speaker we were extremely blessed to hear from the one and only Keith Chancy who is the Kanakuk Institute president as well as the director of K7. He blew my mind with what he had to say. But a few things that stood out to me were how he talked about how we were made in the image of God and how this changes our world view because if we don’t understand this we will just keep going back and blaming God for things he hasn’t even done! God allowed man to eat from the fruit from the tree of good and evil, which allowed sin into this world. This did not take God by surprise; He knew it was going to happen because it was part of His plan. He wants man to change his own ways and follow Him so that they can be more like Him and to bring glory to His name.

Both of these guys were phenomenal communicators! I would go so far as to say this might have been the best week of speaking in my opinion.

To see pictures from the Link Year, click here.

Until next time.

Five Week

​Last week was college visit week so because of that I did not write a blog. But I promise this will make up for it. Last week I visit College of the Ozarks, which was very interesting and informative. Some quick fun facts: C of O has the nick name Hard Work U because of the work ethic that is in the foundation of the school. Each student is required to work 15 hours a week at an on-campus workstations and two 40-hour workweeks during breaks. The neat thing about C of O is that you can graduate debt free. This idea blows my mind and makes me think, “Would I want to live in Branson for another four years?”

The college visit was fun and all but time to get down to business and hear what I learned this week.

And before I tell you what I learned. Mystery Monday! We played bigger or better. If you don’t know what that is the basic gist of it is that you start with something small, we started with a paper clip, and you ask random people to trade something for sometime bigger or better. My group got about four trades in before we ran out of time and we ended up with this sweet dragon. We didn’t win the overall contest but it was still fun!

This week we learned how to manage time, money, and ourselves. All of these talks were very helpful and I can’t wait to see how much more productive I can be. I learned that managing time is very important. What we do with our time has eternal significance and if we don’t manage our time, our time will manage us. (Which we don’t want.) Also, if we want to maximize each day we need to prioritize our schedule. A quote from C.S. Lewis that I enjoyed said this… “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever they do, whoever they are.” On Wednesday we got to hear from Adam Martin about managing our money. The main thing I took away from it was the program Mint. If you haven’t heard of Mint, it is the best free way to manage your money and it’s all online. It has so many cool features that seem never-ending. There are inward, outward and corporate disciplines that we learned about for managing self. The Inward Disciplines are meditation, fasting, prayer, study, the outward disciplines are simplicity, solitude, submission, service and the corporate disciplines are confession, worship, guidance, celebration. Discipline is the main ingredient to managing self.

Until next time.

I’m (The) Third (Week)

First I will take you through what we did on our Mystery Monday this week like I will do at the beginning of each of these Link Year posts. On Monday Tim Bohlke came in and talked to us about getting into a rhythm of reflection and solitude. Personally I haven’t intentionally taken the time to unplug from communication and plug into God’s beautiful creation to think about different areas of my life. This is exactly what we did. We went down to the lake in the morning when the thick fog was still alive. Tim directed us to go off on our own and take a few hours to think about certain areas in our life that will help us keep running towards the cross. This time of reflection was very impactful. Needless to say it was a good Mystery Monday.

For the remainder of the week we got to listen to the author of Is God Just a Human Invention?: And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists (With Sean McDowell), Welcome to College: A Christ-follower’s Guide for the Journey, Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture. This guy was legit. Too legit. Too legit to quit! (quote from a movie). Over the past three days we learned how to prove that God does exist with a few arguments as well as proving the resurrection of Jesus without reading any verses from the Bible! On top of speaking all three days this week, Jonathan also spoke on Proverbs 4 at the Fort on Wednesday night, which you can hear here. I don’t want to spoil it for you but he talked about how we make and break habits; very interesting stuff. I highly encourage you to take a listen. One last thing that I enjoyed hearing from Jonathan was his encouragement to get ready for battle, a.k.a. college, by learning these arguments for our beliefs.

Until next time.