Running a week behind…

Going into the last week of the lecture phase seemed unreal. This last week of lectures by Don Stephens covered Worldview’s and the Kingdom of God. To introduce worldview Don began by describing glory as “God’s invisible character reflected in the visible world.” As humans we are created to reflect that glory, to understand glory, to hear glory, to see glory and to speak glory; God loves beauty, harmony, justice, romance and grace, and so we love them because we are made in his image to reflect him. He went on to teach how the Christian life is Grace, emphasizing that grace and legalism means life and death. We looked at worldview and how it has changed and we compared world views from different cultural and religious backgrounds and the influence they have on our thinking and actions. With these teachings in place the last day was spent on the Kingdom of God and what it looks like now, (or should look) “may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” and what it will look like.

Takeaways are many but here are a few to ponder…
* we live to reflect God
* the law is a widower, the dead spouse is me, being under the law is like a woman married to a husband who expects perfection.
* Conversion is the miracle of a moment, sanctification is the labour of a lifetime.
* Worldview is like a story that organizes your beliefs about the world, but we all view the world through the distorted lens of sin.
* many Christians have a “born-again spirit, Babylonian brain.”
* The Kingdom is a story written in your heart.
* The Kingdom is a culture of power Luke 10:9 Heal the sick, and as you heal them, say “the Kingdom of God is near you now.”
* The Kingdom is a culture of radical inclusion and hospitality. xenophilia love of strangers, hospitality. A culture that values people, not just converts.
* The Kingdom is a journey – disciple-making is a process, not a one-time conversion event. When did Peter get saved? or Matthew? The scriptures don’t say, Jesus invited them and loved the “hell” out of them.
* Jesus had no circles, he hangs out with all the wrong people, it was all about relationship.

Joy to the World! Thursday evening at Ohana Court , at YWAM Kona, 54 teams representing 50 nationalities were commissioned and sent out to 39 nations to make a difference in this world. Loren Cunningham led the commissioning of the teams.

Before leaving Hawaii we watched the Big Island Christmas Parade –

it was held on Saturday evening, somehow Santa on a sleigh, with his bright red suit with white fur trim being pulled a long Ali’i Drive with a backdrop of Palm trees and the Pacific Ocean seemed a bit surreal. St Michael’s RC youth group had the tallest Wise Men I have ever seen in their walking nativity scene.

One last Hawaiian sunset. Our days have been full and time has passed very quickly, if it wasn’t for our journals and the weekly blog post we would have argued that we had only just arrived. We sent our first team off in true YWAM style, they boarded vans heading to the airport and Fiji.

Many of our fellow Crossroaders and other friends, came out at 5:30 a.m. to send us off! We piled into 15 passenger vans for the short trip to Kona airport and a long day of flights to Hanoi.

I began writing this about the time we crossed the dateline, as we sat in an Asiana A330-300  we gained 24 hours, and Sunday had become Monday. The fabric of the seating on Asiana is a light brown, rather than the blues and purples that I am used to, the lighter colour makes the inside appear larger, but in reality the seats are wider and there is more room between rows than I recall having experienced in a long time. The cabin crew is very attentive, regularly offering water and juice, and lunch was Grilled Beef Tenderloin with a marinated shrimp starter, the dinner menu has Chicken Cacciatora with steamed rice or mixed seafood pasta. We even got to watch “Good Morning Vietnam” as one of the many free in flight movies on the way to Vietnam.

Arrival in Hanoi airport, these are my flatmates – Sophie, Glenda and Leslie.

Seems like Vietnam has excellent internet, wifi everywhere and we can communicate with you all quite freely. So until next time, be blessed and be a blessing! A&G

S.D.G