Biblical Counsel

Blog world, what's up? This week, surprise, was an awesome week. To start the week off we went zip-lining in the ozark moutains. I was a memerable experiance that I hope to repeat. On Tuesday we had the great Joe White come and recite the whole book of Ephisans and speak incredible wisdom into our lives. Its a mind-blowing, sanctifying, life-changing experience everytime Joe comes and talk to us. On Wednesday and Thursday, Tim Watson, a christian couselor, came and talked to us about biblical counseling and how we are are called to counsel to a certain degree. Before you start looking at me funny, let me define couseling. Couseling is any form for teaching, giving guidence or an act of helping a brother get through a situation. Counseling started in the Garden by God (Gen 1:29) and is probably most talked about in the New Testament (Jesus counseling the 12 disciples and so on). So counseling is biblical, cool. EW are are called to do it. The great commission says that we (Matt 28:19) go and make disciples of all the nations. Counseling is a key part of that part, so we are all called to do it. This is just a little wisdom I learned this week, and that's why this week was awesome.

Open Handed

Sup blog peeps! This week was a good one. We started the week off with a mystery monday, learning self defense. We went to a local dojo and learned some effective techniques and moves, so don't mess with me or you will get a hammer-fist straight to the dome! On a more serious note, our speaker this week was Austin Ochs. Austin is a friend of Adam Donyes and helps run a company called Capital 3. Capital 3 is a private equity firm that owns and operates corporations with the mindset of creating economic, social and spiritual capital. This week he talked about many topics, including, how to live a high impact life, the powerful combination of business and ministry and much more. Even though I learned a lot, one topic that he discussed made the most impact on me. Open hand living. Open hand living is the mentality that we steward our time, treasure and talents with an open hand rather than a closed hand. Let me explain. If I have a five dollar bill in my hand and my hand is closed I will have that dollar bill as long as my hand is closed. If I have a five dollar bill in my hand and my hand is open I now have the opportunity to spend or give that five dollar bill away and create the potential for a larger bill, 10, 20, 50, to occupy my hand. With that larger bill I can now make a greater impact. This was a great lesson for me because I am more of a closed hand, kind of guy, but I learned that God has a plan and reason for everything and it will work for His glory and I should honor and trust Him for this reason. Have a blessed week!

Respect and Learning

This week was a great week. This week's speakers were Sean McDowell and Chad Hampsch. Chad Hampsch is a great teacher and our class had a great question and answer session with him and I gained a lot from it, but Sean McDowell made the biggest impact on me this week and possibly this whole year. 

     It's Tuesday morning and Sean McDowell comes into the K-1 chapel, our classroom, introduces himself and says a story or two and then says, "When I put on this Jacket I become an atheist." He puts on the jacket and basically says I'm an atheist and I know that you are Christians so ask me any questions you might have. For the next hour and fifteen minutes the majority of the Link Year class tried to poke holes in the "atheist's" worldview and try to convert the "atheist". By the end of the session I felt like we were all two year olds trying to out-smart a parent, the point being that he made us feel like we had the intelligence of two year olds and gave us confidence that we could never "win" in an argument with an atheist professor. Though the exercise made us feel like a kid in T-Ball hitting against Randy Johnson, the point was to expose how we communicate with people who do not share our belief system. To be honest this was a great lesson, because sometimes when we come in contact with a person of different beliefs or views we can be hostile, arrogant and even disrespectful, and we need to treat everyone, including atheists, with the love and respect of Christ. This lesson was a great one but I got something more out of it. This year at Link Year I have learned a lot but Sean showed me that we should never stop learning about the wonderful God we have and the faith we live out everyday, not only by digging in the word but exploring the world around us through science. Even though Sean made us feel stupid, our confidence and esteem was returned when Sean told us that he has studied atheism and apologetics for fifteen years and has done scenarios like this multiple times around the country, I leaned valuable lessons through an experience I will never forget.

Week before Ireland

Hey blog peeps! As the title states this is the last End of the Week review before I go to Ireland a week after tomorrow. Let us just say that I am, a little excited. This week was dangerous, manly and profound. This week was MAN week!! Not only did we do manly things, but we learned a lot on how to be a Godly, manly man. On Monday, we shot sporting clays on a gun range, and it was awesome. Not to mention the grilling steaks with our hands afterwards. Though we did not learn about attributes of a Godly man, it was cool to hang out with men and shoot some shotguns. On Tuesday, Adam Martin took us down by the lake and sat us down for a manly talk and to do some manly activities. Though the activities were fun, the things he said to us were more worthwhile. The thing I walked away from that day was the difference between fault and responsibility. You can have responsibility without fault. That's big. Let me break this down. Even though things could not be your fault, as a man you must accept responsibility for it. Example, You are overseeing some kids playing with gnarly fireworks. One kid burns himself. Even though it is not your fault, you take responsibility for it because you were in charge. On Wednesday, Bruce Morgan, director of Point 11, came and talked to us about what a Godly man looks like. On of the man things a Godly man has that a worldly man does not have is security in Christ as opposed to security in people or possessions. This is a key thing to find happiness because your emotions will be based off of the grace of God and not a moody person or a possession that will eventually break down. Today, Adam Donyes spoke to us on the difference of being a man versus a boy. On of the key things I took out of this talk is accepting responsibility and letting your yes be yes. I really took in the responsibility aspect of this talk and I am trying to apply this to all areas of my life. Letting your yes be yes was a big one for me. I can sometimes not commit fully or go back on my commitments so hearing this really challenged me to follow through. This week was great. The Godly, Biblical man is a dying breed and I got a whole week learning how to be one. I am very blessed and I pray to be the man that God desires me to be.

Back from Break

It's good to be back in Branson. I have returned for another semester of link year. On our first week back we have been blessed with an excellent speaker, Ted Cunningham. Ted is a local pastor of the church that I go to called Woodland Hills. Besides being an awesome pastor, Ted is one of the top marriage and parenting counselors in the country. This week Ted talked out multiple topics ranging from marriage to parenting. The first topic Ted talked about was symptoms and solutions of a stuck marriage. Even though none of us at Link Year are married, it is good to learn about healthy marriage and signs of trouble in a marriage so hopefully we can avoid the latter. The next topic he switched gears and spoke on parenting. Ted talked about, what he called, trophy parenting. This type of parenting, prolongs adolescence and, what he believes, causes an unnecessary delay in marriage. The reason why this is bad is because of Genesis 2:24, which states that a man should go from his fathers house to the house of his family's. This scripture does not suggest an unnecessary delay. The third topic he spoke on was the 6 levels of communication. With the 6 levels of communication being the deepest. Knowing these levels helps keep healthy communication between couples and communication is key. Throughout this week I have really been blessed with the knowledge that Ted presented and I feel that I can apply it to all aspects of my relationships now and the future.

Hello, before break

Hey, it is finally here, the final week of the semester and I must admit is was a very good one. We were blessed with the knowledge and wisdom of D.A. Horton, executive director at Reach Life Ministries, the ministry side of Reach Records, and Darrell Shemwell, a Bible super scholar. D.A spoke to us on heart transformation on Tuesday. We dug into  Romans 12:1,2. D.A. broke Romans into these three points, response to sin and salvation, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,", reporting for sacrificial service, ", to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." and rewed like silver, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.". When D.A. communicated as much truth as he did through these two passages I was inspired on how much we can extract from God's word if we look close enough. On Wednesday we dug into Ephesians 5:15-21 focussing on the theme, maximizing moments. This was really cool and I learned a lot from this passage and this is how it was broken down, wise and unwise living, verse 15, waste no time, verse 16, work to know God's will, verse 17 and walk spirit filled, verse 18-21. I have been learning a lot about God's will the past few days and this passage really gave me some good wisdom especially with D.A. communicating and extracting a full and detailed points of the passage. This week I was blessed to get this knowledge that these men passed down to me. From these men I learned, a Biblical basis for sacrificial service, a deeper understanding of God's will, how to live wiser and walk closer with the spirit. I am grateful for these points because I can apply these daily. Remember without Jesus there would be no Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Week One Week Till Christmas Break

It's Thursday and that means another End of the Week Review. This week was a great. This week's mystery Monday was great and we had Brian Wang speak on Tuesday and Thursday and Julie Coxie, head of Kanakuk human resources, spoke on Wednesday. So, mystery Monday was great. January first marks the start of allowed dating at Link Year, so in preparation the guys were given ten dollars and were told you have 30 minutes to plan how you are going to ask one of the fellow Link Year ladies on a "date", plan your date, and figure out what group you and your date would go with. Sparing you the borring details, I asked a lovely lady named Jamie and our date group planned the date poorly but as far as I know Jamie and the other dates had a good time so it was a success. On to the meat of the week. Tuesday, Brian spoke on the verse Luke 9:23, 'And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.' He divided the verse into three main subjects, self denial, complete dedication and willing obedience. He explained self denial as this, to get what we've never had we must do what we've never done, and what we've never done is die to self and the result will be something we have never had and doing things we have never done, an intimate relationship with God and doing His will with obedience.  I know it's heavy but trust me, it is a good lifestyle that has an awesome eternal reward. On Thursday, Brian discussed the latter two topics. Complete dedication, he used the analogy of 211 degrees verses 212 degrees. At 211 degrees ferinheight water is hot, an illustration of how we can sometimes be almost completely dedicated thus not effective. At 212 degrees ferinheight water boils and creates steam which powers a locomotive, an illustration of how, if we are completely dedicated, we are effective and can do great things. Willing obedience, this pertains to the part of the verse that says, "follow me." thus meaning that willing obedience is following Christ. Now, I have never heard someone being called obedient for doing the job halfway or doing it when it is easy and not when it is hard. So when Christ commands us to be obedient and follow Him we must do it to the fullest extent of our abilities and when times are good and bad. In conclusion, I have realized that I will not be dating any time soon, I need to be more selfless, and obedient to God's commands 100 percent.