Vision Week

Last week we transformed the basement of the Campus House into ten spaces separated by sheets for students to come and walk through their story. The theme for vision week this year was Storyline. The majority of the material came from Donald Miller’s Storyline book.

In the book Don starts by looking at God’s timeline. Then using Joseph’s life as an example of how our stories fit into God’s story. He shows the positive and negative turns in a person’s life and how that denotes the theme of their life. The theme is the statement which everything you do must pass through. If what you are planning on doing doesn’t line up with your theme you might want to reconsider what you are doing.

A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. After figuring out the theme for of life we moved on to the roles we play, the ambitions we have with each role, the inciting incident (the thing that once it happens you will never be the same), the conflict, and the climactic scene (the scene that can only take place after the ambition is reached).

For me one of my roles is Staff Intern.

My ambitions for that roles are to create art that inspires students and the God's word is understood and can be applied.

Some Inciting Incidents I need to do would be to plan the KC grow trip, ask students questions about what they are learning, and seek out more girls to meet one on one with.

I foresee conflict being that I don't know the answers to questions students ask, no place to stay in KC, or no place to serve in KC.

Climatic Scene I imagine would be when a student gets it and when a student is leading someone else.

It was a very successful week. We heard a lot of good feedback from students. If you want to read people’s  stories, Don set up a website,  you can go to mysubplot.com.  

Amsterdam.

The last week of October I took a trip to Amsterdam, The Netherlands with my church from back home, Graceway. It was a cultural discovery trip. There were 17 of us that went ranging in age from 14 to 69. We stayed in the Memphis Hotel to the south of the city. From there we could walk or take the tram anywhere we wanted to go.

In the mornings we met in the conference room and Jeff taught us about different cultures and how we can better relate. I wish I could retell all his stories and share all the knowledge he gave but here are a few things that stood all to me this past week.

·         There are 180 different cultures of peoples in Amsterdam compared to 150 in New York City. Jeff challenged us to listen to the different languages we heard during the day. I did this and found myself disappointed that I listened to the many languages put didn’t know what they were. I could pick out the major ones like Spanish and French but nothing else.

·         We all tend to be ethnocentric. This means we tend to see the world through our own cultural lens, whether that be American culture and/or Christian culture. God did not call us to plant American churches in every nation, he says to make disciples of every ethnic group. The only way to establish the Gospel among a people is through their culture.

·         New ideas in society can be traced:

                First with the intellectuals

                The educated –ideas get passed down through the school systems

                The workers

                And finally the middle class

·         Thomas Aquinas sought balance between Grace (God the Creator, heaven, heavenly, invisible) and Nature (the created, earth, earthly, visible). Catholicism rejected nature from the 5^th-15^th century. The Renaissance brought nature back but rejected God’s truth. People didn’t change what they were thinking, they started to change the way they were thinking.

·         We have formed a Christian culture that is so inward focused we have lost connection with the viewers. Post Modern thinking means wanting to participate. They don’t want a show a church.

·         “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.” William Carey.

In the afternoons we were free to explore the city. It is so quaint. The gardens I walked through were beautiful and tranquil. I could have sat there for hours reflecting on God’s creation.

I went to the art museums and saw Rembrandt’s, Van Gough’s, Vermeer’s, Gauguin’s, Cezanne’s and many others. It is so surreal to see this works of art in person that I have seen hundreds of times in my art books.

My favorite part was visiting the churches. I saw the Old Church, the New Church, Zuiderkerk, St. Bavo’s, St. Nicolas, and Begijnhof Chapel. I love seeing the grander and majesty of the old churches built to glorify God.

You can go to my Facebook to see pictures from the trip.