Hello friends,
Greetings from California! We’ve been back
here just over a month and time is flying by!! We’ve just finished our 4th
week at school and once again it has been amazing and we feel so blessed to be
here! It’s been so good to be back and reconnect with friends from last year
and also start to form so new relationships…you meet new people nearly every
day here!
From day 1 in 2nd year we could
sense the shift! It is a big step up from 1st year! We are now
treated as leaders and expected to act like leaders. There is much more
responsibility on our part to make the most of the year which creates ownership
and in effect is training us to be leaders. It now feels like we are in a
Leadership Training School, which we love! On our first day back we had Kris
Vallotton and Bill Johnson and there was no warm up. Kris jumped straight into
his leadership training, which was amazing and of course Bill was as deep as
ever! Another big difference is that the whole year is much more together. 2nd
year is a lot more about the whole class and what God is doing corporately
among us and not just our individual journeys. This creates such an atmosphere
of unity and it also means there is free access to any of the leaders in 2nd
year, not just our assigned pastor!!
What does it look like when the Kingdom
comes?
Our times with Kris Vallotton have been
incredible! He is the senior overseer of the school and carries its vision. His
vision is the raise up world-class leaders to go all over the world and bring
the Kingdom of God, and it seems like it’s 2nd year where this ‘really’
begins to happen! He wants to teach us how to think
for ourselves and think like leaders so we know how to get answers to the
worlds problems! A big emphasis this year is us learning how the kingdom works,
how the spirit world works instead of just knowing methods and theories and so
he is taking us on this journey this year!
So in our first week we where discussing
‘what it looks like when the kingdom comes?’ and ‘how does heaven invade
earth?’. We discovered it’s so much more than just signs, wonders and miracles
breaking out- even though these are a big part of the kingdom coming. Kris says
miracles are never meant to be an end to themselves but rather an invitation
into a superior kingdom and a catalyst to cultural transformation. There were places where Jesus performed many miracles such as
Capernaum, Chrorazin and Bethsaida and yet those cities where not transformed
and so the kingdom couldn’t have fully come. So after quizzing us on what we
thought it looked like and dialoguing about what kingdom looks like in all
different aspects of society, Kris shared his thoughts which are amazing and
thought you all might like to read:
Here is the link:
Building a History with God
In contrast to that Bill has been talking
to us a lot about our ministry to the Lord as our primary ministry! He has been
sharing keys from his life and relationship with the Lord, which has been
amazing. He shared on how our ministry to the Lord (worship) is our no.1
ministry and it affects everything we do- evangelism, love for people etc. He
talked about how familiarity with God is so dangerous as we lose that wonder
and awe of him and often worship can become so familiar that we begin to lose
that and forget that when we come to worship we need to bring an offering- it
is sacrificial! He also warned about having multiple agendas in worship and
that our agenda should only be to worship him because of who He is! This was a
huge wake up call for many of us as here we have worship almost everyday and so
familiarity is always around the corner! This message changed my life and focus
on the importance of worship and true worship that actually costs us something-
“inconvenience is the way to breakthrough in kingdom living”- Bill Johnson
Another day he talked about building a
history with God, which really is just spending time with Him and developing an
intimate relationship with Him and getting to know Him! This is our true
history with God, its so much more about our relationship with Him rather than
what we’ve done for him. Bill says history with God is made when no one is
watching and you can tell that his history with God is why he’s in the place he
is today! Bill says ‘If you’ll make history with God, he’ll shape history
through you” and this rings so true in the life of
Bill Johnson! I believe this is how you become a revivalist- its through the
times when no ones looking!
So that’s just a few things we’ve been
learning which we hope bless you!! There is so so much more, evident in the
fact that I’ve nearly filled up a whole note book already from taking notes in
class!
Thank you all for all the prayers and
support. We always keep in mind the ‘tribal anointing’- that what is ours is
yours, and we believe that everything we’ve been getting in the spiritual here
is available for all of you at home too!
With love!
Christine
