Well hey there everyone, glad to see you showed up. Let us dig in.
First off this week was pretty good, inside and outside the classroom. We had the privileged of having Marvin Daniels speak to us Tuesday and Wednesday. He was also planned to speak on Thursday, but had something come up on his part and had to jet. So we got a surprise guest speaker for Thursday, but I'll get to that soon. Anyway, on Tuesday Marvin came in and talked about how we should not be isolated from the world but insulated. So basically we need to be in the world but not of it. The solution to living in a sin filled world is not to go off and live all alone, isolated. The solution is to be a light in the darkness and keep yourself insulated. Meaning, guard yourself with scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to work in your life. Another fun thing Marvin did was he made us all stand up...and walk to the back of the room. What followed was a great thing. He had, on opposite walls, signs that said "Don't Agree" and "Agree". Next he put up a slide with a question and we had to walk to whichever side of the room we agreed with. Example would be this: The first slide he put up was, "I can listen to music with profanity and lewd lyrics without it affecting me negatively." So if you agreed you would walk to the side of the room that had the "Agree" sign. If you disagreed, well, you get the point I'm sure. So after everyone had chosen a side he let a friendly debate take place. Each group would get to defend there side. This was really cool cause I got to see others opinions and views on these "gray" areas. I'll tell you guys the other 2 questions he asked and then move on to Wednesday. The second question was, "The Republican Party is more Christian than the Democratic Party." and the third question was, "I would lie if it would get me out of serious trouble.". Well I won't tell you which sides I picked, you can guess and/or ask me personally.
Wednesday Marvin came back to talk about "Living Above The Influence". Basically don't be influenced by what the world is doing, be influenced by what Christ did and is doing in your life. Just ask. Something he said that stood out to me was, "The best compliment a Christian can receive is, 'If Jesus is anything like you than I want to get to know Him.'" To which I would say, "Heck no dude, Jesus is a whole lot better!" Then this apocryphal person and I would continue this great conversation. This is what would happen in an ideal conversation. I just hope it can come to reality sometime. Something I will be praying for. [By the way, notice how I ended that sentence with a preposition? Some people don't like that...] Wednesday was good, but I really wish Marvin had made us do the whole, "Don't Agree and Agree" thing again. He had three more questions he could have asked! They were good ones also. First, "If humans could be cloned - a clone would have a soul.", second was, "Racism is still expressed in the Body of Christ in America.", and finally third was, "Abortion is always wrong unless a person is raped or the mother's life is threatened.". As I said before, I have my views on these but you should guess and/or ask me personally. A final note, a cool thing we did Wednesday is we all got in small groups and discussed a lot of other questions he posed to us, I just can't remember all of them and they were not written down sadly.
Thursday was a really cool day, much more personal than some of the other days we have had at Link Year so far. By no means am I saying that the other days were not personal, it's just this day was more so. Anyway, as I said before Marvin had to leave for an unknown reason so Adam Donyes brought in a guest speaker. I was pretty happy to see he brought in Keith Chancey. He did a really good job of speaking and teaching on Genesis 1-3. Some cool things were brought up but the most interesting thing I'll mention in a lil bit. Just be patient. I know that's harder for some people but just bear with me.
Up next we have the five main things I learned this week. Stay tuned.
1) "We are never called to supervise sin, we are called to pray and confess." This was not really something I learned as much as it was just a really well worded quote. Concise and to the point. I like it. So many times we just tell our accountability partner that we are struggling and then kinda look at the sin for a little bit. Finally we just move on to the next thing. Nope, not the way to do it. Gotta fight that monster and punch it out. Pray and confess.
2) "The Principles you live by create the world you live in; if you change the principles you live by, you will change your world." - Blaine Lee. This was just a good quote that I enjoyed. I feel like it speaks for itself and doesn't really need to be expanded on. Plus this blog post is starting to become a little long so I am going to try and wrap this thing up.
3) This is probably the most interesting thing I learned at all of Link Year. Or at least one of the most interesting. Also one of the things I actually learned. Lot's of the things I have heard but just put in a different way. This was something I'd never heard before. Anyway, Keith talked about Genesis 1-3 and he talked about Genesis 1:6-8. I can't go into too much detail but basically when the text talks about separating the water into the expanses there is a theory called, "The Water Vapor Canopy Theory" that says the text is talking about the water on earth and the rest of the water was separated into a canopy of sorts around the earth. This was really interesting because I'd never heard this before. As with all things I hear that are new to me I looked this up more and studied it a little bit. Not completely sure which side I fall in but I tend to disagree with it. For different reasons. Now I have only been studying it for about an hour so I am by no means an expert, but I encourage you to look it up more yourself. Here is a link to a description of what it is, http://creationwiki.org/Canopy_theory. You can look into it more yourself and make a decision. It is an open hand issue so believe what you want with that one.
4) If you can disprove Genesis, even down to the very first verse, "In the beginning God..." you can disprove the validity of the whole Bible. That's why it's so important to study the whole Bible and not just the NT. So yeah...know yo Bible.
5) This is a little of a throwback but that's fine. On Monday we had a nutrion expert lady come in to talk to us. She was all about eating right and being healthy. I learned that there are 7 Pillars of Health and Wellness. Hydration, Eating Well, Sleep and Rest, Exercise and Movement, Detoxification, Coping With Stress, and Healthy Relationships - Building Community.
Alright everyone thanks for joining in. Next week looks to be exciting for we will be going to Kansas City for an Urban Entry thing. Hopefully it ressembles what I did in Waco, Texas with the Poverty Simulation because that was fantastic. Living homeless was a real eye opener and I hope and pray that this coming week is the same thing. Stretching periods hopefully are in my future! Ight everybody, I'll see you next week.
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