I'm a blogger now...I'm kind of looking forward to having somewhere to write down thoughts, ideas, and feelings and sharing them with the internet world. But anyway lets get to whats on my mind tonight.
I'm finishing up my summer internship at the church I attend. At the beginning of the summer I was looking forward to the internship for a few different reasons, none of them being the reason I am sitting in front of my computer tonight. Going into my summer internship I was expecting to learn about the ministry, build some awesome relationships, pick up some things from the middle school pastor at church, but instead of just learning those things I was expecting to learn God reshaped the way I think and affirmed to me that I'm called to full-time Christian ministry.
I started out the summer not having too much ministry experience, just the stuff that I had learned from the past little bit of interning. The first part of the summer was fast and furious. We had summer camp for our middleschoolers at Lee University in Tennessee. I went into it not really knowing what to expect, I had come prepared to teach and to lead but little did I know God had completely different plans for me. Throughout the summer camp God opened my eyes and opened my heart. It was an amazing feeling because it was the first time in a long time that I had allowed Him to work in my life. He started revealing things to me in a simple quiet way. As a Christian sometimes I find myself looking for an awesome sign from God but in all reality God speaks to me in a soft way. He speaks to me in a way that requires me to be quiet before Him. He spoke to me in this way at camp. Who would have thought that in one of the noisiest places you could possibly be God stirred my heart using a soft voice. He was revealing how to be quiet and listen for him and learn his voice in one of the noisiest places I could be. He spoke so soft and clearly to me that week. I was challenged to really slow down and listen for my fathers voice.
Throughout the summer I also participated in the college ministry at my local church. This was a place of huge growth and encouragement. You could really tell that God's hand was and is all over the ministry. This possibly could be where I grew the most this summer. It was really cool to see God use my friends to teach me things. What can I say? The worship was amazing this summer. We did this thing called the "The Plug: Home Edition" and everything about it was blessed by God. We met together at different houses and simply invited Jesus to meet us in that place and meet us he did. Before this point I didn't really realize what worship truly was. I had this big cushy worship experience and I truly didn't understand how we are supposed to worship God. As we met in these houses however big or small that they were I started to realize that it doesn't take a comfy worship center with music loud enough that nobody can hear me sing to worship my King. As we worshiped in these small places with just a cahone and an acoustic guitar and maybe 13 or 14 people, many times less than that, God met with us and allowed His loving presence be felt. He poured out his goodness on us and had conversations with us through prayer. It was an awesome time where God filled us.
Next came "Mission: Indiana". It was awesome. I learned things that I didn't have the slightest clue about. I became bold throughout the week I spent there. It became easier and easier to approach people in Jesus name. I gained a lot from it and I will hopefully be able to put it to practice.
But through all these situations, trips, happenings and stuff I have kinda taken away one thing. That one thing is God loves us and wants to use us in ways that we could never dream.
