Spiritual Formation

What does spiritual maturity look like? What are some markers or gauges of how you would identify spiritual maturity? How would you diagnose your own spiritual condition? What strategies do you have in place to grow in spiritual maturity? These are just a few of the questions we addressed this past weekend at our youth seminar on Spiritual Formation.

I had the opportunity to speak for a few hours on Friday night and again on Saturday morning to a group of about 20-25 teens and young adults from two different branches of the Uniting Reformed Church in Windhoek. They were a very interactive group and based on their feedback they seemed to really enjoy the material.

One of my biggest concerns in youth ministry is the focus on external religion. Many churches have youth programs simply because they want their youth to look, speak, and act a certain way. As long as they follow the rules, don't get in to trouble, and don't embarrass anyone, then they are generally left alone, maybe even ignored. But the problem is that a bunch of rules don't make a relationship with God. Spirituality isn't about the external life. You can have great looking external religion and still have no inner spirituality. Those are fakers or what Jesus called hypocrites. He railed on the Pharisees for exactly that, being externally religious but having no inner spirituality. And most of youth ministry is about exactly that, it's busy addressing external symptoms rather than treating the heart disease.

The key to youth ministry isn't trying to shape externally religious people, but internally spiritual people. Because inner spirituality can't be separated from external religion. It's an internal reality that will inevitably manifest itself in the external life. As we shape and form our inner spiritual lives, it shows up in how we look and speak and act.

So our goal this past weekend was to understand how spiritual formation works, and by understanding it, to hopefully develop a strategy for our own spiritual formation. We started by looking at what spiritual maturity looks like. Most people have a conception of spiritual maturity as external religion, but we emphasized the inner spiritual life. Then we went through 10 questions for personal spiritual diagnosis. Then, after understanding our goal and understanding where we're starting from, we looked at strategies of how to "get there from here," things like addressing sin, changing our desires, intentional community, and spiritual disciplines.

Groups studying a Bible passage	Groups drew and labeled a picture of a spiritually mature person

At the end of the seminar some of the leaders told me that many of their youth were not available to come this weekend and invited me to come back another time to teach those others also. I handed them my course notes and said, "Now you know the material so you can teach it to those others." That's what multiplication is all about, training those who will train other also. Don't be impressed, that strategy is not original to me. The apostle Paul did it first (2 Tim. 2:2) and Jesus before him. That's what it takes to turn the world upside-down.

Rules for Driving in Namibia

1. Never indicate - it gives away your next move. A real Namibian driver never uses indicators.


2. Under no circumstance should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you. This space will be filled by at least 2 taxis and a BMW, putting you in an even more dangerous situation. 


3. The faster you drive through a red light, the less chance you have of getting hit.


4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No one expects it and it will only result in you being rear-ended.


5. Braking should be as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving you a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates. For those of you without ABS, it's a chance to stretch your legs.



6. Never pass on the right when you can pass on the left. It's a good way to check if the people entering the highway are awake.


7. Speed limits are arbitrary, given only as a guideline. They are especially NOT applicable in Namibia during rush hour. That's why it's called 'rush hour....'


8. Just because you're in the right lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that the Namibian driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.


9. Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even someone changing a tire. Never stop to help - you will be mugged.


10. Learn to swerve abruptly. Namibia is the home of the high-speed slalom driver thanks to the government placing pot holes in key locations to test drivers' reflexes and keep them on their toes.



11. On average, at least three cars can still go through an intersection after the light has turned red. It's people not adhering to this basic principle that cause the big traffic jams during rush hour!


12. It is traditional to hoot at cars that don't move the instant the light turns green. This prevents storks from building nests on top of the traffic light and birds from making deposits on your car.


13. Remember that the goal of every Namibian driver is to get there first, by whatever means necessary.

~ I don't know who the original author is, but it's brilliantly true so I'm reposting it!

Pressing On

This semester in NETS Community Devotions the lecturers preached through a series on the book of Revelation and are now finishing up the semester with a 3 week series on Haggai. This past Thursday I preached from Haggai 2:1-9, an encouragement for God's people to courageously continue God's work. You can download it here or listen below if you'd like.

NETS Fun Weekend

This past weekend, the Student Council at NETS planned a great community outreach weekend. On Friday night there was a Gospel Show. There were all kinds of acts like different dance groups and solos, church worship teams, spoken word performers, and some a cappella groups. I signed up for an act and recruited a friend from church to sing harmony with me. We performed "For The Moments I Feel Faint" by Relient K and "Your Hands" by JJ Heller. It was a great night with over 200 people in attendance!


Then on Saturday morning we were all back at NETS for a Volleyball fun day. The students had organized a volleyball tournament and we had food, and games, and water balloons. There were two teams from local churches, a team from Youth For Christ, a NETS student team, and I organized a NETS staff team. The NETS staff team had a very strong day and never lost a game, taking home the trophy in the end. The students already want a rematch. ;)

Intro to Missions

I put together this little video for a friend who's doing a missions emphasis with his youth group

this month. It's a brief introduction to mission strategy but also to my ministry in Namibia.

Blossoming Deserts

This is exactly why I call my blog "Blossoming Deserts." All it takes is a little bit of rain and the desert bursts into bloom. What was once dry, brown dirt becomes a fertile field of different shades of pink, yellow, purple and green.

That’s exactly how God’s Word works in the lives of dry souls. Jesus calls Himself the living water that becomes within us a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Just like the driest desert before the rain, Jesus can transform even the driest soul.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth;
    it shall not return to Me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

                                                       ~ Isaiah 55:10-11

Spring Break 2015

This past week we had our "spring break" at NETS so I escaped from town for a few days for a little R&R. I joined 7 friends (some old, some new) staying at a little apartment right across from the beach in Cape Town, a city I'd heard so much about but never yet visited. I filled up a whole memory card worth of photos which will eventually make their way onto Flickr, but I'll give you the highlights here.

This was our beach in the small, homey suburb of Muizenberg. It's a popular surfer destination as the slow sloping beach offers many waves. The white sand, blue waters, and slightly warmer Indian Ocean current made it a great place to take a morning walk, toss a frisbee, or go for a swim.

   

The V&A Waterfront is a popular touristy shopping place. They have lots of shops, vendors, street performers, nice views of Table Mountain, and a little sense of pop culture humor. The food market here is an fantastic place to stop for lunch with a variety of authentic ethnic foods from all over the world!

   

Next, it was on to the World Heritage Site of Robben Island, the home for political prisoners during the apartheid era in South Africa's history. It was a sobering reminder of how power, fear, and hatred can bring out the worst in humanity. Nelson Mandela, a leader of the anti-apartheid movement, spent 18 years living in this small cell and doing hard labor at the lime quarries on the island. Namibian freedom-fighter Toivo ya Toivo was also imprisoned here.

Waiting in line for over an hour and a half to catch the cable car up Table Mountain was totally worth it. The views from the top over the Atlantic Ocean and the city are outstanding! The top is fairly flat, hence the name, so there are paved walking paths that lead you to viewpoints on both the north and south sides. We went up on an amazingly clear and warm day so we could see to the horizon in almost every direction.

   

If you plan your timing right, you can make it down from Table Mountain in time to drive over to Signal Hill to catch the sun setting over the Atlantic Ocean. As the one light disappears into the sea on west side of the hill, all the lights of the city start coming out on the other side of the hill.

   

The hills of Kirstenbosch are home to South Africa's National Botanical Gardens. There are thousands of varieties of flowers, herbs, trees, cacti and medicinal plants, even some species that are almost extinct. The many walking trails and vast lawns made it a relaxing setting for a nice picnic lunch and afternoon walk. They even had a raised walking bridge to take you through the upper canopy of the "Enchanted" Forest!

   

Boulder Beach is home to a colony of penguins. This is their breeding ground so you'll find them all up and down the coast sitting on their nests of eggs. They're quite used to humans lingering around so you can wander up right next to them and even swim alongside them. But don't get too close because they do have sharp beaks and claws.

   

The Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western point in Africa. Bartholomew Diaz was the first European to round the cape looking for a shipping route to India. Now tourists flock there to have their picture taken with this sign. But if you're a bit brave (some call it crazy) like me, then you can climb out on the rocks all the way to the edge of Africa. It's pretty cool looking out over the ocean knowing that the next land in that direction is Antartica. But before you start climbing out, make sure to give your car keys to your friends so they can still get home in case you fall off and die.

Then finally, we drove up the coastal road looking for a nice beach to relax on. Our criteria were simple, no seaweed covering the shore, no sand flies, and ideally no people. We came across the beach at Misty Cliffs (aptly named) with white sand, blue water, amazing waves and most importantly, no seaweed, flies, or people. :)

All in all it was a nice time to get away, enjoy friends, not think about work, and all that in a setting surrounded by God's beautiful creation. At 6am on Saturday morning I loaded up the car for the long 16 hour drive back to Windhoek. With all my friends going their separate ways I would be making this drive alone. But it was like the long slow sigh after a deep breath. Now, with a bit of renewed energy, it's back to work for the second half of our semester...and editing through a thousand photos to tell the tale!