Ministry Highlight: Youth With A Mission

 

To Know God and To Make Him Known! 

In my post Highlighting the Highlights I mentioned that I wanted to start introducing you all to the ministries and blogs that I have links to to the left. What better ministry to start with then the one that I spent four years serving in full time overseas. In my list of links I have linked to the webpage that is specific to the base that I served at in Hurlach, Germany. I encourage you to visit their page and find out what they are doing. YWAM Hurlach is a great base for schools and training. They offer several schools and training opportunites like:

Discipleship Training School 

School of Biblical Studies 

Bible Core Course 

School of Biblical Christian Worldview

Located in a small farming town in Germany YWAM Hurlach is a great place to get away from the pressures of society and focus some time on seeking God and learning more about His Word and the call that He has placed on us as Christians. It is a great place to get to know God more and to learn how to better make Him known.

However, YWAM is so much more than just Hurlach. According to their official website, YWAM has a staff of more than 18,000 working actively in 1,100 locations in more than 180 countries. Has God placed a specific country on your heart? There is probably a YWAM base there waiting for you!

The foundational school of YWAM is the Discipleship Training School (DTS)

If you are feeling led to work with YWAM the DTS is probably where you will want to start. I did my DTS in September of 2005 and it changed my life. It is a unique school for several reasons:

Your fellow students are generally from several different countries, cultures and backgrounds.

You learn from teachers who literally come from all over the world.

You spend half of the school in the classroom and then half of the school on the mission field. 

It is six months completely devoted to your relationship with God and discovering the mission he has given you!

Though most DTS's have the majority of students coming straight out of high school or college, there are also many schools oriented more towards older students and some even specific towards families. So whatever stage of life you are in you can find a DTS that fits you! Pray about it and then go to www.ywam.org and search out which school you want to be a part of.

After completing a DTS you have several options for continuing in Youth With A Mission. You can go on to study in more schools and even get your degree in the University of the Nations, you can staff the DTS or other schools, or you can join several ministries or outreaches all over the world!

For more about the founding of YWAM and the vision behind it I encourage you to read Is That Really You God? by Loren Cunningham and if you are looking to set aside six months of your life for God then I strongly encourage considering a Discipleship Training School.

Three Hindrances to Victory

Dr. Lester Sumrall, the late missionary, evangelist, and teacher of the Word, discusses the dominion and victory that God has given to us in his book Take It, It's Yours! This is something that I briefly wrote about as well in my posts Faith and Confession and The Power of Prayer. In a nutshell, God gave mankind dominion and victory over the earth and all that was in it when he created Adam, Adam and Eve gave up that victory to the enemy when they gave into sin, Jesus took the victory back in his death and resurrection and gave it back to mankind.

You have dominion and victory on this earth whether you feel like it or not!

However, even though Jesus has given total victory back to us, it is up to us to walk in it. According to Lester Sumrall there are three main things that can hinder us from walking in the victory that already belongs to us:

1. Unbelief - Throughout Jesus' ministry he is constantly referencing faith. Often he commends people for there faith and attributes miracles to it (Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52). At other times he rebukes his followers for their lack of faith (Matt. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8). There is even one point where the Bible says that Jesus was hindered from doing miracles, as He wanted to, due to the lack of faith in the region (Matt. 13:58). Just a quick read through the Gospels tells us how important faith is when it comes to walking in the power and authority that Jesus walked in and called us to walk in. If unbelief is hindering you from walking in the victory that God has called you to walk in then get in the Word. Read the Word, meditate on it, quote it, listen to people preach on it, until your faith is built up to the point that you can walk in it!

2. Ignorance - Some people don't walk in victory simply because they don't know that they are supposed to. If that is you then let me assure you, you are supposed to be victorious! 1 Corinthians 15:57 gives us the most concise and straightforward statement telling us that, however it is all throughout the Bible. God has given us total victory through Jesus Christ! It is already ours! We do not have to cower to the devil or his demons. We do not have to allow the world or circumstances to beat us down. We are called to walk in victory and dominion! Mark 16:17-18 says: 

And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

This is how we are supposed to live! When we encounter demons we are to cast them out, when we encounter sickness we are supposed to bring healing through laying on of hands, when we encounter attacks of the enemy they are not to harm us!  

3. Sin - Let me be clear, all of your sin has been forgiven through Jesus Christ. When you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior you are made completely righteous in God's eyes and you do not lose that every time you sin. Even all of your future sins that you will commit have been covered in the blood of Christ. However, if you do not learn to walk in the righteousness that you already are you will be hindered from walking in total victory. Paul puts it this way:

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 

Romans 6:15-18

Even though God's grace has made us the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:22), we can still choose to present ourselves to sin making us it's slave. This will hinder us from walking in victory.  Focus on God and getting into His presence and you will begin to recieve the revelation that you are dead to sin and alive in Christ. With this revelation you will find it easier and easier not to sin and to walk in victory.

Highlighting the Highlights

Enjoying my blog? Well don't stop here.

I just want to take a post to direct you to different links surrounding my posts. I hope that God is speaking to you regularly through my posts but there is so much more to be seen.

At the top of the site you can find links to different pages always available on my blog.

Martureo - A Living Martyr - Gives a short description as to why I chose the name "martureo" and what I am trying to say about myself through that name. "Martureo" is the Greek word for "witness" and is the word that we derived the word "martyr" from.

What is the Gospel? - Jesus' last command to us was to "Preach the Gospel to every creature..." but what is the Gospel? The Gospel means simply "good news" and if you are not clear on what that good news is then check out this page.

Living Martyr Ministries - God has put ministry on the hearts of my wife and I. Here I have described the ministry that we are doing and the ministry that we desire to do. Visit this page and pray with us as we seek out this ministry in a greater capacity.

To the Left you can see two sets of links:

The first set of links are ministries that I either have a direct or an indirect connection to. From YWAM Hurlach where I served full time for four years to Strong Hearts Ethiopia which my wife and I are personal friends with the director and founder. There are also ministries in Uganda and Fiji which I found out about through my brother. The links will take you to there blogs describing what they are doing in there prospective ministries. Finally there is Loom International and Connection Ministries based right here in Portland.

The second set of links are blogs that I have discovered and have found encouragement or challenge from their posts. I do not necessarily agree with every post that they make but I find that they have helped me grow in my beliefs and in my life. Some of the bloggers update regularly and others do not. However even those who are not regularly updating have archives of posts that are worth going through. Some of the bloggers I know personally and others I have found through my online connections. I encourage you to check them out and be encouraged and challenged in your walk with God.

In upcoming posts I plan to spend some time expounding on some of these links. God has blessed me with many wonderful connections all over the world and I want to share those connections with you so that you can be blessed and you can also join with these ministries in prayer.

Lastly, you can always search through my past posts. On the left, below the aforementioned links you can see links to my popular posts by page count and on the right, you can see my archive and you can go back all the way to my first post in 2010.

Feel free to explore and let the Lord speak to you.