Invitation to Ecuador!

I am again blown away at how quickly this year has flown by!  I am now only a  week from finishing my first semester of 2nd year at Bethel School of Ministry in Redding, CA.  Most of you know at least a little bit about what I am doing.  My 2nd year at school has been absolutely phenomenal!  I feel like it has been an entirely higher level of ministry training.  1st year was all about identity and really learning how to be human beings before we become “human doings”.  This year has been building off of that foundation, but we are now being trained on how to now create the culture around us that has been cultivated in us.  This has been so good for me!  Some of the things the Lord has been highlighting to me this year:  1) Community - It is so important to move from independence into interdependence.  We are the Body of Christ!  2) Dreaming with God - The Lord has been really encouraging me to go after the dreams that are in my heart. 3) Trusting over Knowing - I don’t have to have all the answers.  I just need to in the goodness of my God.

I now am presented with another opportunity to grow and take what I have learned outside of school.  I have been chosen to go on a missions trip to Ecuador with an incredible team of people.  There are a couple of reasons I applied for this specific trip.  First of all, I love the Latin American culture and the Spanish language.  It is a culture so full of life!  Also, this trip is focused on bringing heaven’s justice to situations that are distorted by social injustices.  This is a huge passion of mine!  Finally, this trip is partnered with Jennifer Toledo and Global Children’s Movement.  Jennifer has had an incredible impact on my life through her testimony of radical obedience to God which led her to the nations.  It is such an honor to be able to see her ministry in action!

If grace is grace, then work is no longer work (Rom. 11:6). There is nothing like encountering God's love with someone who has never known that He loves them! It's not hard to love God and it's such a blissful joy to share it with street kids, prostitutes, kids in youth prisons etc. We will be serving and supporting the existing ministries and churches who pour their hearts and lives into the people of Quito, Ecuador, day after day.

Our team will meet up with social justice rockstars Jennifer and Jonaton Toledo. Through their connections we will have amazing opportunities, releasing mercy and justice in youth prisons, ministering to and feeding malnourished children, distributing supplies, loving on and healing women and their babies in the nation’s largest maternity hospital for impoverished families, ministering downtown, as well as ministering to believers through a conference.

I would absolutely love it if you would prayerfully consider joining my support team as I prepare for this amazing adventure and also while I am there.  The trip itself is for 17 days near the end of March into early April, but the preparation time is just as important.  If you would like to jump onto my prayer team and get updates, just shoot me an email and I will put you on a list.  Also, I will be blogging about my journey up until the trip, while I am there, and after I get home. I am also looking for people who feel led to sow into this missions trip financially.  Please know that I so appreciate however you choose to support me!

Financial gifts may be made online at ibssm.org. This gift is tax-deductible and you will receive a statement at the end of the year for your tax records. If you wish your gift to be anonymous, please check the anonymous box. This will allow you to receive an end of year statement, but will not allow me to see your name. This gift is non-refundable, and if for any reason I or my team does not go, the money will support another mission trip sponsored by Bethel Church.

I pray that our Father would radically bless you in this season of your life and that His love would fill you daily.

Ellie Stailey

2245 Deerfield Ave

Redding, CA 96002

Will You Choose Me?

Taking notes with Glory (the cat)

This past week in 2nd year we started our preaching project.  Everyone in 2nd year gets to preach to a group of about 30 other students and 1 leader.  We each have 10 minutes to preach and then 5 minutes of feedback.  So I know what you're thinking... 10 minutes, really?  You could take that entire time to tell one story.  My thoughts exactly.  How am I supposed to develop an entire sermon in 10 minutes?  I can't even take a shower in 10 minutes, or make my lunch in 10 minutes!  So in one respects it would appear to be a fairly simple project.  Get a good scripture, explain what it means, and give some revelation.  Done!  Oh, but let me tell you, sermon prep is not that easy.  Sure, if I wanted to talk on something random, just pulled something out of the hat, I could easily have done it.  But I wanted to share something that had been stirring in my heart for 6 months.  How do you summarize 6 months of process and revelation in that amount of time?  Well, three full afternoons, many long chats with Jesus, lots of brain food, and 22 pages of notes later, I felt like I was starting to know what my sermon was going to be about!
Now that you have an idea of the process... about my preaching.  I was the last of 5 to preach on Tuesday. I won't say I wasn't trembling on the inside or that I didn't have that moment of panic at the thought of "What if I forget everything once I'm up there?"  But I did it, and it was great!
A summary on the summary of my past 6 months/sermon...  I titled it "Will You Choose Me?" and the theme was - Jesus doesn't always make sense, but He wants to know, will you still choose Him?  I spoke out of John 6:56, 60-69.  In this text, Jesus addresses the offense His disciples have because they couldn't understand His sermon on the need to eat His flesh and drink His blood.  (Who would understand something that crazy?!)  But instead of explaining Himself, He told them that they were offended because they were trying to understand by the flesh, or through their own ability to understand.  The problem was that Jesus words were spirit.  They were looking for rational explanations from a spiritual God.  It just doesn't work that way.  So Jesus purposefully offended them to see how they would respond.  Would they allow their offense to drive them away from Jesus, or would they let it drive them closer in relationship with Him?  Relationship has always been the standard for God.  He wants to know if we can get past our right to understand and have everything make perfect sense to us, and see if we will still choose Him when it doesn't.  Can we choose Him when things aren't lining up the way we expected?  Can we choose Him when we aren't seeing the answers to our prayers?  Can we choose Him when we feel offense rising inside of us?  My challenge was that all of us would come to a place where, yes, we still seek God for answers, but that we could say "God I want you more than I want answers.  So I choose you."
So there you have it!  I have successfully finished my preaching project.  But not to worry, there will be more to come :)

The Other Side of Things

"Ministry Trips"... this is a hot topic here at Bethel.  You can find students talking about it everyday.  Testimony after testimony of God "blowing the place up" (figuratively and positively speaking, for those unfamiliar with the Bethel lingo), healings in massive meetings, salvations on airplanes, signs and wonders, etc...  This is an idealistic dream for any Bethel student, to be able to travel with one of the senior leaders and see the miraculous show up.  This past weekend, however was what I consider the other side of ministry.
Don't get me wrong, I love crazy side of ministry.  But I'm beginning to realize that sometimes the most powerful ministry can look very different from what we would expect.  I have been there and back again, my latest ministry trip to Valparaiso, Indiana.  Bethel has a sister church in Valpo that has a School of Ministry.  The purpose of the trip was for Eric & Candace Johnson to speak at the school, minister to the leaders of the school/church, and to speak Sunday morning.  For us 2nd years (there were three of us all together), we joked around afterwards that we got ministered to more than we actually ministered the entire trip.  Honestly though, the only formal ministry we did the entire 4 days we were there was 15 minutes of prophecy during the School of ministry, and doing the prayer line Sunday morning.
So what is ministry when it's not the big show?  What I learned is that it all boils down to relationship.  That was the main thing we did on our trip.  We hung out with the students the entire time and just did relationship.  It was fantastic!  I didn't have to say the right words, do the right things, or be someone other than myself.  I was just me and let the Spirit flow out of me.  It was the most natural form of ministry, and it was no less ministry than all the other forms.
I have been reading the gospel of John and something that I have noticed is that most of the time Jesus' ministry flowed out of relationship.  He was simply talking with the Samaritan Woman and her life was completely transformed.  He was simply having dinner with Nicodemus and He was able to unpack the foundations of Christianity.  He wasn't hitting the streets in order to see miracles happen.  Miracles happened when He was just being Himself.  It was flowing from His true identity.
A few things that happened as we were just being ourselves and hanging out with people, we were able to teach a visitor how to hear God's voice, we helped a single mom rake out her back yard, we prophesied over students and the church leadership, we saw a couple of backs healed, and we got to pray for all sorts of people in different situations.  So fun!

Kingdom Creativity Released

       Well I have gone and done my first ministry trip as an official 2nd year student!  I can't believe it's already come and gone a week and a half ago.
       So last weekend I went down with a group of 14 to Santa Rosa, CA.  The event was a creativity conference with Theresa Dedmon, so I already had an inkling that this was going to be a trip where I would get stretched and activated.  For those of you who don't know, Theresa heads up anything and everything that has to do with the arts at Bethel.  She has an incredible vision to redeem the arts as something that God created for us as an expression of His creativity as well as ours, and to invade all realms of society with that art and creativity.  She is also known as one who will give her team nice big nudges into things that they have never done before:  prophetically singing over people, painting on stage, prophetically dancing over people, etc...  I have a huge passion to see dance as well as other forms of creativity to influence society, so it has been in my heart to travel with Theresa.  I also knew I wanted to be stretched and activated.  So I was more than thrilled when I got accepted to go.

Prophetic Painting Sunday Morning

       You know that God is going to stretch you when you feel your stomach drop and your mind starts going a hundred miles an hour thinking of how you can escape to anywhere else.  It's like the "wanna get away?" commercials.  Well I first felt that feeling when, in our meeting, Theresa announced that her main dancer was unable to make the trip and she needed someone to teach a dance workshop at the conference.  First of all, this was 2 days before we left.  Second of all, the workshop was called "DUI - Dancing Under the Influence".  Great...  Don't get me wrong, I love teaching and I love dance, so to get this opportunity was totally a God thing.  But I have only ever taught technique and choreography.  I'm still learning what it looks like to dance in the spirit.  In fact, I gave up dancing for a year and only just recently gained vision for it again.  Really God?  You want me to teach?  Well, praise be to God, I said yes instead of hiding.  And He was so gracious to me.  The whole ministry trip was such a safe environment to step out.  It was such a beautiful time ministering to this church body and allowing the Holy Spirit to use the gifts that He has given each of us.

Prophetic Dance over Woman

       The first night I was pretty much pushed up front during worship to dance.  I'm still learning what it looks like to put aside my inner-rationalizing that keeps me from getting up in front.  My mind likes to spiritualize my reasoning for disobeying the leading of the Spirit.  It's frustrating to me that the enemy tricks us into thinking that Spirit is actually our flesh speaking, and our flesh speaking is actually the Spirit speaking.  It's sick that we fall for that over and over.  But I know that I have said yes to God, so I want to get over the rationalizing and spiritualizing my compromise.  It's always nice though when someone gives you that nudge when you can't figure it out on your own.  All that to say, I did a lot of dancing up front... dancing in worship, dancing a prophetic word over a woman and over the church leadership, activating others in dance up front, releasing freedom through dance etc...  It was so freeing to just do it without thinking about it.  And the workshop I lead was so fun!  I just shared from my heart what dance is to me and then I lead the group in different exercises of worship and prophecy through dance.  Many of them came up to me afterwards sharing how they experienced so much freedom.  One woman even started crying as I shared with her that her dance is a sacrifice of praise to the Lord!
      Honestly, it's hard for me to really share what God was doing in me over the trip.  I saw amazing things happen - 3 people healed from my word of knowledge, countless people touched by the love of Jesus, etc...  But the most influential thing to me was just His radical goodness towards me.  He cares so much about my love for dance that He continues to set me up for growth and increase.  Sometimes it just overwhelms me to think about.  That's just who He is.  Psalm 81:10 "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
 

The View From Up Here

Well I'm finally settled in my new home on Deerfield Ave in the lovely Redding, California...  God is just so good!  It feels like this year has already been one upgrade after another.  It just keeps getting better and better.

Well to start it all off, we (My sister Gracie, my bestie Stephany, and myself) made the 22 hour track across the desert heading back to school.  Other than the rock hitting my windshield, my check engine light coming on half way there, and nearly running out of gas and getting stranded in the middle of no where, it was basically an uneventful drive.  None of that to say as a complaint, it actually helped make the drive a little bit more interesting.  Honestly though, the trip out was such a blessing from the Lord as I was able to spend so much time with my Stephany, who I haven't seen in 8 months and won't see again for another 4.  She was able to help us settle in and hang out for a week and then flew back to Denver for $2.50.  Praise Jesus!

And then comes our little yellow house.  So unassuming from the outside, but as we stepped through the front door, I could sense God's favor on us.  Even without furniture or anything in it, it instantly was home.  Everything about it feels like upgrade, even in the little things.  We have a kitchen big enough to dance in, windows in every room, a pool in the backyard...  And did I mention our landlords?  They are both elders at Bethel and are the sweetest people you will ever meet.  They did so much work on the house as well as spent much time praying over each of the rooms.  They also want to pour into us girls and we have already had dinner with them and have plans for a kayaking trip!

School - 2nd year BSSM... where do I even start?  I could spend a lot of time describing all the classes that have been absolutely phenomenal and life changing, but that would take an afternoon with a cup of tea.  So let me just say that again, I have been upgraded.  I feel like I have stepped into an entirely new dimension.  Last year was a lot of digging, tearing, refining, dying... you get the point.  It was all so good and totally worth it as I got so much breakthrough in my identity, but I honestly questioned coming back because I didn't want to be in that dimension any longer.  But everything is different.  I feel so much more like me.  It's weird to think back a year ago and see how not like me I was.  I don't really know how to explain it, but I just feel so alive.  I am able to be real with people, and not try to be somebody else.  I have started dreaming crazy big dreams again, dreams that are far bigger than me.  My heart seems to be growing.  I am seeing more opportunities than I am seeing boundaries.  

All this to say that I know that God is doing good things in me.  He far exceeds my expectations.  He is teaching me to simply trust Him, trust His goodness, trust that He delights to give me all that my heart desires.  I feel like I'm starting to see my world from His perspective.  He has such an incredible aerial view. It's great up here.  You should try it sometime!

Grace - So Much More Than a Good Idea

Recently the Lord has been taking me on this incredible journey into the immenseness and unthinkable mystery of His grace.  Grace is something that has been always before me, but somehow I never fully saw it.  It's as if I was always looking straight through it, but never directly focused on it.  It's weird to me that I could pay so little attention to something so essential as grace.  It is like the glue that holds basically... well EVERYTHING together.  Without the grace of God we would be no where.  We would be nothing.
So the question is - what is grace?  Is it God ignoring all our faults and flaws so that we can get into heaven?  Is it God giving us something we don't deserve?  Where does it begin?  Where does it end?  Something the Lord has been showing me is that everything that we know and experience in the Christian life is through grace.  Yes, I understood that it was only by God's grace that we are saved.  We can never be good enough to deserve eternal life.  But after we are saved, then what?  How much is God's grace really involved in our lives?  The answer is that His grace is so much more than just involved in our lives.  In fact, it's the other way around, our lives are involved in His grace now.  Because of His grace we are now in perfect union with the Father.  All self-effort is pointless.  Anything we can "do" cannot make us better Christians or help us grow closer to God.  We are ALREADY perfect saints and are ALREADY one with God.  This totally destroys all performance and striving.  How freeing to finally realize - I don't have to do anything!  Praying, reading the Word, ministering are all fruits of being one with God, but they don't help us grow closer to Him.
I just finished reading a book by John Crowder called "Mystical Union".  This book changed everything for me.  At first it was awesome and I could agree with everything he said.  But then he started talking about these radical things like oneness with God.  To be honest, this offended me.  It's comforting thinking that you have some sort of control on your life and relationship with God.  But as I was starting to see that is all truth I have no control, it offended my mind.  But I know that God often allows our minds to be offended so that we are presented with a choice.  The choice is to either reject this new idea because it's too difficult to understand, or to embrace it as being of God.  That's where I'm at right now.  I don't fully understand God's grace.  Actually I feel like I don't understand it at all.  It really doesn't make any logical sense.  But I can feel the life that comes from stepping into his grace.  It is like electricity to my spirit.  It makes me want to laugh and cry and dance and jump all at the same time.  So although it doesn't make sense, I am beginning to at least become aware of it's presence in my life.  It's like a very blurry image, but I can see that it's there.  So I jump head long into the river of His grace.  No looking back!

Whistle While You Work!

                                  
Work, work, work...  Once the best season in the year when you could play all day long, run around barefoot, go on vacations, see friends whenever you wanted, and stay up late.  Now it is the dreaded season for summer jobs, working endless hours at a job that you can't stand, coming home too tired to hang out with people, and sacrificing all thought of fun for the sake of a few hard earned bucks.  Tragic.
Because of countless first-hand reports that I had heard from friends on the subject, this happened to be my idea of what a summer job could and would look like.  And therefore I was beginning to dread the thought of summer.  As the days drew closer I became more and more nervous that my childhood summers of fun were about to come to a harsh end.  However... I learned enough this past year that I carry something in me that is so much greater than anything in the world.  Circumstances can not define my stances.  Hard situations cannot dampen my peace and my joy.  "I have found a peace that plows on through the storm.  I have found a joy that jumps over sadness."  This world cannot make me and it cannot break me.  I have the secret gift (or weapon) of my best friend - Holy Spirit.  So I determined in my heart that although this summer was different due to my first real summer job, I was not going to let it change my attitude.
And, praise the Lord, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that I actually enjoy working!  I found myself laughing on the way home because contrary to many people's experiences, I loved my job!  God is so good like that.  He loves giving His kids good gifts.  And even when there are hard situations, it's not because He is punishing us, He is giving us the gift of an opportunity to grow.  I love that!
So all this to say that I really am enjoying having a summer job.  It keeps me busy and is bringing in some good finances.  AND I am finding that I have plenty of time to play and enjoy this summer just as much as any other summer.  PTL :)

Do Whatever Makes You Come Alive

Before we left BSSM, some students asked the leaders what they would recommend we do this summer to prepare for 2nd year.  Of course they shared about the importance of maintaining our secret place with the Lord.  But then they said something that came as somewhat of a shock, but a refreshing one.  They said, "Do whatever makes you come alive."  This was a new idea to me.  In the past I have had somewhat of a religious mindset.  I limited myself and even God by believing that the ONLY true good use of my time was alone with God in my prayer closet.  First you have to understand that the secret place alone with the Lord is my most cherished place.  I would rather waste my life at His feet than in doing any other self pursuit.  But when you write this as a law for yourself (I must spend ALL my free time in the prayer closet), you lose not only the value in your choice to be with God, but you also miss the joys that God has hidden for you in many different places and activities.  God is not a boring God!  So many times would I sacrifice doing something I enjoyed because I felt like it was an unholy waste of time.  Or I would feel guilty whenever I spent much time doing those things.  I believe God enjoys all the things we enjoy.  And we can still be in communion with God while doing those things.  I have come to realize how fast time really goes and I want to spend every moment to it's fullest potential.
So what do you enjoy?  What brings you life and fulfillment?  When do you feel the most alive?
As I've embraced this new freedom - freedom from the law - I HAVE found so much life an joy.  Within the last couple of weeks I have taken time to be crazy, laugh a lot, and do what used to seem like a waste of time.  From sipping tea while reading a fictional (gasp) book, to jumping on the trampoline.  Waving a cattail in the wind and watching the fluff be whisked away.  Watching the hysterical unfolding events as my little brothers try to sail their home-made boat (which unfortunately sank instead).  Talking with my best friend while swinging for hours.  Mastering the ancient technique of frisbee throwing in the park.  Walking around down town and getting mostly lost.  Day dreaming.  Finding my hidden creative being within.  Sitting down and intentionally tickling the ivories.  These are all things that have made me come alive and I am making it an unofficial summer goal to continue doing similar things alongside of my already established secret place with the Lord.  I think putting those together will make for one heck of a summer!

Family - The Government of Heaven

Malachi 4:5-6

 "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet 

Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,

And the hearts of the children to their fathers,

Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” 

Family is the government of Heaven.  God is a family man.  Look at the Trinity.  There is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  They are incomplete without each other.  Look at Adam and Eve.  Adam was incomplete without Eve even though he lived in Paradise and walked with God.  The importance of family is huge to Papa God.  He holds this design of His closer to His heart than any of His other designs.  It is His secret weapon.  

That is why the enemy is so set on destroying the family unit.  Family is under attack.  In our society, the value of family is decreasing by the day.  Marriage covenants are being flippantly tossed out the window.  Rebellion is filling the hearts of children toward their parents.  Offense and unforgiveness are as cold fingers, prying loved ones apart.  Orphans fill our streets.  They may be masked with success, titles of importance, popularity statuses, etc...  But beneath the surface are little boys and little girls who have never known what it is to have a real father and a real mother.

Over the past few months the Lord has been highlighting to me the great importance of family.  We were never meant to be alone.  We were meant to belong to a family unit, to be known and to be loved as we are.  When we devalue family, we devalue the very heart of God.  It is through family that revival will be sustained.  Each of us must have fathers and mothers in our lives who speak wisdom and direction into us.  We must have people that come alongside of us and will run the race with us.

I feel like I have been richly blessed in the past with wonderful family units.  And the great thing about family, is that it's always expanding.  God is always bringing us new faces that will become brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers.  I love how the Kingdom of God is one big body!

Transition - A Beautiful Thing

2011 was prophesied to be the year of transition.  When I heard this I nodded my head in agreement, thinking, "Ya I'm all for that God!  I'm ready to upgrade, to go from glory to glory.  I never want to be stuck in the comfortable.  Bring on the transition!"  I mean, if I broke everything down to the main reasons I left everything to come to Bethel for this season, was for more of God and to be changed.  As a person who prefers the predictable, comfortable, routine side of life, that was a huge jump.  But I had a vision before me of what the outcome could be.  And to me, that was completely worth any discomfort that change would most certainly bring about. 

Well God seems to take my requests seriously, but God’s way of transition was far different than what I pictured it would be.  I was looking for more of a glorious transition, where things got “better” in my life.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe that everything God does in our lives is taking us from glory to glory.  Romans 8:28 tells us that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  He is our Papa who wants the best for us.  Everything He does is for our good.  In saying that, not everything He does is easy, clean, or orderly.  Upgrade doesn’t always come to us in a neat little package or in the way that we want it.  But I’m finding that even when transition feels messy, painful, and chaotic, there is so much beauty in the midst of it.  Because it is the hope of greater glory, increase and upgrade that helps us to embrace transition.  Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2).  He went through the ultimate transition in history: from being God to becoming man and enduring death.

So these are all thoughts that I am contemplating as I go through the transition right now.  I have gone through transition all year long, so the move from leaving BSSM back to Colorado is just one of the many.  But I am learning to embrace it as a blessing from my Papa.  It’s still funny to me, coming back to what was once so comfortable and familiar and finding that is completely different... Or more likely it is me that is different.