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."