rEVOLution

Aaron White introduces rEVOLution @ Youth Together 2006. Aaron, adjunct faculty at TWC, is an international speaker and has authored, Futurize, RevolUTION and A hitch-hikers guide to the Kingdom.

shigionoth

Screen Saver by War College supporter [He gave his son... an exercises his gifts].

One degree of separation

My bro-in-laws band [downhere] won 3 awards tonight! Covenant awards: Rock Song of the year [The More], Rock Album of the year [Wide eyed and mystified], & Recorded Song of the year[A Better Way]

My uncle taught today on Worship. He's the CO of Spring Valley corps [NY] with die hard soldiers Majors Janet and Richard Munn & Lt-Col Howard Burr. He taught us on the Worship experience and theology based on Liturgical [not the dry stuff but process of corporate worship] following: Gather, Word, Eucharist [not communion but sharing in Christ] and Sending Forth. In the second bit he shared with us the inductive method of evangelising in sharing our stories and how they intersect with HIStory. He taught that corporate worship is where we celebrate God's story [Jesus: preincarnate, incarnation, life, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and glorification] and invite others to join that with us.

Aaron is off to preach at ACC. Stephen is there too. Sometimes I'm amazed by what people who are my friends are doing. The devil is quick to remind me that I'm not as talented, good-looking or important than these smart doctorate types, rock stars, international networkers, parliament speakers, huge corps leaders, intense intercessors. The Holy Spirit reminds me I'm blessed to have great friends in this community and abroad. If you are in high school here is my advice: Be nice to your friends... they're special and will go on to prove it one day.

Memorise the Bible

Wanna keep pace with us? Here is our schedule:

MTB is going better now that there is a slight schedule change-- with MTB [Memorise the Bible] and RTB [Read the Bible] every day from 11:30- lunch (12:20). On Friday's before open air Olivia Munn reviews MTB with our students.

Due Friday Sept. 29th: The Bridge
Due Friday Oct. 6th: 1 John 5:11-12
Due Friday Oct. 13th: John 16:24
Due Friday Oct. 20th: 1 Corinthians 10:13
Due Friday Oct. 27th: 1 John 1:9
Proverbs 3:5-6
Due Friday Nov. 3rd: 2 Corinthians 5:17
Due Friday Nov. 10th: Galations 2:20
Due Friday Nov. 17th: Romans 12:1
Due Friday Nov. 24th: John 14:21
Due Friday Dec. 1st: 2 Timothy 3:16
Due Friday Dec. 8th: Joshua 1:8
Due Friday Dec. 15th: John 15:7
Due Friday Dec. 22nd: Philippians 4:6-7
1 John 1:3
Hebrews 10:24-25
Matthew 4:19
Romans 1:16

Danielle in House of Commons

http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&section_id=768&template_id=179&lang=e

Thursday, October 26 at 2AM ET / Wednesday, October 25, 11PM PT [view on cpac]

Status of Women

Members convened on October 24 to discuss a Study on Human Trafficking. The witness was Danielle Strickland from the Salvation Army. The committee then discussed the Government Response to Report 7 with the Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Pray for Danielle

Danielle is addressing Parliament on behalf of our War College Campus. The downtown Eastside of Vancouver is notorious for prostituted peoples. Danielle heads up a special task force on this injustice and God has granted her an address. Pray Matt 10:20, ^"You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. ^19 But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; ^20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."

Tomorrow we'll try to podcast what God says through His servant Danielle! Praise God.

Charismatic Flavour

I just got back from Youth Together. We had one session of worship which, not surprisingly, went on and on! During this, no speaker spoke, yet through the worship loud shouting prayers were belted out, encouraging words were given and as a result mass repentance! The mercy seat was full when the call for salvation was made. At lunch, I felt The Holy Spirit urging me to ask one girl from Victoria what she thought and if she was a Christian. The Holy Spirit had planted a desire in her to become a Christian and I was at the right place at the right time! Praise God! I was even to hook her up with three people to disciple her.

We're receiving more of The Holy Spirit on campus too. A lot of shouting. Brengle would be pleased! He has a whole chapter on Shouting in Helps to Holiness. "Shouting and praising God is to salvation what flame is to fire. You may have a very hot and useful fire without a blaze, but not till it bursts forth into flame does it become irresistible and sweep everything before it. So people may be very good and have a measure of salvation, but it is not until they become so full of the Holy Ghost that they are likely to burst forth in praises to their glorious God at any hour of the day or night, both in private and public, that their salvation becomes irresistibly catching.

This doesn't sound like my experience until a few years ago. However, it is in the foundation of our movement. On May 21, 1879 The Newcastle Daily Chronicle recorded the events at a Salvation Army prayer meeting.

So great was the commotion in the centre of the room, so terrifying was the din that this incidence [four rows upping over], which would have thrown an ordinary congregation into uproar, passed almost unnoticed... Several figures are bent double near the platform, groaning and wringing their hands. The "Hallelujah Lasses" have surrounded them; the tall figure of the proprietor of the "Hallelujah Fiddle" gyrates around them; the sweep is dancing and shouting "Glory be to God;" and the "General" is smiling placidly and twiddling his thumbs.
Penitents! Are these penitents who kneel on the form and wring their hands? Or are they persons struck with the contagion of over-wrought enthusiasm?
As may be seen from what I have written, until pentitents "throw themselves at the feet of Jesus," as it is called, a meeting of The Salvation Army is tolerably sane affair. The fat is at once in the fire, however, when penitents come forward.
Half a-dozen crop-headed youths are praying vociferously, with their faces towards me. Did I say praying? It was vociferous shouting, with closed eyes. Their bodies sway to and fro; their hands are lifted, and brought down again with a thump on the form; they contort themselves as if they were in acute agony.
THe converts retire to their seats with red faces. Let us follow one of them. He is a broad-faced, shock-headed youth, of about twenty. A few minutes since, he was foaming out of a well-developed mouth. Now he is dancing about the floor, shouting "hallelujah" and wringing the hands of all those who will yield their arm to him. Anon he will mount one of the forms, and shout his experience into the middle of the hubbub, which condemns him to remain unheard. Then he will waltz round again, alternately laugh and cry and go through a new course of hand-shaking. He has in fact been converted." - Be a Hero, Campbell & Court.

YOu will know a tree by its fruit. The manifestations I saw this weekend brought upon repentance, faith and Salvation. May God provide the lasting fruit of regeneration! Praise the Lord Great Things He Has Done [shouting]!

RAW 07

Come Out to RAW during March break! Here's the poster

Disunity

It actually takes quite some effort for a Spirit-filled Christian to take part in disunity in the body. Think about it. We would actually have to work against The Holy Spirit AND the intercession of Jesus. Jesus prayed, “I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are—²³ I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one. Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me." It is only a matter of time that true Christians live in disunity before the intercession of Jesus and the power of The Holy Spirit manifest in Unity!

My friend Michael puts another spin on this scripture. "How many times have you asked Jesus for something? Well, here is one of His prayers that you can answer!" What? I can answer a prayer of Jesus? Sure! not by yourself though. It takes, the glory that Jesus gave us. It is ultimately from Him. What is His glory? It is his smoky sweet presence. Moses likely experienced this best next to those who beheld Jesus face to face [Zacchaeus, the woman caught in adultery, the disciples]. This glory is stated in Exodus 34:6-7 , by YHWH Himself, “I am the Lord, I am the Lord, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness. ⁷ I show this unfailing love to many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. Even so I do not leave sin unpunished, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations.”

God is truly with us, His glory when we are like Him: slow to anger, unfailing in love and faithfulness, forgiving and disciplining. We as Christians will get in each others hair, it is guaranteed. Our shortcomings and God-forbid sins rub each other the wrong way. But, if we are led by the Spirit, these shortcomings do not lead to hate, jealousy, contentions, etc. No! This is the flesh. Our shortcomings are actually an opportunity to show God's glory!

I think this is what John had in mind, "¹⁴ If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to eternal life. But a person who has no love is still dead. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates another Christian is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them. ¹⁶ We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sister [1 John 3:14 - 16].


Praise God we're experiencing His glory and unity through His Spirit and His Son's intercession.

Glory!

White velcro shoes and eggs

Let me tell you why I'm proud of my students. They embrace suffering with joy! Here are three examples:

A doctor told a student she should move out of her slum hotel because the bedbug bites give her an allergic reaction. She doesn't want to leave.

A student wears white velcro shoes issued to those leaving jail. God provided him with them and he wears them, though people want to avoid him for it. How incarnational.

Our students were verbally harassed and egged at open air. They take it as a badge of honour. Those demonstrating against abortion were 'jealous' [in the Christian way] of not getting persecuted to the same degree.

What trueblood Salvos. Nothing dampens their spirits. The war goes on and they fight with Love.

Incendiary

Next session: Incendiary! Tell the world.

Myspace.com

Now on myspace [myspace.com/thewarcollege] add us as your friend.

From Send the Fire.ca

Our buddy Clint is The Salvation Army's youth Propoganda Minister. He's wreaking havoc through sendthefire.ca Check this out:




Hey Clint... Let's do a spot on TWC... We have a revolution on our hands.

Desert Fathers

Normal people for thousands of years have been trying to escape the world system, finding that all it does is exasperate sinful living. I was recently reading about the desert fathers and their retreat and thought of how that decision was in my spirit when I came to the downtown east side of Vancouver. I figure our students have gone through a similar spiritual experience. Next to conversion, I'd have to say it is the most significant decision in my spiritual life: to deny the world and what it offers and to live sacrificially for Jesus.

Here is an illustration: While still living in the palace, Abba Arsenius prayed these words, 'Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.' And a voice came saying to him, 'Arsenius, flee from the world and you will be saved.' Having sailed secretly from Rome to Alexandria and having withdrawn to the solitary life [in the desert] Arsenius prayed again: 'Lord, lead me in the way of salvation' and again he heard a voice saying, 'Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the sources of sinlessness.'

Henri Nouwen writes about the disciplines of fleeing, being silent and continuous prayer: "They indicate the three ways of preventing the world from shaping us in its image and are thus the three ways to life in the Spirit."

Though not a retreat from all people coming down here certainly cuts us off from the world system. Fashion and vanity do not have the same lures that pull us in the suburbs. Money is exposed as fleeting and sin is brought to light how ugly its head is. That has been my experience here: finding a higher level of personal and social holiness, a more disciplined life and I'm working on continuous prayer.


Have you considered fleeing the world?

Simply Thankful

On our radical frugality front students are enjoying a simple meal of beans and rice at Rose and Joel's place. The meal is one that many in the world would be more thankful for than our enormous turkey, yams, corn, potatoes, beans, squash, brussel sprouts, deserts etc. After the meal they will have prayers of thanksgiving and intercession on behalf of the nutritionally vulnerable.

Deliverance @ night

We rebuild, renew and restore. That is our business that is our goal. Recently Woodwards was imploded across the street from our lecture hall [read ronvated loft that used to be a squat]. The plans to build across the street have involved the tearing down before building up. Check out to http://www.woodwardsdistrict.com/ see the plans. It was nice that the cornerstone, that which was originally built was kept as heritage. A reminder of original purpose and the value of the creation. I hope to show some shots that Dawn has been taking of the restorative process. Maybe tomorrow so keep posted.


So why blog about this building across the street? It is symbolic, prophetic even of what we are doing. Last night [read: early morning] I spent some time in the War Room [24-7 prayer] with a group of students. God had an agenda for us and we were able to do some restorative work. We broke down the useless junk in one person's life... The lies, entrapments and emotions that made them less effective in the war. However, breaking this down doesn't leave the person completely demolished. Just like the heritage section, the true person remains with a lot more space and potential for building an elaborate, God-focussed person. Their true identity is more real than before and more likely to emerge in the next while. Praise God that this isn't by any hocus pocus philosophy or couselling gimmick but by prayer and the power of Jesus' name.

Great Grace!