SOAR - 1
I am STILL shattered from SOAR Montreal - and it's becoming less and less feasible to blame it on jet lag, having now been home for a week. Sleep continues to be filled with dreams that directly relate to various highlights (the park worship evenings, the morning worship sessions, the visits to Starbucks, the intense prayer sessions, et al) punctuated by periods where I simply lie awake pondering the whole experience - NOT conducive to effective software design and development, which I am back spending my days doing.
I am changed - I FEEL the Holy Spirit more consistently within me now. Certain sinful habits are much easier to combat now that I KNOW I can trust God to lead the fight. Of course we are all "sinners who fall short of the glory of God" (forgive the paraphrase) - but the first night's message from Phillip Serez was the start of a killer journey - I'm learning to "Trust God instead of trying to please God".
I got to share one of the many anecdotes I have at church on Sunday - turns out the sermon was about fear - particularly fear of sharing! Well God worked on that one in Montreal with the park worship sessions!! (The question I have for God now is "why do I always get the Moslems??". It seemed that almost everyone I engaged in conversation was a Moslem. Given my Turkey trips in the past, I was at least somewhat prepared for this eventuality - but am I being called to work more with Moslems??).
Anyway I told the congregation about a pantheist I met on the first park date (Tuesday 18th). It seemed to take ages to get from "what's that you're eating?", "er, chips!!" through the history of Quebec and what relief pitchers are (I didn't know there were short relief pitchers and long relief pitchers!) to something a bit more spiritual, but eventually we did and he explained his philosophy of ..., well, effectively "unconscious pantheism" (I am NOT a philosopher!). He listened to my "alternative" explanation of God and salvation through Jesus (the concepts of sin and going astray from a perfect plan were central to his philosophy, thankfully - so I didn't have to start by explaining those) and he was mightily interested - interested enough to accept a new testament and promise to read it, and to allow me to pray for him there and then. Oh, and we did the whole thing mainly in French but with English where my French broke down - which tackled another fear/excuse from my past - sharing in French!
Oh, the software calls! More later.
I am changed - I FEEL the Holy Spirit more consistently within me now. Certain sinful habits are much easier to combat now that I KNOW I can trust God to lead the fight. Of course we are all "sinners who fall short of the glory of God" (forgive the paraphrase) - but the first night's message from Phillip Serez was the start of a killer journey - I'm learning to "Trust God instead of trying to please God".
I got to share one of the many anecdotes I have at church on Sunday - turns out the sermon was about fear - particularly fear of sharing! Well God worked on that one in Montreal with the park worship sessions!! (The question I have for God now is "why do I always get the Moslems??". It seemed that almost everyone I engaged in conversation was a Moslem. Given my Turkey trips in the past, I was at least somewhat prepared for this eventuality - but am I being called to work more with Moslems??).
Anyway I told the congregation about a pantheist I met on the first park date (Tuesday 18th). It seemed to take ages to get from "what's that you're eating?", "er, chips!!" through the history of Quebec and what relief pitchers are (I didn't know there were short relief pitchers and long relief pitchers!) to something a bit more spiritual, but eventually we did and he explained his philosophy of ..., well, effectively "unconscious pantheism" (I am NOT a philosopher!). He listened to my "alternative" explanation of God and salvation through Jesus (the concepts of sin and going astray from a perfect plan were central to his philosophy, thankfully - so I didn't have to start by explaining those) and he was mightily interested - interested enough to accept a new testament and promise to read it, and to allow me to pray for him there and then. Oh, and we did the whole thing mainly in French but with English where my French broke down - which tackled another fear/excuse from my past - sharing in French!
Oh, the software calls! More later.
posted by Martin Bartlett at 10:09 AM
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