Mark Study: Part 2

Oops, it's been longer than I wanted it to be between posts.  I've been busy (not a valid excuse).

The past week, we've had Mark Study every day.  I believe I explained what Mark Study is in my previous post.  So if this is a foreign concept to you, please reference that post :)

The week of Mark Study was amazing!  And exhausting.  And overwhelming.  And awe-inspiring.  And unable to be described in just one word obviously.  I'll try to tell you about it.

Mark Study

It's hard for me to decide what exactly to say here.  Do I talk about what I specifically learned?  Do I explain how we interpreted difficult passages?  Do I give you a timeline of what we talked about when?  None of these will give you an accurate picture of Mark Study.  Nor would the 3 combined give you an accurate picture.

I guess if I had to choose, I would pick the biggest application point that I took from Mark Study.  After looking at 8 chapters of Mark, seeing what Jesus did, said, and didn't do (we have so many misconceptions, even as Christians!), my teacher, Shannon, asked: "How are you going to respond?"  How am I going to respond after getting just a small glimpse of Jesus?

With awe.
With wonder.
With obedience.
With love.

I've known Jesus for a long time.  But sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in what I'm doing for Jesus as opposed to being with Jesus.  And that's just silly.

So this week, especially before classes start next week, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with Jesus.  Because I want to.

Love.

Mark Study: Part 1

I know I said I'd post often, and I promise I'll try.  I know I said I'd keep these fairly short, and I promise I'll try.  But dang, these past 5 days have been packed which leaves me no time to write and long posts.  Ugh, my life.  (Just kidding, I'm loving this.)

What have been up to that makes me so busy, you ask?

Monday: we had staff hang-out for women at Naty's house.  (Naty is a staff woman at Hope.)  It was great to get to know the women that I'll be working with this year better.

Tuesday: I was just at Hope, both replying to emails and being available to do whatever task needed to be done.

Wednesday: Staff Meeting!  It was great to finally hear from the different staff how I can help them this coming year as an intern.  Hope has many different ministries so there are a lot of different ways for me to serve.  I plan on trying our some different things - more on that later :)

Thursday and Friday: Mark Study!  That's what the rest of this post shall be about!

What is Mark Study?  It's a class that is done retreat-style.  We're at Hope all day with food, drinks, and our Bibles, going through the book of Mark.  This Thursday and Friday were half-days: 8:30-12:30.  Next week will be full days.  We basically just go line by line over the book of Mark inside a few parameters:

- you can cross-reference anything in the Old Testament.
- you can use Bible encyclopedias or dictionaries.
- you can't reference the New Testament.  At all (except what the text in Mark explicitly says).
- we spend the majority of time making observations from the text.  Don't interpret what it means until the end.

This all sounds easy, right?  IT'S NOT.  We constantly want to jump to conclusions and think about what the text means.  But can we do that properly if we're missing the majority of what the text actually says?  Not really.  It's been great to just go slow, get a feel for how the original readers took certain things when they read Mark, see how Mark's narrative connects to so much in the Old Testament.  My mind has been blown away.

Here are just a few things that have hit me thus far:
- the parallels between John the Baptist and Elijah are far more extensive than I originally thought.
- the scene where Jesus is baptized is so much more than just a baptism.  It is God the Father announcing Jesus as King.
- Mark's way of wording things was proclaiming to his readers that Christ is God and the promised Messiah.

There'll be more to come after a few more days of class!

Love.

It's Finally Begun!

It's finally here! I started my internship with the Leadership Development Institute at Hope Community Church on August 1. Want to hear about it in detail? This is the place to do so :) I'll still be sending out monthly updates, but I want to keep those to only 1 page. Also, I want those to be more of a place where I talk about what I'm doing: events, mentorship, etc. My plan for this blog is to talk about what I'm learning and to give you more details about events that don't fit in one page. So, as Marcel the Shell with Shoes On would say (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta9K22D0o5Q&feature=relmfu): "Read on!"

 August 1 saw the official start of LDI. We had 7 hours of orientation: learning the ins and outs of the building, filling out forms, being told how to use the printer, and stuff like that. It was very informative but slightly overwhelming. But I'll pick stuff up as I go, I'm sure.

While at Orientation, Pastor Cor, the Senior Associate Pastor at Hope, went through Acts 4:1-22 with us. I've read this passage, but we dove deeper than I ever had before. This year is going to be one of the hardest of my life. I'm going to be challenged and stretched and pushed. God is going to grow me in ways I've never grown before. I'm going to succeed, and I'm going to fail. But like Peter and John in the Acts passage, none of this is going to be possible without the Lord. I can do none of what LDI will have me do without the Holy Spirit. And because of this, all of the glory goes to Him. But more on that later.

After Orientation, I went home for a few days. It was great to be with my family, though the time was far too short. I returned to Minneapolis on Sunday, August 5 for my first Sunday as an intern. Bright and early, I arrived at Hope to put the inserts in the worship folders. At first, I was concerned that I wouldn't enjoy these small tasks. I'm excited for the classes I will be taking, but when I decided to intern, I wasn't excited about the smaller, service-oriented tasks, if I'm being completely honest. It's not that I don't want to do those things; I do. They just don't excite me like classes do.

However, God's surprised me. Thus far (I'm only two Sundays in), I'm loving this part of the internship! Working behind the scenes to make it easier for people to hear the Gospel is far more fulfilling than I thought it would be! But let me tell you, a servant's heart isn't a natural thing for me, so God sure is doing something. Be praying that He continues.



The LDI Retreat was August 6-8. All of the first year interns (there are 9 of us) and 3 of Hope's staff (Laura, Rob, and Cor - you'll probably be reading a lot about them this year) spent 3 days at a cabin in western Minnesota. We spent time in the Word together, got to know each other better, and were able to relax on the lake. It was lovely, and I feel like I'm much more ready to start off this coming year after that.

Two particular things that we talked about really stuck with me. First, we talked about the importance of a Sabbath. For most people, this means not working on Sunday. However, a Sabbath is much more than that - and I might go as far as to say that a Sabbath isn't that at all.

We spent time in Hebrews 4:1-13 (and other passages) looking at what it means to actually take a rest. We are commanded to rest (Exodus 20:8-11), and God took a rest from His own work (Genesis 1:31-2:3). I've known for a long time that I'm really bad at actually resting; I always felt lazy when I was "resting", but that's because I had a wrong definition of what rest meant. Talking with Rob and others at the retreat, I was really challenged to find what is restful for me (reading, writing, going for a walk, spending time with God) and make intentional time to do it. If I'm going to grow this year, I'm going to need rest. I'll get burnt out quickly if I go 100 miles per hour all the time. College taught me that well :)

The second big thing that I'm taking away from the retreat is that I need to make time to spend with God. I think I've been decent at this throughout my life, but it will be difficult to do that this coming year. I'll be studying the Bible for class a lot and doing ministry most of the time, and I don't want to fall into the trap of doing for God as opposed to being with God. I'm so glad that they addressed this at the beginning of the year. I was already concerned about what worship on Sundays would look like for me: it's my job to be at all 3 services at Hope, to greet people, to make sure what needs to get done gets done. But it is more important to find time to worship the Lord and catch the sermon. We were very encouraged to do so and to take our days off (Friday and Saturday) as time with God.

I learned so much more the 3 days of the Retreat, but this post is already getting long, so maybe I'll share a different time. Getting to know my fellow interns more intimately was such a huge blessing. I can't wait to see the friendships that grow from this year.

I plan on posting what God's teaching me regularly (hopefully a couple times per week)! So be prepared for God to rock my world :)

Love.