It is already the third week of the Awaken DTS and it is honestly hard to believe things have moved this fast. I am constantly amazed each year at the growth rate of the students, it seems as though they are going deeper faster each year of DTS. During my DTS I wasn't seeing the type of growth I am already seeing this year until the seventh or eighth week of my DTS. Already the Lord has been breaking through and tearing down strongholds in the hearts of the students. We have truly been seeing Jesus becoming the Lord of their lives at a rapid rate that is commonly not experienced in a DTS so quickly. I am a little perplexed at how or why there is such acceleration upon this school but the best opinion I could give is - it is because the staff is such a hungry for God group and we are all pressing into the glory of the Lord. Leading up to the school we had leaders around the base constantly coming to us as a whole and telling us they had never seen a group of staff that were pressing so hard into seeing heaven invade earth; so if I had to attribute the acceleration of this DTS to one thing it would be the staff crave and pursue intimacy with their creator above anything else.
Our first week of speakers was staff, which was an absolute blast. I got to take a slot of 30 minutes or so and I shared on 1st Corinthians 13, speaking on God's love for us and what it looks like toward us. As Awaken (the name of our DTS) we have done a lot of pioneering on this base in the area of breaking DTS out of the box that many have put it in. One of those things was having the staff take the whole first week of teaching and use that time to bring their testimony and share it with the whole school and also to bring a short prophetic declaration about this generation. The week was amazing, it was glorious and the Holy Spirit showed up every day! The messages the staff shared on an individual day all lined up with each other, just exhibiting to me the orchestrating power of God in every circumstance of our lives. As I took time to ask students what they thought of the first week of class all I got back were raving reviews about how they felt more comfortable with the staff of their DTS. Most students that come to DTS think the staff are high and mighty with a 'holier than thou" mentality; but with our approach to the first week it broke all preconceived notions about the staff and showed the students that we are on the same level as them. This take on the first week opened almost every heart to build deep relationships with all of the staff very quickly.
The second week of this DTS we had a man by the name of Ivan Roman with us; he spoke on hearing the voice of God. Truthfully, I was expecting another average teaching on this topic and I didn't think I was going to get a lot out of it. I could almost spend the week half listening and half paying attention to the class environment. But as the week kicked off Ivan had all of our attention through his story telling methods, he began the week with telling the school several stories of his salvation and how he entered the ministry. The great thing about stories is they put everybody listening on the same level. The first day of teaching he really felt to hit on the orphan spirit, which is what has affected all of us before we realize that we've been adopted as sons and daughters of God, and then to impart, imparting is a process of laying on of hands and praying that what you have would be given to the person that you are praying for, and pray for the spirit of adoption to fill the students hearts. The reason for this is - that if you don't understand your position in the kingdom and your position as a child of the King you will tend to listen for the wrong voice when you are seeking to hear God. The rest of the week was spent teaching on hearing God's voice, prophetic ministry, baptism of the Holy Spirit, and dream interpretation. It was honestly the best teaching on hearing God's voice that I have ever had.
This week we are blessed to have the founder of our mission, Loren Cunningham. He is speaking on the foundations of missions and the first day was filled with gold nuggets of wisdom and truth. There is a high expectancy upon this week and we are so honored to have him with us.
I am still in need of approximately $5,000 toward my outreach expenses. I am leading a team this fall to Northern Ireland (more about that coming soon!). If you feel lead to give towards furthering His kingdom as this team goes forth, you can follow the link on the right hand side of my blog. As always, thank you for reading and God bless you.
