Matt Short

Following the theme of my last post, this past week I met another man during our Friday night in Christchurch who was very open and willing to talk. Dave was a older gentleman who had grown up in Colorado, lived in Alaska for many years and now moved his family out to NZ. He said that he had been raised Catholic, born again but had recently renounced his faith. At first I went digging, finding out that he believed that he’d been wronged by leaders of a church and couldn’t believe in that faith anymore. However, soon I felt a check in my spirit that said, “SHUT UP and listen”. Everything I said and encouraged him with went in one ear and out the other so I shut up and listened. Quickly I learned that Dave was a very broken and sad man who lacked a healthy relationship with his father. At the conclusion of our conversation Dave admitted to me that he was honestly lost without his faith, and though still struggling, wanted to regain his faith in the Lord.

This became a cool testimony that I used to prove our speakers point this week. Our speaker, Mike Dodge spoke on Evangelism these past two days and outlined a few different ways we can evangelize and to some students surprise one of his points was “Being Silent”. That’s exactly what Dave needed that night, someone to be silent and lovingly listen to him as he processed why he’d given up his faith. So I shared that testimony and were able to encourage the students to be attentive to the Holy Spirit’s leading in evangelism. One day I may need to yell in someone’s face to get them to where God can speak with them, and may God give me grace on that day, but that wasn’t what Dave needed and the Lord knew that.
Last week we had Dean Sherman’s “Love, Sex and Relationships” video series for lectures which sorta dragged since there was no lecturer there to interact with, but I enjoyed facilitating and running discussion times. I was also able to liven things up with what I deemed our “Communication and Care Egg-xercise”. For the egg-xercise the students were paired off and given an egg to look after the entire week. The only stipulation was that one of the two must have their egg on them at ALL times. I wish I were a scientist because I feel like I would have recorded some very interestingly comical data about communication break downs within relationships.

The week before that Patrick Dodson taught on “Vision and Calling”. Even though I’ve heard his teaching before I feel like I’m finally in a place where I can begin to build longer term goals, where as before I don’t feel like I had the platform of experience as I do now. Patrick’s goal throughout the week is to help you discover the gifts God has created you with and then explore all the possibilities that could come from them. His lectures are INCREDIBLE and something I’d recommend anyone to look into. I’ve added his website to my blog role on the left. Click on the picture/link and it will take you to his website where you can find his materials, podcasts or get in touch with him.

The school is doing well. Outreach is approaching quickly and everyone’s getting excited. We have four teams: Thailand, Australia, and two NZ teams. One student has decided not to go on outreach which is a disappointment but I won’t burden a team with someone who doesn’t want to be there. So in the end, I’m left sad yet knowing it’s better for the sake of the team, even if it isn’t for him.

If you’ve read this far THANK YOU… this is the third time I’ve typed this update because twice my computer froze on me losing my work. God Bless and take care

-Matt Short

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 10:20 pm and is filed under BDTS '08 Leading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.