Summer 08 Internship

For the last three and a half months I have been in Pennsylvania doing my summer internship at Allison Park Church. I really wanted to write about all of the things that God did in my heart during my time there for a few weeks now but I felt that I should wait just a while until I could really reflect on everything and hear God about it. And now, although I'm sure that I am not even fully aware of all of the things that I learned at Allison Park, I think I can finally share some of the things that God did in me and taught me while I was there. [In no particular order of course :) ]

1) I learned that ministry is totally not about me. Being in the ministry is not the glamorous job that it may appear to be, and there are so many days that I was so tempted to complain or criticize, and I learned very quickly that if I am not going into ministry for any other reason other than that I know that I have been called to serve God by serving people, then I will not make it. There is no room in the kingdom of God for egos or selfishness and that is most certainly true in the case of ministry.

2) I learned that I don't hate youth ministry! That may sound funny, but before coming to APC, I had told numerous people, possibly including God, that I would never ever ever ever ever do youth ministry. However, I had the time of my life this summer being a youth intern. I wouldn't necessarily say that God has now called me to do youth ministry for the rest of my life, but it's definitely something that He has given me a passion for in these short three and half months. I can't even begin to explain the desire that I felt for these teenagers to know Christ. During City Reach (a week long domestic missions trip that some of our youth took part in), I had the opportunity to see some of the youth that I had been personally mentoring step out in faith and pray for people they didn't even know to be healed, and they were! Working with these kids has definitely been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

3) I learned the importance of encouraging others in ministry as well.

4) I learned how poisonous negative attitude can be; and in contrast, just how powerful a positive attitude can be.

5) I was challenged on a whole new level concerning praying for the sick. Of course I had always believed that God heals and had prayed for people to be healed in the past that received healing; however, this summer it took on a whole new life. Now, I almost go about my day "searching" for people to pray for. I really saw how God can use things such as healing and miracles as a sign for people to believe, and I've been seeing it happen over and over again.

6) I received assurance that it is okay that I don't know what particular area of ministry God has called me to. There were times this summer where I found myself frustrated that I hadn't ever felt a clear call to any group of people (kids, youth, adults, women, missions, etc.) like some of the other interns had. All that I have ever clearly heard from God concerning His call on my life is that He wants me to preach His word. Now however, partly because of a peace that God has given me about it and partly because of something Pastor Jeff said to our intern group during one of our sessions with him, I really do feel much more at ease about it. One day, Pastor Jeff told our intern group, "God really is much more concerned about where you end up then you are!" Right away that registered with me and I've had a peace about it ever since.

7) I was shown a truly wonderful example of how a balanced, relevant, Spirit-filled, 21st century church should operate. When we are a part of a church from an attendee aspect only, it can be somewhat difficult to really see the inner workings of all that is really going on, but I can say with confidence that Allison Park truly is going after God and making an impact on the city of Pittsburgh, they really do exist for "the one" and that is something that seems to have infiltrated every aspect of the church.

8) I learned of a whole new paradigm of church-networking. For quite a while I had really been thinking about how much more effective we as THE Church would be so much more effective if we were united and working together for a common goal instead of individually for own reasons however noble they may be, and I got to see this in action when I came to Allison Park through MCM (Multi-Church Movement) and City Reach. It was so incredibly inspiring and refreshing to see churches come together with a common goal, to see people come to Christ! I truly believe that this is going to be one of the most effective ways that the Church will be able to function during these upcoming years and I can't wait to see what God does with it!

9) I learned that you can feed a whole lot of people with Hamburgers and hot dogs from Aldi's :) haha

10) I was able to see yet again just how faithful God is to me. When He specifically told me to go to Pittsburgh this summer I had absolutely NO idea why, and although I'm sure I haven't even fully figured all of it out yet, I know that I am so incredibly grateful to Him for everything this summer. I built so many relationships with people that I know continue to enjoy, I learned more about ministry and myself than ever before, and I now really feel confident to do exactly what He has called me to do. Whatever that is :)

Gentle Savior

Last week a few friends of mine and I went to Pittsburgh City Outreach for their weekly Friday night service; and what I experienced there is hard to describe, in fact it's taken me almost a week to fully process it in my mind.

That night the speaker was a young man named Jared Ruddy, a nineteen year old pastor's son from Littlestown, PA. As he began preaching, it seemed that this would be a relatively normal service, but I was very mistaken. When he was about 15 minutes into his message he basically stopped and said something to the effect of..."Ok, and now God is going to start doing some amazing things." That night out of the apprx. 25 people that were there, I would say at least 6 were healed in some way or another, and at least 4 were prophesied over.

While this may not seem like anything out of the ordinary to some Pentecostals, I think the manner in which this all transpired was most extraordinary. Basically what happened is that he would describe a pain or sickness that someone had and then that person would walk forward, this happened all except for one time. And again, this may also be something that is not too uncommon for some charismatics but the amazing thing about all of this was not the healings, and it was not the prophecies, but it was that through the whole entire hour that this took place there was never any yelling, intense emotions, or cursing of any disease; it was simply a servant of Christ who believed exactly what God had said in His word acting out in humble obedience.

I, in no way intend to "idolize" the young man that spoke that night, but I do completely yearn to have the pure faith that was shown that night. I can just say from my own personal experience walking away from that service I knew that I had experienced Jesus in a way that I had not previously. I got a glimpse that night of how gentle and loving a Saviour we have in Him. He yearns to heal us, He yearns to pour His love out upon us without measure. All we have to do is believe. Had that 19 year old young man not came to PCO that night with all of his faith in Jesus and in His promises, there would have been at least six people that would have walked out of that church building still in pain. Why? Not because Jared had any special powers or "super-faith", but simply because he chose to believe that Jesus is exactly who He knew Him to be and to live his faith out in a very practical and spiritual way.

I want to live like that. Interestingly enough, after I left the service that night I found myself not even being able to "disconnect" from the "Spirit-realm." Both Grace, (one of the other apc interns) and I were both saying it was just as if we wanted the Holy Spirit to just guide us home even as we were driving! I know it may sound silly, but I just know that there is so much more to life than this physical realm and I cannot wait to abide in it more and more every day.