The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Seaguls!

As I am currently writing this, I am on a train making my way into Preston Lancaster Station before switching to another train into Manchester. Wifi on a train...very spiffy.

You will have to forgive me, my comments on Edinburgh will be quite short as I spent the majority of my time there just sort of relaxing and took in a museum as well. I will, however, be posting up some of my thoughts and what I learned during my time at the Scottish Leadership and Discipleship Training Program in the wee town of Arbroath. But firstly, Edinburgh.

Edinburgh


Edinburgh was formerly run by Mark and Jenny Stirling and is now in the more than capable hands of Collin Gillies and I do believe he is getting help from an American by the name of Mark Backlock. Both of these men are great to be around and have a real heart for discipleship and meeting with students one on one. Collin meets with a guy not much older than myself named Dave, while Mark is meeting with a couple guys I met at the conference, Luke and Ben (a funny story about them a bit later). Collin has been spending a lot of his time investigating how he can be effective for God in this ministry, which includes the things he puts his focus on, things that could easily become idols. He was open enough to share that, not just with me, but with other students at the conference. He is a really down to earth guy and I connected with him right away. He took me to a museum in Edinburgh and I got to see all kinds of artifacts from the Roman occupation of the isles as well as the Lewis Chessman, a really awesome exhibit!


Arbroath and the Conference



This conference was absolutely amazing. God really used this time to confirm a lot of things I had been investigating as well as help me to correct some rather blatant scriptural misunderstandings. I will be looking at the scriptures much more carefully now I can tell you. I will get into that a bit down this post though.

The conference was hosted by Mark Stirling and the guest speaker was a former instructor of Mark's named Hans Bayer, who is from Germany and just a really awesome, engaging speaker, and really kind man. He had been addressing issues of the heart of man for the week using the gospel of Mark, with a focus on Mark 11:22-25, which I can assure you, we have grossly been mistranslating. He also used the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Ungrateful Servant. I won't go into all of the details, if you are interested, I have recorded all of my notes, I am willing to talk with you, simply send me an e-mail; I will however share with you what I got out of it. I had been investigating the idea of our selfish nature vs. what God calls us to for a while now, and Hans really confirmed a lot of my investigation. I will summarize it by saying that we need to identify autonomous behavior in our lives and hearts and allow God to correct that, to move towards a more selfless approach. Not selfless in the sense that we diminish into nothing, but selfless in the same example set for us by Christ in His complete and total dependency on the Father. Selfish behavior, I have been finding, is at the root of so many transgressions, our autonomous behavior is at the root, born out of greed and fear. Jesus moves us towards true worship, removes the mountain of idolatry, and allows us to move towards true worship of the father. You'll need to forgive me if this explanation is rushed or un-thorough. I just finished the conference today and have not yet had a chance to piece it all together into something more polished along with the findings in my own time in the scripture. What I will close with though, is that the Gospel of Mark is quickly becoming one of the most interesting Gospels I have read.



Funny Story...

I thought I would share a funny story from the conference. I love all of the people I've met in Scotland thus far. I have made many great friends and I have felt very relaxed and welcomed during my trip so far. The evidence of the Kingdom and our spiritual family is evident over here just as much as it is back home. You might remember that I mentioned an American working out of Edinburgh named Mark Backlock, who is discipling two fellas by the names of Luke and Ben. Well one evening, as everyone was sitting down to supper, Luke doused Mark with a pitcher of water and the two began to wrestle in the dining room. Mark, a former American Football is his own force of nature, not to be reckoned with. He gained a very quick advantage over Luke, when Ben decided he would come in to help and began to give Mark a wedgie. Again, Mark being a force of nature, managed to not only fend Ben off while keeping Luke at bay, he gave Ben a wedgie, one that ripped the elastic completely off Ben's shorts. Luke moved in for the kill, managed to get a hold and tried to finish the work Ben started, Mark countered and ripped the undershorts right off Luke as well. Ben moved in for further assistance and teaming with Luke, the both of them no longer having anything to lose, managed to finally get Mark back. Everyone was laughing and the discipler and his disciples were all grins and smiles as they allowed their photos to be taken and gave each other a pat on the back!

Once again, please click on the images to enlarge them, and feel free to visit the gallery from previous articles to see more images!