Hey guys,
So, if you haven't heard by now, there's a new program that's starting up out of Eston College this fall. It's a very hands on, experiential ministry training program. The idea behind it is that learning to be a witness/disciple/follower-of-Christ, like learning to be or do anything, is best accomplished through actually doing the work that you're seeking to learn, instead of reading about it and hearing people talk about it. For example, if you're wanting to learn how to play guitar, weld, or drive a car, you can read all you want about that particular topic. You can study it. You can read about people that have done those things before you, and examine their lives to see how they got good at it. You can put hours and hours of study time into what ever that is that you want to learn. However---besides giving you a good arsenal of data at your fingertips (and maybe increasing your passion about the topic)---all of that won't do much for you until you actually get that thing you want to learn into your hands (whether that be the guitar, welding gun, or steering wheel), and start to practice. It's not about just thinking about concepts and ideas, but practising them.
This is the rough idea behind the new program that Eston College is starting up: that putting into practice the things that Jesus did and told us to do is just as important as learning the concepts behind them.
This new program is called Martyr's Life.
Here's a video of the man that came up with the idea explaining the program a bit more:
It's a sweet idea, in my opinion! :)
If you're wondering why I'm telling you about all this, there is a reason! And here it is! :)
There are (roughly) 10 students who have been accepted into the program this fall as a bit of a test group to see how the program runs for a first year.
Well, my brother and I have the extreme honour of being able to be two of those ten students!
We are very excited to be able to be part of it! The last few months have been filled with anticipation for what God's going to do in us and through us during the program, and that anticipation just keeps growing, as we are now only 3 days away from heading out to Eston to begin the program!
So, that's a bit of an update on what the next 8-9 months of my life are going to look like. With that in mind, there's something I am planning on changing, as far as my social media presence is concerned, which I also wanted to give a quick update on.
(For the next bit of this post, I'm going to explain some of my reasoning behind some changes in how I plan to be using Facebook for the next while. It may be a bit boring, so you probably want to scroll to the next bolded part to get the summary :P :) )
First, a bit of context: During Street Invaders boot camp a few weeks ago, I occasionally would check Facebook in the evenings, and would get discouraged.
In the context of AMAZING things happening (God changing people's hearts, old hurts being taken away, new passions being ignited, and Holy Spirit doing awesome stuff), I'd go on FB and see posts that were... well... sketchy... from friends I love and wanted to see encounter God the same way that those people around me were. Yet, there wasn't much I could do... I mean, of course I can message them and share what God's put on my heart for them, and let Holy Spirit do what He does best.
That's obvious.
But I was still somewhat discouraged to see a lot of that stuff. Along with that, it was a bit of a distraction from the things that God was doing and wanted to do around me at that time.
So, now that Martyr's Life is coming along, I kinda wanted to re-assess my social media usage, and change it up a bit to see if I can come up with a better system. Especially in the context of the fact that we will not have a whole lot of spare time during Martyr's Life to just chill and waste time on the internet, I want what ever time I do spend online to be as useful as possible. :)
I had considered completely getting rid of my Facebook for the year, and had mentioned this idea to a few friends. They advised against it for a couple reasons, which I think were fairly wise. So I've come up with this system/idea which I'm gunna try out and see if it works at all (and will be subject to change based on how well it works) :P :)
I've set up my Twitter account, and this Blogger account to automatically post anything I post on them to my Facebook account. I'll be updating these pretty regularly over the course of the year, including (hopefully) things we've been learning on Martyr's Life, what we've been doing, where we are, and other things along that line. However, I won't be on Facebook itself very much (or, probably, at all), so any comments and such that are posted I won't see. I also have tools I'm planning on setting up that will give me access to FB messenger without going on FB itself (so I will still (likely) be on chat and such at various times). This will be, for the most part, so that I can focus my attention on what God wants to do and what He's saying, while minimizing other distractions that come along through everything that's on FB.
In summary of all that, I'm going to be commenting and reading stuff on Facebook a whole lot less (basically, not at all), but (hopefully) still posting updates and other posts a fair amount on Facebook (via Twitter and Blogger), and will (potentially) still appear on messenger at times. This is primarily to minimize distraction while I focus my coming year on God, and what He wants to do in my life.
Because of this, I probably won't get a lot of updates from your life that I would have gotten otherwise and Facebook will become a relatively unreliable tool for reaching me.
If you want to chat, update me on your life (which I want to hear about! :) ), ask me anything (which I'd love to do my best to answer), comment on something that I post in such a way that I'll actually receive your comment, or contact me for any other reason, the most reliable method now will probably be through email (or through text message: if you want my number, just email me and I'll get it to you).
You can email me at theophilus.the.Jesus.freak777@gmail.com
Love you guys!
Thanks for taking an interest in my life and for your support! (and if you actually read all the way through to here, WOW! Thanks! I appreciate it! :) Sorry this was so long for such a simple update xD )
Please feel free to email me at any time!
Hopefully, you'll hear from me soon!
Grace to you and peace!
Josh
P.S. This will probably all take effect once Martyr's Life starts. So I'll be around for a couple more days :P :)
So, if you haven't heard by now, there's a new program that's starting up out of Eston College this fall. It's a very hands on, experiential ministry training program. The idea behind it is that learning to be a witness/disciple/follower-of-Christ, like learning to be or do anything, is best accomplished through actually doing the work that you're seeking to learn, instead of reading about it and hearing people talk about it. For example, if you're wanting to learn how to play guitar, weld, or drive a car, you can read all you want about that particular topic. You can study it. You can read about people that have done those things before you, and examine their lives to see how they got good at it. You can put hours and hours of study time into what ever that is that you want to learn. However---besides giving you a good arsenal of data at your fingertips (and maybe increasing your passion about the topic)---all of that won't do much for you until you actually get that thing you want to learn into your hands (whether that be the guitar, welding gun, or steering wheel), and start to practice. It's not about just thinking about concepts and ideas, but practising them.
This is the rough idea behind the new program that Eston College is starting up: that putting into practice the things that Jesus did and told us to do is just as important as learning the concepts behind them.
This new program is called Martyr's Life.
Martyr is a Greek word which originally meant "witness". In Acts 1:8, when Jesus said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth," the word He used which is translated "witnesses" was "martyr". So, the students who are on this program will be learning how to live out their lives as Christ's witnesses---His martyrs---living out their day-to-day lives to show those around them the Love that they've been shown, as the witnesses He's made them to be.
Here's a video of the man that came up with the idea explaining the program a bit more:
It's a sweet idea, in my opinion! :)
If you're wondering why I'm telling you about all this, there is a reason! And here it is! :)
There are (roughly) 10 students who have been accepted into the program this fall as a bit of a test group to see how the program runs for a first year.
Well, my brother and I have the extreme honour of being able to be two of those ten students!
We are very excited to be able to be part of it! The last few months have been filled with anticipation for what God's going to do in us and through us during the program, and that anticipation just keeps growing, as we are now only 3 days away from heading out to Eston to begin the program!
So, that's a bit of an update on what the next 8-9 months of my life are going to look like. With that in mind, there's something I am planning on changing, as far as my social media presence is concerned, which I also wanted to give a quick update on.
(For the next bit of this post, I'm going to explain some of my reasoning behind some changes in how I plan to be using Facebook for the next while. It may be a bit boring, so you probably want to scroll to the next bolded part to get the summary :P :) )
First, a bit of context: During Street Invaders boot camp a few weeks ago, I occasionally would check Facebook in the evenings, and would get discouraged.
In the context of AMAZING things happening (God changing people's hearts, old hurts being taken away, new passions being ignited, and Holy Spirit doing awesome stuff), I'd go on FB and see posts that were... well... sketchy... from friends I love and wanted to see encounter God the same way that those people around me were. Yet, there wasn't much I could do... I mean, of course I can message them and share what God's put on my heart for them, and let Holy Spirit do what He does best.
That's obvious.
But I was still somewhat discouraged to see a lot of that stuff. Along with that, it was a bit of a distraction from the things that God was doing and wanted to do around me at that time.
So, now that Martyr's Life is coming along, I kinda wanted to re-assess my social media usage, and change it up a bit to see if I can come up with a better system. Especially in the context of the fact that we will not have a whole lot of spare time during Martyr's Life to just chill and waste time on the internet, I want what ever time I do spend online to be as useful as possible. :)
I had considered completely getting rid of my Facebook for the year, and had mentioned this idea to a few friends. They advised against it for a couple reasons, which I think were fairly wise. So I've come up with this system/idea which I'm gunna try out and see if it works at all (and will be subject to change based on how well it works) :P :)
I've set up my Twitter account, and this Blogger account to automatically post anything I post on them to my Facebook account. I'll be updating these pretty regularly over the course of the year, including (hopefully) things we've been learning on Martyr's Life, what we've been doing, where we are, and other things along that line. However, I won't be on Facebook itself very much (or, probably, at all), so any comments and such that are posted I won't see. I also have tools I'm planning on setting up that will give me access to FB messenger without going on FB itself (so I will still (likely) be on chat and such at various times). This will be, for the most part, so that I can focus my attention on what God wants to do and what He's saying, while minimizing other distractions that come along through everything that's on FB.
In summary of all that, I'm going to be commenting and reading stuff on Facebook a whole lot less (basically, not at all), but (hopefully) still posting updates and other posts a fair amount on Facebook (via Twitter and Blogger), and will (potentially) still appear on messenger at times. This is primarily to minimize distraction while I focus my coming year on God, and what He wants to do in my life.
Because of this, I probably won't get a lot of updates from your life that I would have gotten otherwise and Facebook will become a relatively unreliable tool for reaching me.
If you want to chat, update me on your life (which I want to hear about! :) ), ask me anything (which I'd love to do my best to answer), comment on something that I post in such a way that I'll actually receive your comment, or contact me for any other reason, the most reliable method now will probably be through email (or through text message: if you want my number, just email me and I'll get it to you).
You can email me at theophilus.the.Jesus.freak777@gmail.com
Love you guys!
Thanks for taking an interest in my life and for your support! (and if you actually read all the way through to here, WOW! Thanks! I appreciate it! :) Sorry this was so long for such a simple update xD )
Please feel free to email me at any time!
Hopefully, you'll hear from me soon!
Grace to you and peace!
Josh
P.S. This will probably all take effect once Martyr's Life starts. So I'll be around for a couple more days :P :)
