Our Journey with Christ: Week 1: Setting Kingdom Culture and Living Lives Centered around the Presence of God

Posted by Dan and Carole McClelland

Week 1: Setting Kingdom Culture and Living Lives Centered around the Presence of Jesus

This week we had Jeremy Baldwell and a crew from YWAM Harrisburg, PA come and impart what does it mean to live in the kingdom culture. We were together with the David's Tent DTS. We are people of thankfulness, who love happy holiness, live a life of excellence and an unoffendable heart, who are radical initiators and servants. We are world changers, and people who set the temperature in the room and change the atmosphere, bring Jesus's light wherever we go. Walking into God's heart for the lost and the world and declaring that we will go! Lord, here I am send me! This was a week of creating a family tight bond with each other through honestly sharing and times of seeking the Lord.

Highlights from this week:

Brandon sharing his testimony, as we took turns sharing testimonies in the large group, getting to know each other from the ASL DTS and the David's Tent DTS. As Brandon shared his life story and how he was rescued from darkness and into God's marvelous light, most of the group was opened up to share more deeper things afterwards. Many were brought to tears by the power of his testimony!

During one of the worship nights, Renca was moved to tears rolling down her face. As she was crying, she felt a hand wipe her tears from the right side of her face. Her left check was still pouring from tears. She assumed that a friend next to her had wiped her check. As she felt her right check it was completely dry and as she opened her eyes no one was sitting next to her or close enough to wipe her check. She checked again and her check was dry. Jesus wiped Renca's tears from her check!

Jeremy decided to champion a Samuel (a student in Davids Tent DTS) by encouraging him to lead us in worship in the stairwell of the church when the evening before, he heard Samuel and Rachel (his girlfriend, who is on our staff) worshiping Jesus together on their free time.

Another worship night, toward the end of the 2 hour set, Michelle, a girl in the Davids Tent DTS, felt like one of the Deaf people had a song that was supposed to be sung out. Everyone looked at Brandon. As Brandon, closed his eyes, he said my heart is pounding so hard and fast right now. And he began to sing. He signed "Come Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit we will dance we will dance." His eyes were closed as he was worshiping the Lord, and as I interpreted I asked the worship band to create a song based on Brandon's worship and they did. As the room started to sing the chorus we all broke out into dancing. Brandon is still signing his song to the Lord on the floor with his eyes closed. As she opens his eyes, he is overwhelmed with the whole room (50 people) dancing around him he starts to cry and falls to the floor with joy. He eventually gets up and dances with the room, worshiping Jesus!

Our group practicing sharing the gospel with each other in our training groups!

Josiah heard the voice of the Lord clearly and obeyed by stepping out in boldness and courage and asking someone he has wronged for forgiveness. He went so much better than what he expected!

Liza became a voice for the voiceless as she shared the statistics of the people who know Jesus in the Deaf community with the class, 2-4 %, making the Deaf community the 4th unreached people group in the world. Which led the both schools into an intercession time for the Deaf community and for workers to be send out into the harvest field! We had a break and during the break, as a school the students choose to continue to pray for the Deaf community with the same heart and mind. As we were huddled in a group praying, the David's Tent DTS and Harrisburg crew were praying for us!

Tabitha wrote a love poem to Jesus, about how she was madly, passionately in love with him. That He was all she wanted and who she dreamed about all night and woke up thinking about in the morning. She lead us in an hour of worship as she read out from the Psalms and her own poems for an hour, creating a place of worship to Jesus corporately through ASL. Then she taught us about the culture of faith, "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1. Afterwards, she led us into an activity to step into faith. She partnered us up and had one of us blindfolded and trust our partner to guide us to walk and then led us into running. Each of us learned more about our own walks of faith such as when we fall our partner was always there to pick us up (Jesus).

Fourth of July fireworks at the National Cathedral hill and seeing fireflies sparkle in the night afterwards.

Friday night worship/prayer set, where Dan interpreted most of the 2 hours and lead the whole room in signing, "DC to Jesus"! Jason made Dan get on a chair and sign it for all in the room to see! It was a prayer meeting with an explanation point! An amazing worship set of unity among the staff, as Kayla typed words of the songs, Dan interpreted the songs, Rachel read out scripture and Carole worshiped and interpreted prayers.

Spending time during the week, creating vows to Jesus. Dan lead a ceremony in the Bishop Gardens, celebrating Jesus, speaking our vows aloud, taking communion and receiving a ring as a symbol of the commitments each of the students made and promising to hold one another accountable to our vows.

Below are pictures from the ceremony!