It is crazy that we are already on our fourth week here at Link Year. The time is flying by and information is coming at me almost faster then I can take it in. This week we had the privilege of having DA Horton speak to us. DA currently serves as the National Coordinator for Urban Student Missions at the North American Missions Board. Before that he worked with Reach Life Ministries and Reach Records, along with being an urban church planter and pastor. He is also the author of the book DNA: Foundations of the Faith, which I will talk about more in a bit. He has gained so much knowledge and wisdom over the years from his various experiences and commitment to studying the Bible and walking in tune with the Lord, so it was a huge blessing to have him with us. Here is a link to his website:
http://www.dahorton.com/
Due to a flight cancelation, DA was not able to get here until Wednesday, instead of Tuesday, so Adam spoke to us on time management Tuesday, which I will highlight first before getting into DA's teachings. To start off Adam's talk he gave us a sheet of paper with the seven days of the week broken down into 30 minute time slots. He then had us fill in everything we did that was necessary, such as class, eating, sleeping, work, etc. and see how much free time we had. It was amazing to see all the open slots of time I have throughout my week that I waste on useless things. He then told us about prioritizing. One of Adam's favorite lines is, "You will always make time for what is important to you." Therefore, he has a list of his top 5 priorities and before he commits any of his time to something he filters it through his priorities to see if it will hinder his ability to focus on them. If it does, he will say no to it. Saying no is something that is really hard for me because I am a people pleaser. Adam had two things to say on that. First, saying no or not now can lead to great productivity in the future. Second, when we say yes to something, we are indirectly saying no to something else. Hearing those two points was really eye opening and will definitely help me in my ability to say no to things of lesser importance. Also, using his method of filtering everything I do through my priorities will make me much more productive and able to focus my time on things of the greatest importance.
Now Back to DA, who spoke to us on Wednesday and Thursday. In his time here he gave us an overview of his book DNA, which simply breaks down theology into simple concepts and illustrations so that anyone can dig into scriptures and know the foundational truths that believers in Christ need to know. Having that book will be such a helpful recourse to turn to and I'm excited about working through it in the future. A few of the topics in it are: what is the Bible? who is God? what is sin? and many more. My favorite parts about his talk, however, were all the questions that came up about certain issues in the Bible and how he responded to them. Some of these questions were: should we believe in predestination? should women teach in the church? which view on the end times in correct? What I love about his responses (and Adam does this as well) was that he did not tell us his view as the correct view that we should all believe. Sometimes he didn't even tell us where he stood on certain issues. But he always pointed us to scripture and told us what the Bible said on the topics and encouraged us to wrestle with them and study them more. The reason he does this is so that we don't leave saying, "Well I guess predestination is true because that is what DA said." That is not making faith our own. Rather he would have us leave saying, "I believe that predestination is true or not true because of what it says in scripture." I love that way of teaching and my faith will be so much stronger because of it.
This weekend I have the opportunity to go to a conference here in Branson with Josh and Sean McDowell teaching. I'm sure I will have a lot to write on that in my blog next week so be ready!
Until then,
Spencer
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