Wednesday 7th April - PTS Day One

As you read through these accounts please be patient with my chaotic writing style. A lot of these entries are written up to a week after they occur. As a result I will be infusing a fresh understanding of events as I go. I will do my best not to go off track, but I do want to record my thoughts and feelings as they come to me. For those unfamiliar with the school, Torben Sondergaard is the founder of the school.

So today was the first official day of the PTS. It was quite strange to see Torben appear. I have watched over 50 hours of footage of his lessons and street preaching and to see him as anything other than a 2D image was a bit of a novelty. We had an introductory lesson lead by Torben, I was interested to learn how the modern bible as I have read it came to be. For instance chapters and verses were introduced in the 13th (chapters) and 16th century (verses). This definitely addresses some of the issues with people taking individual verses out of context over and over. Take for example a pastor writing to 3 separate couples. One have been married a week, one a year and one for 15 years. If he wrote three individual letters to each of these couples, it wouldn’t be accurate to apply the advice given to the newlyweds to the veteran couple. The subject is the same but taking a line out here and there would really misrepresent the content. This lesson has really opened my eyes to the idea of reading entire chapters at a time to avoid confusion. I am thankful today for my distinct lack of biblical knowledge as I really haven’t done it any justice by flicking through it in the past. Moving forward I can really learn from it.

The lesson today was also about the character of a disciple. It is a horrible state of mind to believe an unknown pastor will appear in church one Sunday, point us out of the crowd and declare an anointing over us. No one is going to give you that, because God has called everyone one of us. Anointing doesn’t rub off, you are not going to catch it. I have prayed for healing before and seen nothing, faith is proven through sincerity and persistent obedience in action despite what we perceive to be failure. If you only pray once for something and get nothing as a result, you can’t just stop praying. Otherwise, what are we other than a child throwing a tantrum. Ask God and step forward in faith over and over, he wants our obedience that we might learn to grow. God is not a vending machine. The character of a disciple is one who just acts in spite of fear. You can fear the a “negative “outcome but you need to keep going anyway. There was no thunder and lightning when I decided to follow Jesus, no one pulled me out of  a crowd, my prayers simply lead me away from the crowd. I prayed often God would lead the way, I didn’t recognize that it was happening as I went his way, but looking back I can clearly see how he has directed me.

When approaching people on the street I have come to realise I shouldn’t be disheartened by rejection. It’s a natural reaction but that person may have to go through several encounters and experiences to start their own journey. Despite people saying they don’t want to hear me out, they will leave me, thinking about what I said. That is a victory in itself I believe. Thinking about the parable of the sower and the different grounds I have gained a new perspective on the work that must be done in people. Ground in which we grow crops isn’t just waiting to be used, it must be cleared, ploughed, seed must be sown and watered before harvest. Each of these symbolic actions can only be achieve through encounters with God. We are not called to go and harvest every day, we need to tend it, we need to be willing to do the work and not simply be the one to see salvations each and every time. This mind set has really guarded my mind against seemingly fruitless conversations.

I hit the streets in the afternoon to stop people and tell them the gospel and hopefully witness healings again, but once again it didn’t go as planned. I went out with Chris H, one of the staff here, again I would speak to those we stopped but I lacked the courage to stop people and initiate the conversations myself. After a quick snack break I broke from the group and joined up with Martin from Germany. I told him I was struggling with stopping people and he invited me to observe his approach and help where I could. We didn’t encounter people with pain, but I have to remember healing is not the goal. We had some really long conversations with people, all of them left us smiling and feeling good. They even allowed us to pray over their future. I told one young girl that God wanted her to have a much easier situation, that it was waiting for her. But she had to ask God for it herself to see results, to lean on him for support and have faith he would deliver. I shared how God had brought me through situations and she responded really well. Getting a smile and a handshake at the end really boosts my spirit.

To the streets at last!

Tuesday 5th April

Preface: Every day I will write an entry as it comes to me. Reading back I can see a number of issues concerning context. So I will often include explanations to the top of the post to hopefully address these issues.

So the first thing to point out is that one of our go to questions when approaching people is to discuss pain and injuries. The reason being if this line of questioning leads to prayer over said injuries it makes the delivery of the gospel all the easier for us. After speaking with people for however long we offer them a business card featuring a link to the film where they can see what we are doing. Yeah so, scary stuff wish me luck…

P.S Oh and in case you are wondering “So Paul… all this talk about healing, have yooou seen it?”

A - Yes, keep reading.

Today is a bridge day between the travelling and the studying starting. After breakfast, those who had already been at the hotel for the previous day decided to go to the streets. We split into groups closer to the city and went to preach the gospel. I went with Andy and Michael who also had little Riley and Nathan in the push chair. I was pleased to go with some people I could rely on to approach people on the street, having been on the streets of Nuneaton with him in the past. 

In the past I have witnessed people preaching hell fire and damnation to the masses in the streets and not exactly drawing a crowd. Can’t say I’d go for this method myself, the message is relevant to a point, but then I also don’t go for the whole “God is Love and by grace and grace alone despite how hypocritical I remain I’m gonna get to heaven” routine. It is important not to remove any of the gospel, to tell of God’s love and how he wants that relationship, but.. He cannot have a relationship with sinand so we must turn away from it. I’m getting carried away with my thoughts here I’ll get back on track.

Michael’s approach is to just lay it all out, the full gospel. He tells of how the world is broken, that we are broken and seek escapism through drink, drugs, sex etc. People might not always be completely open but they do listen. It’s great to see him in action, my bravery is currently at an all-time low and I need the boost. We stopped a young guy called Kim, he was very open and more so when he asked us why we stopped him. Michael told him he just stops people as the spirit leads, he asked a lot of questions after and showed interest in the film. It was a good start. I pretty much hid behind Michael when he would approached people, I loved contributing to the conversation and it felt good to preach the gospel on the street at last. I’m just left wondering why I find it hard just to say that all important “hello”.

Acts 28:31

The language barrier doesn’t seem to be an issue, everyone seems to be showing me up with their English skills here.

The Travel

Monday the 4th:

So today I set off around 8 o’clock with Dad to go to the train station. I had to go to London to catch my flight as it was by far the cheapest option. The travel was easy, It’s a direct train to London and I’m more than used to the tube system now. I’m not going to lie, the security section of the airports freak me out ever since going to Mellorca and having to almost strip down. Everything went without a hitch though, the flights were fast and one of them had roughly 15 minutes air time which almost didn’t seem worth it.

I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, there I was greeted by Ilze by my full name which as strange as it sounds was a great touch towards feeling welcome from the very start. She showed me to my room, which I share with 9 other men in bunk beds. We range from age 19 to middle aged.  My tour was brief as dinner was ready when I arrived. I went into the main community room where I instantly met by Michael and Andy from the YWAM base back home. I am grateful to have familiar faces here but within hours that became an unnecessary luxury. There is such a sense of fellowship here I doubt I will ever be alone or in fact lonely. We stayed up till around 11 getting to know each other before going to bed. More people will show up tomorrow and I’m looking forward to meeting loads of new faces. It feels great to finally be here.

A New Adventure Begins: Intro

Hi guys, so this blog will be following my experiences at the Pioneer Training School at the Jesus Hotel in Aalborg Denmark. I’m going to give a very honest account of events going on around me as I see and understand them. If anyone is wondering what it is the PTS (Pioneer Training School) is about then I would recommend you watch the film The Last Reformation team has created here https://thelastreformationmovie.com/nl/ more information on the last reformation is available on their main site https://thelastreformation.com/. I do want to discuss who they are and the work they do, but the film and website speak for themselves. I will be writing up the testimony of my last two years that lead me here for those who are interested. But as so many things happened over the last 18+ months I will be writing the testimony in installments over a period of time for those who wish to read it. I will attempt to summarize the purpose of the school before I continue. Anyway…

In the time when Jesus walked among us, he had disciples. These disciples learned under his guidance how to preach the gospel, heal the sick, baptize people and yes even cast out demons. The purpose of Jesus’ followers was to disciple others to do exactly as they first had done. At some point I will go into detail on my own understanding of what the Bible calls us as believers to do, I will go into depth with the scriptures later on so you can follow my train of thought. I believe that in a very brief summary, that for salvation we are to believe in the sacrifice Jesus made for us, that we should be baptized in water and spirit and follow what he calls us to do, make disciples and preach the gospel. There is obviously a lot more to it than that, this blog may present challenges but it’s time for a change. Every point made here will be backed up through scripture so please be patient with me.

(Matthew 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit - If this continued we would have been discipled ourselves by those who came before, surely? So we would do as Jesus asked, heal and make more disciples and as a believer, signs would surely follow right? ` And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues´- Mark 16:17 ).

So in following that, I believe that as the bible says; In the name of Jesus we can heal the sick that their hearts, previously hardened to the gospel will be softened that they might be open to it (yes that’s not all in the same passage). I’m not claiming that I must see everyone healed for them to hear the gospel, healing is simply a tool for evangelism and isn’t a requirement for admission so to speak. It is my belief in these teachings that lead me to this school, so many signs and answered prayers lead me here and again I will discuss those at a later date. For now, I need to report on everything that happens here as it happens to avoid losing the important details from my memory.

I apologize for how long it has taken me to put my recent experiences into words, I can’t promise that I will be able to update you guys everyday but I will do my best to get the chronology correct and keep the date stamps correct. I will seek to correct any mistakes made and add missing biblical verses when appropriate so feel free to scan back and forth as I continue to update everything.