What I learned staffing a DTS

As I finish up staffing this DTS, I can’t help but reflect on these past crazy fast-paced 6 months. If I tried to unpack my experiences and things I learned, this blog would be a book! I figured I’d let you in on my top 7 revelations/things learned.

1. I need God – Simple but revolutionary. My reliance and trust in God has changed and is changing my life. As I’ve started to lean on Him more and more, I realize the richness of life that comes from Him. With God all things are possible, eternal, and easier without Him I try way harder and end up relying on Him anyways!
2. Servant leadership is more fruitful than positional leadership – Jesus was the ultimate servant leader and you can see it even after his resurrection as he cooks his disciples breakfast in his glorified body. I definitely need to grow in this area as I’m starting to fully get the meaning of this revelation. Radical love changes people’s hearts and allows for an open door into discipleship.
3. Discipleship is looking at what the Holy Spirit is working on in a person and partnering with Him – Many times I’d ask my one-on-one’s how they are doing expecting to highlight a growing point and the Holy Spirit had already highlighted the area and was working on it. I’d just pray for their journey through the refining!
4. Intimacy with God is crucial for personal refreshing and strength – As a leader it is imperative to have personal time with God. I noticed a huge difference if I started to sacrifice times with the Lord for something else out of busyness. Now that I’ve said this it also needs to come from a natural hunger and thirst for God and definitely not out of a religious state of mind or performance state of mind that we can easily slip into.
5. If God calls me to something, He equips me for it – Before I began staffing there were many thoughts that I may not be ready to lead even though I knew God called me to it. In training before the DTS started, a teacher talked about a covering of grace we would feel while on outreach. I can attest to it’s presence and its lifting as I returned from outreach. I had more energy to get things done and more protection against distractions. I feel like the Grace comes when I am walking more in God’s calling. He equipped me for the task through many different outlets of his leading-teachers, people, books, movies, Bible, prayer, prophetic words and encouragement, and probably many more I didn’t even realize at the time.
6. Discipling someone doesn’t mean pointing out the bad areas of their character but building them up by  reminding them of who they are in God – I am still getting revelation on this but I continue to see the power in not criticizing someone but instead encouraging them to continue to reach for the high calling God has on their life. This does, I feel, have exceptions as some circumstances need instant correction, but correction should always be a reminder of who they are in God. Any correction should be out of love for the person.
7. JOY of the Lord is our strength – Keeping things light in meetings and ministry and carrying the Joy of the Lord makes things go way smoother! Fun times with students was a must!

Author: Calvin

My wife and I are part of the Awaken Community. We desire restoration and reconciliation in the broken and lost. We both love God and are committed to following his will. I enjoys taking photographs of my travels as well as blogging about awesome things God does or teaches me. To see more photos, visit our gallery. More about Calvin and Camille

5 Comments

Leave a Reply

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail