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Day 3: SEALS 2012 Arise and Shine

Today was such a colorful day of fellowship.  It was a delightful day of celebrating who we are as Southeast Asian Americans through creative arts worship, and intimate worship.  We praise the almighty God for how he created us, and for the gifts that he has bestowed on us.

We started the day with morning worship; empowered to be active globally whether in our churches or in the darkest closed places.  The speaker challenged us to think about our position in global missions: Are you a sender? Be a sender, Are you a Goer, than GO!  He ushered us into an intimate time of prayer and release.

After lunch we gathered to have some crazy fun creative fellowship.  We split into groups of 3 and made masks with plaster and water. We continued our day with workshops and a group photo showing off our cultural ethnic group attire.

During evening sessions, the National Director of Asian American Ministries, InterVarsity empower us to be a people that follow through with our dreams.  To dream big, think big and let the world see the dreams that we dream.  He asked us, "What are you dreams, say the out so that we all can hear?" Amongst these dreams that we heard were:
-To see the urban poor redeemed
-For all of us leaders here to be fully commissioned financially so that we may be a community that would complete the great commission
-To see our father's come to know the love of Christ, sitting in the front row passionately worshipping, tears falling as father and son worshipping together.
James continues to say if our dreams are like threshing wheat in a whine press in your ministry, fear is keeping us in a place of futility.  (Meaning that we may feel the pains of displacement.)  So...it may be that our futility maybe because our certainty, our surety, and our dreams have been crushed.  With this in our depression, we may act out in fear; afraid of hearing God again; that expectancy of failure repeating itself.  Then our dreams for become tangent with our weakness.  He challenged us to take our dreams outside of our comfortable communities and ethnicities (immigrant churches) and release them and reveal them to the world.  James goes to say that our dreams are beautiful gifts from the Father, why fear bringing what is beautiful into the world.

"Release your dreams into the world, not futility."

We ended the night in deeply intimate worship, fellowship in communion, and prayer followed by an amazing feast and showcase of amazing talented singer/songwriters including spoken word artist Jason Chu.

Praise Him, from Whom all blessings flow.  Praise Him, all creatures below;
Praise Him, above ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen
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