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<\/a>Rick Atchley, Senior Minister at The Hills Church<\/p><\/div>\n
During his lecture, a lot of Mr. Atchley\u2019s words made an impression on me. However, one of the biggest things I walked away with was his statement that,<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must minister from<\/em> your blessing instead of for<\/em> a blessing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This point really got me thinking. I\u2019m only nineteen, but throughout my life I\u2019ve seen numerous individuals go into ministry and then get burned out. Mr. Atchley\u2019s statement made me stop and think about how critical it is to allow ourselves to be filled by God before we try to serve and minister to others. I also wondered how often we as the church forget about this step and then wonder why we seem to have nothing to offer others.<\/p>\n
In addition to hearing thought-provoking speakers like Mr. Atchley who caused me to examine and reassess my thinking, I also loved the case studies in which we got to participate.<\/p>\n
The unique thing about these case studies is that they were written by our guest speakers and draw on real experiences from their lives. After discussing the case studies amongst ourselves, we then discussed these case studies as a class with the speakers who wrote them.<\/p>\n
Throughout this process, we were given the opportunity to process the way we would behave before hearing how older and wiser individuals actually chose to handle things.<\/p>\n
All in all, listening to Mr. Atchley challenged me to rethink my role in the church and in God\u2019s bigger story for my life.<\/p>\n
What is your role in that story?<\/p>\n
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