To Be Continued...

My third semester at Johnson Bible College, hopefully out of six, ends on Tuesday with one more exam. This always seems to be the time of year when I get/have to slow down and assess things. To be honest, I'm more than ready for this school year to be over. It's been a really odd year, and a really fast one. It's been filled with a lot of hopes, and a resulting lot of let-downs, mostly because of my own behavior. The 24/7 prayer movement yet again fell flat after an enthusiastic start, my worship leading has lost a lot of its passion and steam, and in general I still feel like I was changed negatively more than I caused change positively. With all of that seemingly bad news out in the open, I stand confident in this fact: God is still God. I am still not. God still has a plan. I am left asking him when and where the next turn is. I'm halfway through my Bachelor degree run, and I'm definitely slowing in pace. I know that in a time like this, the easiest thing would be to justify my lack of zeal and intensity for practical, hands-on ministry by suggesting that I'm in training, that I'm an upper-classman, or that I'm simply in a season of "resting." But I beg God that I don't settle for the easy thing. And so I think He has quite a different road in mind for this summer.

I will be interning under Kevan Duke at Crossview Christian Church in Waynesville, Ohio within the youth ministry. The internship will center on a lot of things that I have shied away from by hiding in the comforts of music. I'll be doing a lot more preaching, mentoring, and active community outreach/service. These things are not programs or meer responsibilties. They are attached to real faces and real lives; they demand and require nothing but excellence. Thinking about it really makes me break into a nervous sweat. (Don't worry, I wore a lot of deodorant today.) But I'm trusting God and believing for a season of growth, not of shrinking back; a season of joy, not of despair.

I won't be completely disconnected from my passions with music. On June 14th-20th, I'll be helping out at the annual Butler Springs high school week of camp, "The Experience," this year under the leadership of the 1twentyone movement. I've played guitar & led worship for this week for 5 out of the last 6 years, and its time to shake things up. This year high schoolers will again lead high schoolers in worship. In an attempt to further unify the youth groups involved in the week, the worship team is being assembled over the next 2-3 days with youth from several of the churches coming. It will be loud. It will probably be messy. But it will be worship. Peers leading peers. A generation fails when ignores the one after it. My responsibility in this process is to mentor the worship leaders , vocalists, and musicians involved. I'll be serving as a Music Director throughout the week, helping where help is needed, but mostly just playing & praying from the back of the stage and watching God do what He does: change hearts/minds, instill dreams, and work through those who seek Him. I'm so excited for these young men and women because I remember the summer of 2006 vivdly. It was on that same stage in that same smelly room that God sealed in my heart a vision to serve Him through music/youth/whatever-He-wants-to-do ministry.

That's all I have for now. Thanks for taking the time to read. If you're interested in keeping up with my internship throughout the summer, come back and check things out every once in a while. If you're from JBC and interning this summer too, comment with your link because I'd love to keep up.

Update from Mexico .1

As I write this, I’m looking at the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range in the background. There is something a little confrontational about singing the words, “I wait upon You now with my hands released to You, where a little faith’s enough to see mountains lift and move,” when you’re looking at an enormous mountain. Yes, our Christian intellects understand the metaphor…but until now, I had never had taken the time to really see the metaphor. What a massive God. One that tells us that faith in Him could literally pick and up move things like this 200 mile wide, one mile high mountain. The last 3 weeks have been challenging, exciting, happy, sad, and everywhere in between. When I first got into Monterrey, I had some version of a flu/cold. I woke up in the middle of my first night drenched in sweat, wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into…three weeks later, I wonder how in the world I could ever leave this place unchanged, non-shifted. I’ve seen my flaws, sins, and selfishness magnified, and become disgusted by them. However, I have seen Christ glorified through his church as well, and through a very uncomfortable process I’m being challenged to become more like Jesus and less like me. Or maybe more like the me I was meant to be. If you have some time to pray for me, I’d ask that you’d pray less for my safety, and more for a continual drive to accept that challenge. And I’d love to pray the same for you. So, for the sake of my mom…I’ll start writing with more specifics . A normal Back2Back day sort of goes like this… Wake up at 7:35 AM, eat breakfast with the interns, breakoff into our specific teams for the day and prepare work projects, food or supplies. At 10/10:30 we huddle up with the weekly teams from the US, load up a bus, and head out to wherever we’re going. Normally, half of the day is spent doing work projects at the children’s homes, like, mixing and pouring concrete, cleaning, creating and removing forms, painting, etc. The other half of the day is spent in relational time with the kids, doing things like coloring, jump rope, legos, trains, soccer, other stuff. Then we load up the bus, head back to campus, eat dinner, and have a time of worship and debriefing. I spend about 2 days a week on this schedule, and on the other 4 work days, I normally help with the new property building projects on camps. Back2Back is in the process of finishing the last 2 of 6 teen homes on campus. They offer the teens from the children’s homes a chance to live with staff families on campus and get a high school and college education. Half of a work day on campus is spent doing construction work, and the other half is spent in a pool party with children from a different home every day. We have times of musical worship 6 out of 7 nights of the week here. Just some vocals, an acoustic guitar, some percussion, and a crowd of physically exhausted American teams. No lights, no subs, no hazers, no drums, no loud amps…just a decision: to seek an encounter God or to disengage. It’s been a challenge, but it’s been real. Not about the coolest guitar riff or the tingly atmosphere, but instead about seeing Christ in the eyes of the fatherless, serving them, and then responding with praise. I’ve gotten to color with little girls who giggled at me because I was a boy coloring on pink paper, to build a trainset with a little boy who had better engineering designs than I could ever come up with, and to play Old Maid with Julio (you would have thought we were in the world series of poker with the smile on his face). I’ve repelled off the side of a mountain, looked down across the entire city, and laughed at how Wal-Mart has even invaded Monterrey, Mexico. I’ve been able to tangibly see the love of God through the staff, interns, teens, and nannies that live here. I’ve seen endurance in the lives of families that have decided that life is meant to be lived by the glory strength of God. And over the next 2 weeks, I want to learn how to live like that too. How to make the next 60-70ish years really count eternally. See you all soon.

Update from Down Under .14

Before I go anywhere, let’s start back in July. (Sorry, but the back half of June was so busy getting ready for Conference that it’s not really in my memory. Lol.) I had the opportunity to serve at the annual Hillsong Conference, from July 2nd to 6th, which draws around 30,000 church leaders from around the globe to come together and in their words, “champion the cause of the local church.” It’s quite a sight to take in as you watch people who are making an impact all over the world from a huge number of denominations unite under the ideas of Christian unity, courage, justice, and freedom. As glamorous as this week long event sounds, it wasn’t so glamorous from our end. A couple weeks before Conference I reallocated from Production to the Logistics team, rightfully so, since I didn’t have much training in production. However, I remember specifically talking to a few friends saying I hoped that was the one team I didn’t get allocated too, because I was going to struggle with taking authority and completing the work. Well, God has an amazing sense of humor, and there I was. Logistics, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, basically means the assembling, carrying, set-up, tear-down, move-anything-needing-moving team. It takes about 50 guys, about a quarter of which would sometimes not show up. And although I want go into it in detail, it was easy to develop a negative attitude doing the work we did throughout the day. The strange thing was that despite some joking around in the morning before beginning, or team kept, for the most part, an amazing attitude. I hurt my foot right before the last day moving a trolley of carts to a room, and because of it I was switched to a CD/DVD dubbing team. The thing with Logistics was that when I got to bed at 12:30 and then woke up at 5 the next day completely sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore, I knew I was serving the church. It was a pretty cool feeling. I was able to hear Louie Giglio give his “Indescribable” message, and then speak again at the normal Saturday night Hillsong service following Conference, and that was amazing as well. So now we’re up to my week-and-a-half break from July 9th to 18th. I honestly didn’t do a ton over my break, which was one of the greatest parts of it. Ha. It’s good to slow down sometimes, but it also made me miss home. Thijs was in Poland visiting home for almost all of July, so I was stuck with no roommate, and a lot of boredom. Fortunately, I was able to work on some guitar, write a song (which still needs some work on the melody before I record it), purchase a small guitar amp to use until I leave, and spend time reading. Unfortunately, I was sick for a great portion of break, and honestly don’t remember a lot of it. Ha. After a few days I finally caved in and found a doctor. He hooked me up with some amazing antibiotics and two days later I was just like new, but starting back into school. But this time I was going into it with a focus I had worked out laying in bed as I was sick. I want to spend the rest of this year working on three areas: prayer, vision, and my guitar skills. More on that later. Classes officially began on July 19th, and a lot has changed this semester. We have a short amount of classes, but they are a little more in-depth and spread out, so our schedule is in fact a little bit busier. Just a harder challenge to take on with time management, but I’m bound and determined to grasp it firmly. I’m also stepping into some new opportunities as far as using my musical stuff. I’m now the electric guitarist for the Japanese Extension Service which takes place in Chatswood, about 45 minutes from the main Hillsong campus. I’ve been playing with them for about 3 weeks now, and I love it! From my understanding, extension services exist to reach people from either specific Sydney regions, or other language groups and connect them in a way that the services at the Hills and City campuses could not. The praise & worship songs are all the same new Hillsong stuff, just translated into Japanese, as well as everything else said in the service. It’s really cool to see people connect in their own language, and it’s also a fun challenge to take on as a guitarist since I don’t know the language. Also, I’m playing at Hillsong Men on Thursday for the first time, so I’m really pumped about that. Men is a great program that brings the college and some church guys together to learn how to be men of God, and it’s great to see guys’ shields go down and masks come off as they don’t worry about impressing girls. So I thought I should tell a story from Street Teams on July 26th. My team mate Rowin and I were just heading back to the car after visiting our contacts, and a man came up and started asking questions about what we did. We explained to him, and then he asked if we’d be willing to help him out with getting out of the area, because he couldn’t stand living there anymore. He told us he had attempted suicide a few days before, and needed to hop a train north as soon as possible. Rowin agreed to give him a ride to the station, which was only 10 minutes away, but something didn’t feel quite right, so I hopped in the back seat of the car along with Trent, another member on the team. Without talking to each other, we started praying silently for the man. We began asking Rowin questions about the “god we believed in,” and he wanted to know why He never done anything for him. Rowin explained our faith in an amazing, calm, and Holy-Spirit driven way. The man kept saying God didn’t care about him, and then asked us how long we were going to be in Talopea (our area), because the cops might be looking for him later. At that point, I gripped the back door handle and continued praying. But even though I was scared, something gripped me about the suffering he was going through mentally…and I really felt for him. He explained that his mom was dying of cancer, and that he was stuck in bad situations and had to escape them by just going. Before he got out of the car, we asked to pray for him (which he refused), and he said he was going to talk to a church to ask God himself before he hopped the train. I have no idea where Joseph is right now, or if he’s alive, but I know that the connection we made that day made some sort of impact. We prayed for him as we drove away and his face still creeps into my mind. God loves that man, and Jesus paid for Joseph’s salvation, along with mine, almost 2,000 years ago. Last night, I attended a seminar on songwriting, given by Pat Pattison. He started the first and only Songwriting Major in the United States at Berklee College of Music. He’s taught people like John Mayer and Gillian Welch. He was an amazing teacher, and I typed like 5 full pages of notes as he spoke, most of which are shorthand-ish and need to be re-typed. Incredible stuff that I could spend a journal entry on by itself, but I won’t, so don’t worry  And then there was today. Let’s go back to that whole prayer, vision, guitar thing I was talking about early. All month, since I’ve set those goals, I’ve seen myself get weaker in all three areas. I was feeling very discouraged today and found myself questioning things. But I will wait on God to meet me with what’s going on (Psalm 13). I’m going to keep pursuing Him and the calling that I heard years ago to be a minister of his word, and to be a part of the solution in reaching a world that is dying and crying out, sometimes silently, to be changed. I believe he will give me security in my insecurities, confidence when I’m timid, and boldness where I might be soft. I believe that His word to Israel in Isaiah 40 applies to me today. Have a great week, thanks for reading, and I can’t wait to talk to you all again really soon! I’ll leave you with Eugene Peterson’s interpretation of Isaiah 40:27-31 in the Message, and a couple of pictures from random stuff. Love you all! “Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, "God has lost track of me. He doesn't care what happens to me"? Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening? God doesn't come and go. God lasts. He's Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don't get tired, they walk and don't lag behind." (P.S. The pictures with the burger demand explanation. We had just finished a long weekend of serving, and stopped at Maccas (mcodnalds) for some food on the way home. I ordered a plain cheeseburger, which apparently means no meat as well in Australia. Thus, my unhappy face. The end.)

Update from Down Under .13

Hei iedereen. Wat is op? U kan dit niet lezen, omdat het in Nederlands is. Yep. lol. Hey guys. I think I'm just going to stop telling you how busy things are every time I write one of these, because that's pretty much my new way of life. Haha. It's cool though. Good preparation I suppose. I hope everything is going well at home. Momentum is building up here as we head towards Hillsong Conference in less than three weeks. 20-30,000 people hosted by one church for an entire week. It's going to be awesome. I'm fortunate enough to be serving in Audio Production, so I'm hoping I get to hear some of what happens during the actual sessions. The last few weeks have literally flown by. I was talking to Mom and Dad on Skype just the other day, and I can't believe that by the end of this week, it will have already been a month since I visited home. It's both good and bad. I miss home, so it's cool that time doesn't drag, but I also want to make sure that I'm stopping to just soak this all in. I'm finding it very easy for my clock to rule over me instead of the other way around. I have a break coming up after Conference, and I really plan on setting some solid habits and commitments that week to get my life more organized. Classes are getting better this term, which is awesome. In other news, I really feel like I am hitting another rough patch of the year. Real growth takes sacrifice, and I think God is continuing to stretch me a little farther. This time, it's with finally learning to really take the focus off of me/my/mine and on to kingdom...kingdom...kindgom. The reason I have relapsed into having to come back to God again and again is simple...I've gone off to pursue selfish desires. So I'm learning how unimportant the comfort of Chris Dorsten is. Stuff that I've always known, but that haven't been at the core of who I am from now until forever. That's going to change this year. I believe that through the work of Jesus Christ I have been called to become a world changing machine. In the words of Craig Gross, I will do anything short of sin to reach a lost world and help lead them to something bigger than just a set of beliefs, and it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit within me that I will do anything remotely close to that. To lose the me in me. Till we talk again. Oh...almost forgot. I got the chance to head up to Palm Beach with some of the roomies and two good friends Jenna & Hannah. It was gorgeous, and you would not think it was winter here. lol. I'll attempt to put some pictures up on the end of this. Love you and miss you guys. Home is in my prayers.

Update from Down Under .12

So I apologize that I haven't written anything in over a month, but it's been a crazy month. I was able to visit home for 12 days from May 3rd to May 15th, and it was a really great experience. It was so good to see my family and friends. I don't know if I could really sum it up into a couple highlights or anything, but I do the know the coolest part was being able to hangout with Dad, Mom, Lindsay & Kevan all at once for two weekends in a row. While I've been here, I've realized that I will definitely miss my friends when we're away from each other, but missing my family takes up a much bigger space. There's just something about being in the company of the people that raised me, influenced me, loved me, and will always love me. Friends have occasionally done some of those things as well, but family trumps it all. I look at my dad and see a man that is running after God in the way he loves his family, handles his business, and balances life. I look at my mom and see someone who sacrifices everyday for others, and prays in a way that I am striving to get towards. I look at my sister and see one of my best friends who cares about people on a whole new level. I look at my brothers Jason and Kevan and see dedication and commitment, and people who are going to do huge things in ministry. That's my family, and that's who I miss more than anything even now. Homesickness has crept up, but I'm really trying to push it back down. My amazing friends were great to see over break as well, and I can't believe how fast all of us are growing up, graduating, and diving into the rest of our lives. It's only a couple years away until people start thinking about getting married, and moving. It's so weird, but I think I am really ready to take on the whole thing. Even in these last four months, God has given me a new joy and calm about the future. I'm still walking into a whole new set of problems and adventures, but I know He's with me, and I know that if I just continue to press forward, He will keep pressing with me. Seven more months here we come.

Update from Down Under .11

Here we go..lol. Let's start back at this past Easter weekend. Lock N Load, the team that I'm apart of that changes the venue, sound systems, and lighting around for the smaller and larger services, had a busy weekend. We actually changed the atmosphere of the room a total of 4 times in one weekend. The process used to take us well over an hour, but by the end of the weekend we had it down to 28 minutes. Amazing. They place a big emphasis on Good Friday in Australia, so we all headed to church on Friday morning, and the convention centre was literally packed. Pretty cool, huh? After a short, but very reflective service, I helped Lock N Load tear down the stage and setup for United night. I went home and ate, and then walked back into church for United. I actually got asked that morning by a random Powerhouse person if I would play one of the 12 disciples for an item they were doing, so I got there and got my nice Jewish looking robe to match my Jewish looking features. Haha. We headed into the main room and after laughing through about 5 run throughs, we nailed the drama. Basically Brook Fraser sang this acoustic hymn about the cross, and halfway through the lights came up on Jesus & the twelve disciples, and communion was given to the entire crowd there while we acted out the communion scene. Pretty cool idea. The rest of the night was great too, and it was cool to worship with the same exact band who many of you will be seeing tommorow. The night reminded me a lot of the time we went to see United play up in Chicago. On that Saturday, me, the boys from the house, and a couple of our church friends from Powerhouse packed into a couple of cars and drove for about an hour up to the Blue Mountains. (First of all, if you can hang out with a group of Australians for a long period of time, I really reccommend it. They are freaking hilarious. So go find some if you can.) The day started out a little gloomy-looking, but we were bound and determined to make it great. We finally arrived at the mountains and decided to walk down a hiking path that led to some great look-outs. It was beautiful...until. lol. About halfway down the trail, Thijs and I decided to both take a picture of a waterfall. Before I could get my camera out, I managed to slip on a piece of rock. I fell on my butt and started to slide. The guys were laughing, thinking that I would pull myself up, but after sliding down two rocks...I disappeared off the side of one, that turned out to be a little bit of a cliff. They were freaking out, because apparently they saw me slide and then just saw me disappear completely. The mountain was still a long way down, so they pretty much thought I had dropped off the side to the bottom. I actually had only fell about 10 feet on to another level of rock/grass, which still hurt, but it wasn't that bad. I was actually freaking out myself as I fell, because I didn't know how far down I was going to fall either. It's all good though. I walked off with a small cut on my hand and sore bum. We decided to head back up and go check out the Three Sisters. Another amazing view. Sunday was great as well. Easter morning at Hillsong is pretty awesome, but I still missed my family. God really spoke into my heart that night, which was a "Touching Heaven" worship night with United before they took off for America, and told me that I needed to depend on Him because my life, my home, and my decisions had to be defined by my relationship with Him. The following week at school was great. Right now I'm a little stressed with assignments and performance major day coming up, but I'm really looking forward to visiting home. Less than 3 weeks away now. Things are still going great here, and I'm living it up as much as possible. Love you guys, and thanks for reading. Talk to you (probably in person) soon :) -Chris D.

Update from Down Under .10

It's already April! How crazy is that? Time is flying by everyday. Gotta make every single day count. This last week has been great, and every day seems to bring something new. My connect group leader surprised us Monday night and we went up to the city to check it out at night. It was gorgeous. We walked across the big famous bridge and looked out at the city when we got to the middle of it. You could see lights for what seemed like miles. As I looked at, I sincerely thought about how many people were out there, and how God is so huge and powerful that he can love every single one of those people at once, on a very individual level. I looked out and saw a hurting city, a city massive in size, but dealing with things just like Xenia, Ohio. In those moments, God confirmed in my heart that he can use me to make a difference in this world. One action, conversation, and day at a time. The night was refreshing in so many ways. If you want to see a quick little video we made from the other night, head over to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wzi9ul-oNc I thank God for the friendships I'm making here, and the ones not yet made. They tell us every week at college that when we talk to each other, to take each other seriously, because chances are we're looking into the eyes of greatness. That's not meant to be a funny or egotistical statement. It's meant to keep our hearts and attitudes focused on our lifelong ministry, and how God can literally take anyone who runs after Him and use them to flip the world upside down. On Monday we had our music classes, including our Worship & Creative Arts Ministry 1 class, and we took another day of performance. We were once again split into random bands, but this time given 15 minutes to pick out a 2 song worship set and develop a plan. We had a drummer, bassist, keyboard, two acoustics, and around 6-7 vocals. Last time I did some lead guitar stuff on acoustic, so I wanted to mix it up this week. My major is actually in guitar, so I should have really just played guitar, but my group was awesome, and let me have the chance to lead and play the second song we did, "Saviour King," and I was instantly reminded how much I love leading a band. There is nothing really like it honestly. I'm not perfect at it by far, and I have so much to learn, but I quickly remembered the feeling of just worshipping God with the mission of bringing other people to his throne quickly. Music is so awesome, and the God who created it deserves to hear it all the time. I got a chance to meet up today with a guy named Fabian here, and we had a great conversation. It's good to hear from a 3rd year student, and I'm really going to try and heed the advice he had for my year. This guy is so annointed for ministry, but he is quick to point to why & how that annointing comes. God's presence doesn't change, but our desire for Him can. We don't need to strive after God, but instead simply desire Him, and hang out with Him. Our faith and what we believe isn't complicated, and doesn't need to be complicated. We believe in simple truths, and God just wants to be in a relationship with us, to spend time with us, and for us to desire Him & obey Him every day we are alive. If we do that, we will be able to minister for His name. It's that simple, and it was good to remember that. Well that's about it for now. Exactly one month from today until I land in O-h-i-o for 12-ish days. I miss you guys. Love you too. Talk to you soon!