My team is shooting a video on peace. We started interviewing people and asking them, “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of peace?” “How do you achieve peace?” and similar questions. After the first night, I realized I may not be able to fully communicate the peace that the Holy Spirit brings that I feel inside, and if I’m doing a video on it, I should have some answers! If we want authority in peace, we need to walk in the peace we talk about. With this project, we want to talk to the people we interview about the peace of God.

I decided the best thing to do is to a study on peace in the bible. In no way is it exhaustive but it might give me some language to explain the inner completeness I feel inside through the Holy Spirit.

Pursue and Seek Peace (Psalms 34:14)

To have peace you need to seek it. We learn that the Spirit of God brings peace so ultimately we need to seek God (which in Roman 5:1 it says exactly that). Also, the verse says TURN AWAY from evil and DO good. My thought is when we DO good it is going in the opposite spirit/direction of evil.

Give control of your mind to God (Romans 8:6)

Our natural minds lead to sinful nature and death, but a mind that is given over to the Spirit of God leads to life and PEACE.

Peace is in Jesus (John 16:33, 14:27)

Through faith in Jesus we receive peace through the Spirit. It’s as simple as that. He promises a different peace than the world offers—a peace of mind and heart.

Peace comes from loving God’s Commands(Psalms 119:165, Isaiah 48:18)

Its interesting because its not just obeying the commands but loving them. God placed his commands as a safe zone for us. In my life, when I am outside of God’s commands, it always creates baggage and distress!

The Deeper meaning of Peace

I’ve learned the peace from God is deeper than the traditional english definition of peace. God’s peace brings fullness, fulfillment, and favor. I’m into that peace! I also noticed how closely peace is linked to righteousness. The ultimate conclusion is that God gives us the gift of peace through the Spirit when we believe in Jesus.

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord give you everlasting peace in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit! AMEN

Check out our Trailer video for SEEKING PEACE:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Follow us on our team blog: www.seekingpeacedocumentary.com

Photographer: Calvin Hanson
Camera: Digital Rebel XT

Can I fill this in? In the past, it may have been filled with: a graphic designer, a student, married, Hanson, some perseption of myself I’ve developed or something having to do with the environment I was currently in. What if we honestly finished this statement. Outside of any environment, who are you? Are we being defined to much by the environment around us? I think so. If we do not seek out our identity, it will be created by the culmination of things from our environment whether we like it or not. We may look back at our life as it happens many times in mid-life and say what the heck am I doing and why? But its never to late to find your identity!

What/who is defining who you are? Family, Pastor, American culture, your hero or favorite musician, or the magazines we read? All of them probably to a certain extent. Who told you what success is? Who is telling you who you should be? A parent or college professor or boss? and Who told them?

These questions made me think about what was creating my identity, what I defined success as, and what my purpose in life is. Was I to continue down the path of defining success by money (as my college drilled into me), material things, or how others viewed me and my skills? I probably wouldn’t have admitted it but wouldn’t have been able to answer what actually was defining me or just said God as that is a good universal answer to churchy questions haha.

I realized the things that were defining me were lies spoken by something or someone and I took hold of in my mind. I wanted change, I wanted truth, I wanted to live life from and for my original intent. Do you want the same?

If the environment we are in shouldn’t define us, what should?

It turns out my churchy answer is actually right. God has our identity defined before we are born. In fact, in Genesis it says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over all the earth.” He is the creator and has the manual to life meaning He knows what will bring Joy and Joy abundant, life and life abundant, peace and peace abundant because that’s what he has intended for EVERYONE! Our identity is found in God.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. - 2 Corinthians 3:18

Ok so we should be Christian “do-good” drones? Absolutely not. We aren’t identified by our wrongs OR rights! It is however the framework that our true identity can grow from. Your identity will come from being with God, the creator of YOU. His presence draws out who you were meant to be. All of a sudden, he will start speaking to you through His Word (the bible) or His Spirit or someone with His spirit in the form of prophesy. Its probably not going to be something that is instantly gratified but over time he will bring truth to the lies and redeem them.

You will start seeing YOU as God sees you. Beautiful, talented, unique, made to be LOVED BY GOD! The more you get fed truth, the more you recognize the lies spoken in music, celebrities, poeple, and society and become hungry for more truth brought by God.

Once we even begin to realize the truth, we will want others to know that it is God who brings it. We can go out and not be influenced by the darkness around us but overcome it with Light (John 1:5)!

Jesus, reveal to us a even greater revelation of yourself because you are truth and life and the pathway as you say in John 14:6. Reveal to us all our identities and give us a hunger to be with You and know You! Amen

My final conclusion of the week is that we all need to be supporting Andrew York for doing this not just ONE week but the whole time plus all the other administrative tasks and campus responsibilities! He probably does the same workload as any CEO of a mega corporation but has one major difference. He lives his life centered around the presence of God and works out of a response to the love of God. Never do you see him complain, but always patient and willing to offer advice and listen! What an amazing leader we have! I’m thankful that God has led me to this DTS.

This week we also were in full swing planning for our outreach to India in September. Visas seem like a far off goal, but we are believing God will open the doors. Visas are the gateway and the enemy of course will try to block it but we are in full spiritual warfare! Jesus will open the gate.

Our team also has been praying into how God wants to use us and feel strongly that a documentary is what He has in mind. After further prayer, we all were feeling like PEACE is a great topic to cover in a land that offers a counterfeit unfulfilling peace. Check out our video intro:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Visit http://www.hansonsatywam.com/outreachproject/ for more information on our video project!

Photographer: Calvin Hanson
Camera: Digital Rebel XT

We started our Mystery Fun Night with a movie that I watched in my DTS, Finger of God. Its meant to build faith in a God that heals, does miraculous signs and wonders and is moving around the world. The whole time during the movie I was feeling this impression of a struggle in the room. I think it was many of the students wrestling whether what they saw was real or not as the documentary showed people having “gold dust” on them, healings, and other miraculous things.

One student came to me after the whole night and said he was mocking it in his head but prayed to God that if it is real that he would reveal it to him. That’s just what God did.

After the movie, we tried to get on with showing outreach locations as all of us staff were super excited to show the students. I about hit play on the movie but had to make a change. Just then I saw people enclosing around Chris and Shalom, our married couple. I pretty much ran over because at this point people were shouting, gasping and everything in between. What I saw was Chris sitting in shock with tears streaming down his face. I looked at his body and it was COVERED with what I guess can only be called “gold dust” but it looked more like glitter to me.

We asked him to get up and speak about what happened and he said he saw a little gold dust even before the movie but played it off. By the end of the movie, he was covered and couldn’t deny this was from God.

We were all stunned, some of us trying to rationalize it by looking around for where they could have rubbed against a place, some of us laughing and clapping because that’s all we could formulate into a response. Andrew, our leader, got on the mic and just kept saying, “I don’t know what to do with this, I just don’t know” A thought had popped into my head that maybe, just maybe this was a step to build faith so I made a suggestion to ask if anyone needed healing of any kind. Andrew announced it and students and staff started praying for Jesus to heal each other!

It turned into a session of laying on of hands and praying over all areas of sickness and injury! and, man, were the people healed! As I prayed for people about every few minutes I’d hear a shout of joy from another group and then from my group! One guy got healed from something in his back (I wasn’t praying for him so don’t know exactly what it was) and just took off running and jumping for excitement! All I know is he was free of pain. Backs healed, legs healed, colds healed. A few people were not healed (also a mystery we must trust God on).

So do YOU believe it? Its hard to fathom why God does this. Some websites I’ve seen say well its not of God, its of Satan. Satan is doing a pretty bad job of getting people to go farther away from God as we praised God well into the night. These manifestations brought us closer to God and got us more hungry and excited to read the Word and get to know more about the God who heals (Jehovah Rophi, Exodus 15:26).

Can I explain it? Nope. All I can do is continue to bring all things before God, but rejoice when He decides to do something amazing and touch His people.

I just want more of you God! The real, out of the box, raw, authentic, one and only God! Open up our eyes to your wonderful workings and mysterious ways. All glory and honor to you, my God. AMEN

Here’s what we prayed for before the formation of our team:

• a small team (We loved the closeness developed in Finland & Sweden)
• 1 worship leader

Here’s what God gave us:

• Team of 5 (plus us)
• All of them play an instrument or sing
• All of us love film and photography
• A gifted group of people that love the Lord

All we can say is thank you Lord for your goodness in answering a desire of our hearts (Psalm 37:4)!

Please pray with us as we seek His path for this outreach. We really feel God has some specific things in mind for this group and location. Also, the area has been known to cause confusion in Christians, so pray for protection of our mind and heart and discernment in all things. We will be praying for the Lord to strengthen our faith in Him.

Here is a video I created announcing the other awesome outreach locations:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You see, the Awaken staff, leaders, and I can prepare and try to teach students about God, but it ultimately comes down to the individual and God. What is happening right now in hearts is that God, the God that created the Heavens and the Earth, is in pursuit of and captivating the hearts of the students. Although we care about our students, it will never measure up to God’s love for them. We must partner with God in this process for any lasting results.

The Spirit of God is stirring alive as the revelation of Gods character permeates their very being. The old lies that were attached to students are being replaced with the Truth about how God created them beautifully and wonderfully and with purpose. It has to be one of the most beautiful things to watch. Although most of the transformation is internal, you can see physical manifestations like brighter complexion/eyes and extreme joy and peace.

What is happening is a miracle. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, is dwelling inside of a human. Isn’t it crazy to actually take a second and think about? Jesus gave us such a gift. Gone are the Old Testament days of the select few people with the Spirit on them or that have access to the Holy of Holies. We have full access to the Spirit 24/7!

Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit:

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:15-18

I don’t know about you but I think a gift from God deserves some examination and exploration! What is crazy is this gift keeps giving. With the Spirit, we have access to wisdom, understanding, discernment, reverence of the Lord, and council, the fruits of the Spirit as well as gifts like prophesy, teaching, leading, speaking in tongues, and many other things probably still to be discovered. It is a lifetime of exploration and understanding of just who the Holy Spirit is!

The Spirit was there in the beginning of time hovering over the waters and will again pour out over all the land in the end of time. I believe we are experiencing it!

Thank you Lord for not leaving us empty handed when you left, but you had a perfect plan to give us your Holy Spirit! I pray you continue to release the pouring out of your Spirit on all people! AMEN

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image…” Gen 1:26

Camille and I were sitting at Kona Joes (coffee place) with friends and fellow staffers Ryan and Haley. We started talking about God, students, DTS, staffing, art, photography, travel and many other random topics. During the midst of this conversation, I was looking out at the sea, the trees, the beach, the birds and all the things in my sight, all of which God created.

The revelation really came together with the topics of creating/exploring and talking about God. We are made to create. Think about it. The first sentence of the Bible has God creating and He has never stopped! It’s amazing that God chooses us to partner with him and create and in fact blesses us saying “Be fruitful and increase in number” (Gen 1:28). Also, God created all the earth and everything in it and he gave Adam the fun task of naming the animals. He loves when we partner with him in creating beautiful things. As it says above, we are made in God’s image, so we too have the desire to create!

We definitely took the license to create and ran! Humans, cars, buildings, businesses, cities, art—we have created many amazing things. The beauty is the freedom we have. We can chose to participate. It also leads us to a decision. Shall we create good or bad?

The enemy tries to prevent us from creating and tries to get us to destroy. If he can’t stop us from creating, his next attack is to twist our creation to the opposite, destruction. An example might be the use of photography. Photos of people, places and scenic landscapes are beautiful. Photos that lead people into sin/destruction (ie pornography, vulgarity) are bad.

Deep down inside every person has the desire to create beautiful things. Not just for ourselves but to share in community just as God shares his ability to create with us. I consider it spiritual warfare to write, design, and photograph. To create is to go in the opposite spirit of destruction. Its important to have values taught in the bible to make sure our creations are honoring to God. I’ve come into realization that its awesome to invite God into all things that I create. Imagine what we can create as we partner with The Creator!

(Photo: Daniel (staffer) on Shoot for our Awaken DTS video)

Photographer: Calvin Hanson
Camera: Digital Rebel XT