Freddie Gage "Tears for Souls"

Recently in Missions class, we watched a sermon by Freddie Gage called "Tears for Souls". It was incredibly convicting as is any sermon that addresses how we are not acting the way you should. "Tears for Souls" addressed the fact that Christians have become selfish and secluded. We don't care any more about wining souls for Christ. We are too busy worrying about ourselves to care about the mass amounts of people who are not saved and do not know Christ. God was definitely telling me something about this because that is not the first time this topic has appeared in my life recently. One of my best friends is struggling with trying to win a specific soul for Christ and she is so very passionate about her mission! Whenever she talks to me about this person who she is trying to reach, lets call him Rob, she gets so emotional and it makes me feel equally as passionate. All Christians should be like my friend who care so much for others, including myself. I am so absorbed in my own life and so invested in my own well-being that I forget about the souls of those who are wondering around lost in the dark. I need to get over my selfishness and shyness and win souls for Christ. All I have to do is introduce myself and tell them about God. If hey ignore me, at least they had the chance and maybe I planted a seed of curiosity. Wish me luck!

God's purpose for us is to ultimately bring Him glory. He does things that bring Him glory in the long run that we might not understand now (in the short term). For example someone you know dies without knowing Christ, and this sets a fire in you to make sure that you do everything in your power to make sure everyone you know and care about knows and loves God. Your friend's untimely death would be the tragic part that we cannot understand, but ultimately, God gets the glory in the long run because your friend's death caused other people to know and love God.

Knowing that my purpose in life is to bring God glory is very encouraging to me. I love him so much and I want others to understand and share that love too. Knowing God's purpose for me gives me direction in my life and even stability because as a high school student, the pressure is on to figure out what i want to do with the rest of my life, and i think i am too young to know what i will do with the rest of my life, so knowing what God's general purpose for everyone is, is reassuring and stabilizing.

Satan is very evident in society and he is trying to stop God's children from doing what God's purpose for us was, which is giving Him glory and spreading the word. I see this in peer pressure and 'mob mentality' within friend groups. there is peer pressure to do what everyone else does and to be the same, and not stand out/be different. this stops many people rfom speaking to their friends about God because they want to fit in and not say something that someone may not agree with.

knowing God's purpose for my life-bringing Him glory- changes the rest of my life because it lets me know that i serve a higher purpose with a higher plan that i cannot understand. this puts me at ease and i can relax alittle more as i go thru life. also knowing this lets me take the focus off of myself and serve others, especially Christ. i hate when i become all about me. i get sick of myself eventually, and knowing that there is a higher plan that does not revolved around me is comforting.

My reflections

Which relationships do you turn to first when youʼre looking for guidance and support? Does your relationship with God have the same sort of dynamic interaction as some of your other relationships? Should it?
When i first need guidance and support, for things not concerning boys, i usually go to my mom. another person i go to is my best friend Clare, but she doesn't live near me, so i don't consult her as often. unfortunately last on the list is God. i usually become really desperate before i consult Him. but once i do talk to Him, i truly feel at easy in a way that a friend or my mom could never make me feel. this process of 'going thru people' usually doesn't take me even all day, so if i have a problem in the beginning or middle of the day, usually by the afternoon i have prayed about it and asked God's advice. my relationship and interactions with God have a friend-like quality and it has a parent/authority-like quality at the same time, which is a relationship that can only be experienced with God and Jesus. the things about my relationship with God that make it more like a FRIENDship are the fact that i can be casual with God. i don't have to carefully word my thoughts and opinions so that God can relate. God already speaks my language and totally can relate to what i am feeling and experiencing because he knows exactly what it is like to be a teenager today because He is all knowing ect. also it is like a FRIENDship because with really close friends i can be completely honest and i can be myself, which is how i act with God. My relationship with God is similar to my relationship with my mom because she gives me advice that is based on prior experience and knowledge and she always genuinely has my best interests and safety at heart, like God. i believe that my relationship with God SHOULD be similar to my other relationships but it should also be SO MUCH MORE than that. it should be something that i cannot experience with someone else, and that is one of the things that should make that relationship appealing.

Would you describe yourself as someone who seeks reconciliation, whether for yourself – reconciliation between you and God or between you and other people – or for others whom you help to reconcile with God? What are some situations you see in your world that could use reconciliation?
i do not see myself as someone who seeks reconciliation because that requires that i confront the person that i am at odds with, and i hate confrontations of ANY kind. i do however often seek reconciliation with God a lot because i know that that is what i am called to do as a Christian. also it is a lot easier to reconcile with God because i know that no matter how many times i am at odds with Him he will always want me back and He will always love me no matter what i do, which is not always the case with friends because love from one's friends is usually conditional. our world could use reconciliation between countries as a whole, which is obvious, such as between America and the middle east, specifically Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

What is the importance of relationships – both vertically with God and horizontally with others? Why do you need both? What are you doing in response to Godʼs purpose?
relationships are important because one cannot get through life on their own. you need reaction between humans to survive, and that is a scientific fact. also because you cannot handle life alone, you need the advice and guidance of other people. humans are designed to need love to function and feel happy, and the main way we get this love is thru relationships with people, therefore because love is necessary to survive, and relationships provide that love, relationships are necessary for survival. we need both kinds of relationships-relationships with friends and with God-because friends cannot ultimately fulfill us. we are designed to know love that is unconditional, and the only way we can get that is through knowing God. i know this because every girl is born with the need for the perfect guy who will love her no matter what. She will never find this guy who fits all the qualities she needs on earth, because the only person who is perfect and capable of satisfying us and the only person who truly fits her standards is God. so when women and men search for love, they are searching for God.

Community Service Oppertunities!

Boys and Girls Country:
1) Boys and Girls Country is a Christian Home, providing children from families in crisis with love, security, a sense of self-worth, and opportunities to prepare them for a successful life. They serve the community by providing a home for children from a broken home.
2) This organization works for the mission of God by showing His love and compassion to His children by taking care of them and showing them the love and safety in a Christian home.
3) The organization needs volunteers to spend time with the children, mentoring and showing them God’s love for them. They also need money to improve housing and food for the children living at Boys and Girls Country. They also take household furnishing, personal items, and gift donations for the children.
4) This organization impacts the lives of the children who would otherwise be living in broken or dysfunctional families. The program provides safe, loving, and Christian living conditions for kids who desperately need to be show the love of Christ.
5) If this organization did not exist, children all over the Houston area would be living in dysfunctional homes or on the streets. Boys and Girls Country takes kids who need a safe place to live and gives them a home.
6) I think we could very easily partner with Boys and Girls Country as a class throughout the year. I personally have volunteered at Boys and Girls Country through NCL many times and they are always very grateful for our help. Whether we are setting up Christmas decorations, mentoring and tutoring the children, or running their carnival fundraiser, there are plenty of
opportunities for us to contribute to the organization.

Young Lives:
1) Young lives is an program organized by Young Life to mentor and help teen mothers. Young Lives provides a safe place for young moms to escape the pressures and demands of life as a mom. This organization serves the last, the lost, and the least, by serving young women who are often times ignored or shunned by society and providing them a Christian environment and showing Christ’s love for them.
2) This organization fits within the mission of God by showing young mothers that God loves them despite any mistakes they may have made in the past. By providing teen moms a place to hear about God while their children are cared for by babysitters, Young Lives shows the girls how God loves them in all circumstances.
3) This organization is in need of volunteers to babysit the children of the young mothers while they participate in the Young Lives club activities.
4) This program impacts teen moms by helping them get their lives back on track and providing them Christian advice and guidance in their daily lives. This outreach program impacts the lives of young moms who feel helpless and need the love of God.
5) Without this program, many young mothers would not be involved in Young Life at all and may never hear the word of God. Young Lives provides a fun environment where young women feel free to be themselves and hear about the word of God. For many teen moms, Young Lives is the only time they are in a Christian environment and the only place where Christian advice is available to them.
6) I think we, as a class, could easily contribute to this organization. Young Lives meets once a month on the second Thursday of every month and is in need of students to volunteer as babysitters for the teen mom’s children. There is no real age limits for babysitters so all high school age students could easily volunteer.
Brookwood Community
1) What is the goal of this organization? What are they doing to serve the lost, the last, and the least in our community? The goal of Brookwood is to provide a safe Christian place for functionally disabled adults to live, love, play, and contribute to society in their own unique ways. Brookwood allows disabled adults to have supervised independence that most disabled adults do not have the privilege to experience. They give the credit to God in everything they do, and encourage the faith of the members who live there.
2) How do this organization's efforts fit within the mission of God? Brookwood’s efforts fit in with the mission of God because Brookwood give God the glory He deserves. They acknowledge the fact that God gave them the means by which they can help these adults and they also hire Christians so the members who live there are exposed to the Word of God. Also they have church every Sunday and on major holidays.
3) What needs does the organization have? Resources, volunteer shortages, etc...
Because the organization is volunteer based, they are always in need of helping hands. They are always doing something, from selling pottery that they made, to putting on a production, and need people to help out.
4) What impact does this organization have within our community? This organization has a huge impact on the community of disabled people in and around the Houston area because it offers disabled adults a place where they can be independent. Also they make things, like Christmas cards, pottery and ornaments that are sold at churches and Brookwood stores in and around Houston.
5) If this organization did not exist, how would the community be affected? Without Brookwood, disabled adults in the Houston area would not be able to be independent adults and they would most likely be abused or mistreated, or they would lead lives with out a point because they would have no where to participate in a community because they would not be able to have a job. Also a lot of these adults would not know Christ if Brookwood did not exist.
6) As a class, can we realistically partner with this organization throughout the school year? Yes because the football team, cheer team, and dance team partner with Brookwood every year and help out. They also have really flexible hours and the members there love to see young faces helping out.

Christian Community Service Center
1) What is the goal of this organization? What are they doing to serve the lost, the last, and the least in our community? The mission of CCSC is to serve the poor, hungry, disabled, and otherwise needy while respecting their religious, ethnic or cultural differences. They have a clothes resale shop, a food pantry, and classes to help jobseekers opened to the people in the area that are financially struggling.
2) How do this organization's efforts fit within the mission of God? CCSC was created out of faith, and founded in the belief that we are called to help all God's children heart to heart and hand in hand. The organization fits with the mission of God because in Matthew 25:37-40 Jesus makes it known that serving the poor is a way of serving of Jesus. This organization believes this calling and the volunteers are filled with God’s love. In return they love on the people that come in and give them food, clothes and offer special classes that can help them get a job and start supporting themselves.
3) What needs does the organization have? Resources, volunteer shortages, etc... This organization needs volunteers, food donations, clothes donations, and computers(for computer training classes to help jobseekers).
4) What impact does this organization have within our community? This organization impacts the homeless, and financially struggling individuals in the Houston area by providing food, clothing, and counselors. CCSC has provided many homeless people with food, saving them from starvation. Also the CCSC has loving volunteers and that enjoy talking to the people coming in.
5) If this organization did not exist, how would the community be affected? The community would be affected because the homeless would not have easy access to food nor loving volunteers they could talk to for help. Also CCSC represents Christ, and shows the community how accepting Christ changes your life to focus on others, which can encourage others to be interested in Christianity.
6) As a class, can we realistically partner with this organization throughout the school year? Yes, I volunteer every Saturday morning and they welcome group volunteer groups. There are several options for volunteering: working in the food pantry, working in the clothing store, or being a translator.

Ronald McDonald House
1) What is the goal of this organization? What are they doing to serve the lost, the last, and the least in our community? The mission of Ronald McDonald House Charities is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children.
2) How do this organization's efforts fit within the mission of God? Ronald McDonald House fits within the mission of God because they are serving God by serving others. They are serving others by improving the lives of children and their families by providing programs that strengthen families during their most difficult or challenging times.
3) What needs does this organization have within our community? Financial donations, volunteers, toy and food donations.
4) What impact does this organization have within our community? Ronald McDonald House is important to the community because it provides a safe, caring environment for kids and their families as they go through difficult health problems.
5) If this organization did not exist, how would the community be affected? The community would loose an organization that provided families with free housing, food, and essential supplies. The community would loose an organization that has been comforting families and changing lives for 35 years.
6) As a class, can we realistically partner with this organization throughout the school year? It would be realistic to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House because they always have things for volunteers to do and they always have kids that need cheering up. Also the location is helpful because there is one in the medical center in downtown.

God's narrative, the bible, encourages me to be apart of the mission for God because God used little people, who were generally unimportant, in big ways. I am a little person who is not a president or queen, or influential in my surroundings, but through reading the bible, i can be encouraged that God will use me to do important things that i cannot yet understand. when i am feeling unimportant the bible reminds me that i am important to God and i can be used to do all sorts of things. for example, Mary Magdalen was an unimportant 15 year old girl who God loved and decided to use. i am reminded of the bible verse that says not to be discouraged because of your youth. this also encourages me to join the mission for God even though i am young. 
If i approach the bible as one story of the history of man, i see history in a different way. i see history as God's plan and i also see the future as God's plan. One idea that is new to me is the idea of our lives being apart of the history of the bible and the future story that God has in story for us. i am apart of His purpose, to spread the Word of God, and i am as much apart of the bible as it's main characters because i as spreading the Word also.

The LOVE of Money is the Root of all Evil.

In my Missions A3 class on Friday we watched a video of a sermon by John Piper called "Proclaiming the Excellencies of Christ, Not Prosperity, Among the Nations." This Sermon was mainly talking about how we, as American Christians, sometimes think that becoming rich is what is most important in this life and that the one way to get rich is to believe in God, and believe that He can make you rich. This way of thinking is so wrong. In fact, the bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Piper goes on to boldly state that no one who is rich can be a good Christian. I personally disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. I know lots of rich people who have committed their lives to Christ and are living a life that pursues Him in all things. Also I believe that God has blessed certain people with money so they can use it for good, such as funding missionaries/mission trips, providing money for churches, donating money to Christian organizations ect. Without money in the Christian world, many outreaches would never get done because of lack of funding. However on the other side of that argument money is a huge temptation to those who already have it and to those who desperately want it for the wrong reasons. It is impossible to say that everyone who has money is bad, and they cannot be a true Christian who actively loves God. It all depends on how one responds to having money.  Do they give portions away to churches, charitable organizations, or missionary ventures? Do they crave more money and more stuff? Do they horde it all for themselves? If they do the later, they love money, and God says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil, but he does not say that MONEY is the root of all evil. Therefore I hold my opinion that one can be rich and a good Christian as long as they are in love with God and not their money and stuff.

Best Friday Night I Have Every Spent

Two days ago the assignment for our Missions A3 class was to go to a Christian Community Center and help out wherever we were needed for a required time of 2 hours. We arrived at the Community Center having no idea of what to expect, what we were going to be doing, who was going to be there, or who we would be helping, so needless to say I didn't really have any expectations about it at all. As we pulled up in the parking lot we saw a group of African American boys playing basketball (THEY WERE SO GOOD) and I have to admit I felt really out of place and intimidated because pretty much for the first time, I was the minority. We checked in and entered the Community Center and all eyes were on the out of place white kids (us). After we were instructed on what to do (kitchen work, coloring with kids, cooking, ect, which was all scheduled to happen later), we split up and started to meet and interact with the kids that were already there. A friend and I walked over to a row of kids sitting on the edge of a skate ramp and introduced ourselves. We shook all of their hands and at first we were all a little uncomfortable, but soon we became relaxed when a girl (who's name I am struggling to remember) and I challenged each other to try riding a skateboard with the other kids. As we were having fun and connecting over how bad at skateboarding we were, one of the African American kids whose skateboard I had borrowed mentioned how he had never seen so many white kids at this church before. I simply responded with "Well, there is a first time for everything!" and smiled so he would see that I wasn't offended, because he looked a little uneasy after he said it and realized that I heard him. This particular indecent made me realize how I had never been a minority before, and how theses kids probably felt we were intruding on their territory, which made me feel even more threatened. This feeling of being threatened was replaced with a wanting to show these kids, who probably had not had too many positive experiences with white rich Christians, that not all of us were bad, racist, selfish people. So that became my mission for the night: to get to know as many kids (of a different race) and show them we are not too different from them.
Each time I introduced myself to someone I was always a little nervous, worried about what they were going to think of me, but after the night was over I never regretted introducing myself to anyone because all the kids were nice and pretty accepting of strangers like me. I absolutely loved meeting the younger kids because they were so young and close to Jesus that they were blind to race. They didn't know about our differences or anything, they just  knew we were there to play with them, and they LOVED IT. This reminded me that Jesus wants us to love like little children because they are oblivious to differences such as race or ethnicity or political preference. It was extremely refreshing to experience this oblivious, race-less love because I am so used to having a conservative, old-fashioned black and white view of life influencing me.
Later on, after I had served on kitchen duty, my best friend and I walked over to a girl about our age and started a conversation with her about the church/community center. She was really sweet and easy to relate to and talk to so we got into a deeper conversation pretty quickly. (I wasn't there for this part, however I really wish I could have been, I was talking to and connecting with a younger girl) She admitted to my friend, unashamedly, that she thought us rich white kids were going to be super stuck up and spoiled and rude and she wanted nothing to do with us, but we had proved her wrong. She said we were pretty cool, and to that, I would say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Almost all of my class ended up staying for almost 5 hours at the community center/church instead of the required 2 hours because it was so much fun and so rewarding. I was originally planning on going to the community center for the required 2 hours and then hang out with friends right after I was able to leave, but I decided that giving my time to underprivileged kids to help them realize not all white rich Christians are rude, stuck up spoiled and racist was a better use of my time and MUCH MUCH more satisfying.