Richard Rolle

I believe that a person who is actively engaged in vocational ministry could simultaneously be struggling to maintain a healthy relationship with Jesus because as people it is easy to become discouraged when we don't see the fruits of our labor blossoming. When we work and pray for God to move and for improvement and we don't see it, we could start to give up on God because things aren't going how we thought. While this is happening we could continue to work in vocational ministry because it's all the we know, we could be jobless if we left, and we want to keep our personal status at a high level, so we don't talk about struggling, we just drift further and further from God.

This could potentially be dangerous for the minister, their family, the church because the minister could lose his or her passion and start to misuse their gifts, trying to work for God but losing the fruits of the spirit. For example, while working with people you could be trying to do the right thing and share the gospel but some small mistake happens and you get angry in front of whoever is around without handling the situation with patience. This could damage peoples view on christianity and ultimately Christ himself. The minister would notice this happening and just get angrier and angrier with himself and God, eventually this spiritually misery would leak out onto his family and potentially spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically scar the other members of the family.

Some steps we could take to prevent this from happening would be to realize that it's not your ministry but God's. If the ministry fails, it's not always your fault. Also, we should stop putting expectations on our lives, when we don't meet the expectations placed on us, we automatically think we've failed. That simply is not the case. The most important would be to humbly present yourself before God every day, letting him guide you through everything that happens. Make time for him, to talk to him, aside from your ministry, just for your personal relationship.

Baptist History Reflection

First principle: "Every Baptist a missionary"
This quote from Johann Gerhard Oncken is like music to my ears. I love the fact that this is one of the ideas that the Baptist denomination was founded on. In that time and even still today, I feel like Baptists were one of the most mission oriented denominations around, but I had no idea that missions was one of the foundations ono which it was built. It's very important for us to keep this principle because clearly peoples souls are on the line. We have a hope in Jesus that plenty of other people do not have, it's encouraging to know that we are some of the leaders in giving the great commission movement.

Second principle: The importance of reading scripture for yourself
It is crazy to me that Baptists actually broke off from the rest of the church because they understood the responsibility and importance of reading scripture for yourself. Not that the church was lying to them, maybe in some cases they were, but people needed to figure the word out for themselves to grow deeper with God. Not just relying on the preacher or bishop to explain the text to you, but getting in there and figuring it out and letting the Holy Spirit guide you. It is still important for the church to do this today because we need to have personal walks with Christ, not just one big walk with Christ as the church, although we should be able to come together and talk about the word. God gives different people different convictions, we are all different and won't agree on every single detail, which is why the Spirit needs to influence us, not only the church.

Georgge Buttrick

In my personal prayer life I am too formless. A strategy to fix that would be to keep lists of things i'm thankful for, I struggle with, people, and situations so I can stay on task while in prayer. Buttrick's guide-map of prayer will really help to keep me focused as well. Prayer is one of the things in my walk with Christ that I struggle with the most. This excerpt reminded me how to pray. It had some ideas that will help me out greatly in my relationship with God. But as I go along with this new plan, I will have to be careful not to go to the opposite side of the spectrum that i'm on now. It will take effort to keep a healthy balance between giving my prayers form and not getting too formal.

Sadhu Sundar Singh

In singh's excerpt he addresses using your time wisely. In my life, especially at school, it becomes very easy to spend any extra time that I have just relaxing. Watching TV, listening to music, going for a walk, anything that I can do to just let my brain rest. Although this is what I usually do when I have time, it's not exactly the best thing to do. I feel like I need to use my time extra time to build up more relationships. Instead of doing fun things that only benefit myself, I could talk to people that i've never talked to before and gain the opportunity to share Christ with them. Personal time is very important, but other people should be more important. Ways to practice this could be just saying hi to people that I walk past every single day and start a conversation with them. You never know what someone is going through, you might be just what they need. They will probably even help you grow, too.

Jonathan Edwards

Your passion for Christ should impact your studies because you should be doing everything as if you are doing it for him. In my case, I don't really care for school. I don't like studying or going to class or spending thousands of dollars every semester on something that I don't like. But God has given me the opportunity to further my education. Not everybody has that opportunity. So I do school with my whole heart because I know that God has put me here for a reason. Likewise, my studies here at ETBU help me grow closer to God because I have to rely on him to get me through the classes and because he has blessed me even more with the choice of getting to learn about him in school. So, my teachers and classes encourage me on my walk with God. I'm not sure if my spiritual life represents a life marked by intellectual rigor because I'm not self motivated when it comes to learning new things in school. I'm motivated by Christ. Because of that, though, I feel as though my spiritual life could and does reflect a life that has been touched by passionate pursuit. My schooling isn't about me at all. It's about him.

Henri Nouwen #1

For my hour sanctuary prayer I went to FBC Marshall. The gym where the contemporary service takes place was locked, so I did my prayer in an empty sunday school room. This prayer time was very interesting for me. It brought new meaning to things that I already know. When i pray alone, it can be kind of awkward because I don't know where to start or what to say. I learned how terrible I am at praying and at staying focused. At the same time, it finally clicked that if we go before God with something residing on our mind, that thing can distract us from being focused in on prayer. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing....it may be both. Knowing that I was distracted, I was forced to bring my thoughts before God, and things were sorted out. In the middle of being distracted and being distracted by the fact that i was distracted, I turned to the scripture to draw near to God, and he spoke to me about being self-controlled for the sake of my prayers. Through all of this, I felt as though I had a deeper desire of wanting to hear from God during the Sermon. Somehow, my focus was in the right place. Overall it helped me feel God and hear from him.

John of the Cross #1

Out of the five virtues mentioned in John of the Cross's devotional I think i'm most in need of contentment. According to the reading, I struggle the most with spiritual wrath. Most of the time I am very impatient between different seasons that God brings me through. When a good season or opportunity ends I get mad and wonder if I did something to make God mad. I am well aware that I struggle with being content. This ties back to another blog that i've done. Contentment is one of the three things that I ask God for.

Ignatius of Loyola #2

In Donnie's 3rd blog, he talked about how loving people can be difficult but we have to share God's love with everyone and not just hold it in. He explains how he took up the challenge of saying hi to as many people as he could and how he doesn't always feel like doing it, but it's God's love and not ours so we need to share it anyways.
I feel like this is an important concept for Christians to grasp. Even though we aren't perfect, we have a hope and a love that not everybody has. God first loved us, but he then called us to love others. He didn't say "When you feel like it you can love others", he just said to love others. We need to push ourselves to do that even when we don't feel like it, because it goes beyond our feelings, ultimately God needs to be glorified and we need to be good stewards of his love.

Ignatius of Loyola #1

In section 7 of Ignatius of Loyola's study it says that the enemies biggest fear is confession. When he throws lies at you and it has you bogged down, the best thing to do is to confess to somebody what he's telling you. He doesn't want his plan to be known.

Whenever Satan puts ideas in my head about other people or situations I usually go to that person and talk to them about it. I steadily lift it up to God and confess my sins and thoughts to another believer and we usually pray through it. When you do this, it brings secrets and darkness into light, at that point, the enemy will flee because he doesn't want to be revealed.

Julian of Norwich

The three things that I desire from God are:

1. Passion- I want God to give me a burning passion for the things that he is passionate about. Break my heart for the things that break his. A flame for him and his kingdom that burns through my life and completely reveals him and his passions.

2. Humility- I want God to remind me daily of how small I am and how big he is. I never want to get in the way of his plan and I always want to remember that it's never me doing his work, but it's him working through me. All of the glory is his, I am only a vessel.

3. Contentment- I want to find my contentment in God alone. I don't want my self-worth to rest in the hands of other people or activities I do. I want to be fully satisfied in having him and nothing more. I desire him to be my defining factor and only live for his works and not the works of myself or others.