Thomas Kelly

Thomas Kelly's approach to developing a genuine internal spirituality is to focus on the Jesus, or inner light, that is inside of you. It will take intention and it will feel weird at first, but we need to pay more attention to Christ being in us than our flesh. When you do this, you should live your life with worship at the base. Everything that you do, use it to worship. Remember Christ in everything and let him be a continuous background as you live from day to day. As you do this more and more, prayer and meditation focused on Christ will become more natural, and it will make all of the difference in the world to your spirituality.

William Law

According to Law, our faith is supposed to impact every aspect of our lives. He touches on the importance of prayer, and emphasizes that a holy prayer is no good without a holy lifestyle, and vice versa! One of the bigger parts of the reading is when Law explains that so many Christians get caught up in going to church that we don't act out our faith outside of the building! Going to church is very important, but Jesus never instructed us to go to church weekly, he urged us to live out our lives in love, acceptance, forgiveness, etc. Those things are more important.

In my life, I feel like my faith has influenced how I look at people in forgiving and accepting them. After all of the forgiveness that i've seen poured onto my life, I'm compelled to accept and forgive others. Christ and the church have loved me so well, that the way I welcome others into my life has been completely shifted around! When we let our faith impact our lives, our actions and thoughts are changed due to the shifting that has happened inside of us.

Elizabeth O'Connor

Last month my Dad gave me $600. That seems like a lot of money, and for a college student, it is! Out of my "allowance" far this past month $580 went towards a school payment, and the rest went toward other basic necessities...like toilet paper. I really don't feel as though I spent my money unwisely seeing as money was tight even with $600 in the bank. Sometimes I wish that I could put 20 bucks in the offering plate as it passes by but there wasn't enough flexibility for me to be able to do that. Although I can't give a consistent sum to God in the form of money every week, I try to tithe with other things...like my time or the resources that I do have. In doing these things I think that my heart is in the right place and I'm doing it as worship. I don't think that choosing to spend money on school says anything bad about my priorities with God, because I'm trying to glorify him with my schoolwork and trying to stay in the mission field that he has called me to, which is ETBU and the surrounding areas.

NAMB Video blog

http://www.namb.net/imagine_that/

In this video, a man shares a brief testimony about how he used to be homeless in Los Angeles, and how a little girl walked up to him one day and told him that Jesus loves him. After that experience, he gave his life to Christ, and cleaned up, leaving town. After he had sworn he'd never return to LA, God brought him back to Skid Row where he opened a church and ministered to a number of old friends and other homeless people. In this journey, this man probably received help from a church or many different churches, other christians had to band together with him and help him plant a church in a bad part of a dangerous city. Together, the pastor and other helpers have done community outreach and handed out food and other necessary supplies to minister to people. It's important for ALL baptists/christians to band together because many roles need to be filled. From the brave little girl who approached a drug addicted, homeless man to the churches and organizations that helped him get on his feet, to the other brothers and sisters who helped him out in his ministry and church planting. He would have never been able to accomplish all of that on his own. Everyone has a part to play in order to bring the kingdom of God to this dark world.

BGCT #2

I focused on the Advocacy/Care section. They have community ministries, counseling, and a few ministries to feed the hungry. The most shocking section to me was under the community ministry section under this tab. They had a large section on human trafficking. That's very encouraging to me because this is an issue that God has placed on my heart. It defines what human trafficking is, why there would be a need for slaves or how the victims got caught in it, and how you can keep yourself from supporting the slave-owners. They have organizations and websites on how to shop smarter, making sure you aren't buying all of you belongings slave-made. One of the coolest things I saw on here was an organization that the Salvation Army does, using material called "wise as serpents" they teach youth about this problem and gives them information and advice on how to keep themselves from being potential victims of human trafficking.

BGCT #1

http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14331&Itemid=53

I read an article about a church in Olney going to Africa after extensive fundraising to supply orphans with mattresses. FBC Olney went through an organization called Sweet Sleep. After they learned of the severe need of mattresses for orphanages in Africa, they "didn't have to sleep on" what to do. The church sent a team that distributed 559 beds and mosquito nets, since many children die from Malaria every day.

The Baptist Standard is a cool ministry that is important because it's one way to keep us connected to what's going on in the christian community locally, state-wide, nationally, and world-wide. It's a neat reminder of the wider picture that God is working in, not just our narrow vision of what's happening in our lives. In our culture we hear so much bad news, it's nice to be able to read about good that's happening in the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In the excerpt, Bonhoeffer states that we need other christians so we can see and hear the word of God being played out. We can memorize scripture and study the word, but all of us will have doubts. We will end up doubting ourselves and when we reach that point, other believers will be able to speak truth to us and it will be easier to believe because we will see them standing firm in their faith.
"But God has put this Word into the mouth of others in order that it may be communicated to us."

We are to relate to each other as only having a relationship with them through Christ. We are brothers and sisters to other people because of what Christ has done to us. And they are brothers and sisters to us because of what Christ has done for them. This means that we don't only have to have community with believers that we get along with, but we are to have community with believers who we don't exactly see eye to eye with. All because of what Christ has done for us. Jesus has forgiven us, when we realized that we were then enabled to forgive others. We are brothers and sisters in Christ for eternity, so we need to love them through Christ and have community with them because of everything that Jesus has done for us.