With the vote on the new health care bill tonight, we decided that a discussion of the United Methodist Church's stand on health care would be an interesting topic for today.
The UMC Social Principles says that Methodists should try to pursue a healthy lifestyle for themselves and others, oppose all barriers to peoples' health, and recognized the government's involvement (there is a line in the Social Principles that mentions the government's role).
To be perfectly honest, most people in our classroom didn't want to debate or get involved with the health care debate. It was fairly obvious, however, that there were a lot of different opinions about health care reform. Some people are against the bill because they believe it will socialize health care and put too much control in the government's hands. Others believe that it is in the best interests of all to provide health care to everyone. Based on the Social Principles, Methodists should generally agree with the latter so that we may better do God's work by helping as many as possible to live a full and healthy life. Nevertheless, the debate for health care continues.
We ended the health care debate rather quickly and started to discuss how our Sunday School teacher was coming along with his Shelter 2.0 project. Our teacher has been doing well and has cut down the cost for the 10x16 model by over half. He has also started to work on other models of similar design, including larger buildings. We still hope to be able to send some of these models to places like Haiti where there is still a great need for help.
We decided to return to the health care debate. Almost immediately, there was a great deal of debate over public and private hospitals. Trying to turn away from the new bill, we tried to discuss the Social Principle's stand again. Although our teacher tried to disagree, we teens agreed that our generation is very lazy, and providing health care to everyone will cost a fortune. People are going to be working less, and those who do work probably won't make enough to live comfortably. Providing health care to these people will cost way too much on everyone with taxes, and the laziest of them probably don't even deserve health care. However, as good Christians, we must support everyone and try to provide needed services and supplies to everyone, even the laziest of us. The sad truth of life is that we need money, and lots of it.
We turned to Matthew 25:31-46 to talk about how we are called to help those who need it. Everyone on this earth is our brother and sister whether we like it or not, and it is not for us to decide who is or isn't deserving of our help. It is our obligation of Christians to provide health care for everyone.
One of us asked, however, if it was the government's responsibility to provide health care. Some of us, including our teachers, thought that it was the government's responsibility since we work through the government to achieve our goals. Others, of course, disagreed.
We really didn't find a real consensus except for our Christian duty. We also cut our discussion short for youth ministry reasons, so our apologies for the short blog this week.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Robo-sapiens
This week's contraversial topic is genetic technology and engineering. Our society has been fascinated by the possiblilites of cloning and the use of genetics to promote a healthier population. The United Methodist Church has its own stand on genetic engineering.
We are returning the the United Methodist Social Principles to make our stand on genetics. According to the Social Principles, the Methodist Church is for genetic engineering in health interests, providing that all changes are for a single generation only. The Methodist Chruch is against cloning, long term gene pool changes, and interfering with the genetics of an unborn child.
Most of the people in our classroom realize the dangers of genetic engineering, and we talked about a few movies and stories that provided examples of genetics gone wrong. We all agreed that cloning was against God's will, seeing as God creates us all as he wants us originally. This logic was also used to argue against the genetic engineering of children in the womb.
A couple of real-life examples of genetic engineering problems that we came up with were with agriculture and in some aisan countries. In some developed countries, like India, where genetic engineering has become available for use on unborn children, many people are misusing the engineering to have male children. Obviously, an imbalance of gender in population will cause tons of long-term problems. In agriculture, some plants have been so genetically altered that it is almost impossible to kill them.
Continuing on technology, we skipped forwards in the Social Principles to discuss the Internet. The Methodist Church is fascinated by the great availability of communication due to the Internet, and believes that the Internet will be a great tool that can be used to promote change in the world. The Methodist Church also affirms its stance of caution while using the Internet, especially with children, because of the widespread immature, innappropriate, and illegal materials that have become more readily available because of the Internet. We here at Franktown are following the Social Principles by trying to make the Internet safer and more balanced so that good is not overpowered by evil online; in other words, we want to extend Christian values through all forms of communication. Everyone here was in unanimous agreement with the Social Principles on this point.
We continued to talk about technology for a while, and we discussed tracking chips in humans and animals, then turned our attention to individuality and how everyone is unique. We had a few humorous examples, such as Monty Python, then turned to the seriousness of the problem. The biggest debate we had came in how people should be chosen for positions. On the one side, we had people who thought that people, due to their uniqueness, should be looked at separately and chosen based on their individual qualifications. On the other side, we had people who argued that God treats sinners and saints the same, and that we should allow everyone equal opportunity.
After the debate, we read the story of the prodigal son, which was the basis for the church sermon this Sunday (Luke 15: 11-32). In the story, a son requests his share of the inheritance early, then runs away with the money to a far-off land. While away, the son squanders his wealth and ends up working in a pig pen. Famished and degraded, the son decided to go back and beg for a place in his father's house again. The son went back, but before he could plead for a job as a servant, his father ran up, hugged the son, and called for a party to be held for the return of his son.
The relation between the prodigal son and our debate over equality was to prove God's position on the subject. The son was by all accounts a sinner and probably didn't deserve his father's praise, but the father blessed him anyways. In this way, God doesn't really care what you do [as long as you repent], and in this way we should also provide opportunities without being overly-anyltical of people.
Following on repentance and God's forgiveness, we read about the passage of Jesus' death on the cross (Luke 23: 26-43). In the story, there are two other men on crosses on either side of Jesus. One man criticizes Jesus, but the other believes in Jesus and rebukes the other man. The believer then repented to Jesus, and Jesus forgave him by saying "I tell you the truth; today, you will be with me in paradise." The man was a criminal, and one who was sentenced to death at that, but Jesus still forgave him because he believed. Likewise, we need do nothing but honestly believe and repent of our sins, and we can be granted salvation under Christ; Jesus does not hold back for anyone.
We are returning the the United Methodist Social Principles to make our stand on genetics. According to the Social Principles, the Methodist Church is for genetic engineering in health interests, providing that all changes are for a single generation only. The Methodist Chruch is against cloning, long term gene pool changes, and interfering with the genetics of an unborn child.
Most of the people in our classroom realize the dangers of genetic engineering, and we talked about a few movies and stories that provided examples of genetics gone wrong. We all agreed that cloning was against God's will, seeing as God creates us all as he wants us originally. This logic was also used to argue against the genetic engineering of children in the womb.
A couple of real-life examples of genetic engineering problems that we came up with were with agriculture and in some aisan countries. In some developed countries, like India, where genetic engineering has become available for use on unborn children, many people are misusing the engineering to have male children. Obviously, an imbalance of gender in population will cause tons of long-term problems. In agriculture, some plants have been so genetically altered that it is almost impossible to kill them.
Continuing on technology, we skipped forwards in the Social Principles to discuss the Internet. The Methodist Church is fascinated by the great availability of communication due to the Internet, and believes that the Internet will be a great tool that can be used to promote change in the world. The Methodist Church also affirms its stance of caution while using the Internet, especially with children, because of the widespread immature, innappropriate, and illegal materials that have become more readily available because of the Internet. We here at Franktown are following the Social Principles by trying to make the Internet safer and more balanced so that good is not overpowered by evil online; in other words, we want to extend Christian values through all forms of communication. Everyone here was in unanimous agreement with the Social Principles on this point.
We continued to talk about technology for a while, and we discussed tracking chips in humans and animals, then turned our attention to individuality and how everyone is unique. We had a few humorous examples, such as Monty Python, then turned to the seriousness of the problem. The biggest debate we had came in how people should be chosen for positions. On the one side, we had people who thought that people, due to their uniqueness, should be looked at separately and chosen based on their individual qualifications. On the other side, we had people who argued that God treats sinners and saints the same, and that we should allow everyone equal opportunity.
After the debate, we read the story of the prodigal son, which was the basis for the church sermon this Sunday (Luke 15: 11-32). In the story, a son requests his share of the inheritance early, then runs away with the money to a far-off land. While away, the son squanders his wealth and ends up working in a pig pen. Famished and degraded, the son decided to go back and beg for a place in his father's house again. The son went back, but before he could plead for a job as a servant, his father ran up, hugged the son, and called for a party to be held for the return of his son.
The relation between the prodigal son and our debate over equality was to prove God's position on the subject. The son was by all accounts a sinner and probably didn't deserve his father's praise, but the father blessed him anyways. In this way, God doesn't really care what you do [as long as you repent], and in this way we should also provide opportunities without being overly-anyltical of people.
Following on repentance and God's forgiveness, we read about the passage of Jesus' death on the cross (Luke 23: 26-43). In the story, there are two other men on crosses on either side of Jesus. One man criticizes Jesus, but the other believes in Jesus and rebukes the other man. The believer then repented to Jesus, and Jesus forgave him by saying "I tell you the truth; today, you will be with me in paradise." The man was a criminal, and one who was sentenced to death at that, but Jesus still forgave him because he believed. Likewise, we need do nothing but honestly believe and repent of our sins, and we can be granted salvation under Christ; Jesus does not hold back for anyone.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tradition!
We started off the week discussing a passage from an article about Jesus Freak (see http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/2283/healed_of_the_sin_of_religion%3A_at_church_with_sara_miles/?page=entire)
In the article, they discussed how a typical church is made more for comfort than change. One question that is pulled up is when the difference between tradition and nastalgia is made in a "church home." The writer of Jesus Freak comments that a church designed for comfort over mission work and change is a church of idolaters, or people who simply cannot or don't want to exit their comfort zone.
Our group, which was small today, moved to discuss how a church should be set up. Should church be set up to benefit its members? Most people want some comfort, but we knew that the article was right in that church needs to be a tool of change. People are not naturally faithful, for the most part, and if we want to get closer to God, then we have to change our ways and do whatever it takes to get closer in our faith.
Next, a small debate brought us into the topic of balance between us and God. As teenagers, we are pressured into doing good things, getting good grades, preparing ourselves for college, etcetera, etcetera. How do we balance our lives between all that we are supposed to do for our lives on Earth and what we are supposed to do for our lives with God? Our group came to say that what we do with our lives and our careers should reflect our faith and lives with God. One of our group members gave an example of how physics can be seen as a study of how God works on Earth; God created everything, so everything we do to study the universe should be a study of God.
Somewhat relating back to our discussion of church and comfort, our group began to discuss how everything can go wrong. Things that were developed with good interests could easily go wrong for secular interests. Fast food, for example, may have originally been made for cheap, good food, but it has now turned into a profit seeking, fatty foods industry. Could church turn bad just as easily? As we say in every post, it is our duty as Christians to keep the church a tool for great change and advancement in the world.
Our final point of discussion relates to hypocrisy. Almost every church preaches for change and says that Christians need to help the world, but most don't follow through. We cannot simply say that what we are doing is wrong but keep doing it. Relating back to last week, we cannot judge without expecting our own judgement. We have to get out of our bubbles and change. In our closing prayer for this week, one of our group made a humorous but true statement. Lord, forgive us for being idiots because we truly are.
In the article, they discussed how a typical church is made more for comfort than change. One question that is pulled up is when the difference between tradition and nastalgia is made in a "church home." The writer of Jesus Freak comments that a church designed for comfort over mission work and change is a church of idolaters, or people who simply cannot or don't want to exit their comfort zone.
Our group, which was small today, moved to discuss how a church should be set up. Should church be set up to benefit its members? Most people want some comfort, but we knew that the article was right in that church needs to be a tool of change. People are not naturally faithful, for the most part, and if we want to get closer to God, then we have to change our ways and do whatever it takes to get closer in our faith.
Next, a small debate brought us into the topic of balance between us and God. As teenagers, we are pressured into doing good things, getting good grades, preparing ourselves for college, etcetera, etcetera. How do we balance our lives between all that we are supposed to do for our lives on Earth and what we are supposed to do for our lives with God? Our group came to say that what we do with our lives and our careers should reflect our faith and lives with God. One of our group members gave an example of how physics can be seen as a study of how God works on Earth; God created everything, so everything we do to study the universe should be a study of God.
Somewhat relating back to our discussion of church and comfort, our group began to discuss how everything can go wrong. Things that were developed with good interests could easily go wrong for secular interests. Fast food, for example, may have originally been made for cheap, good food, but it has now turned into a profit seeking, fatty foods industry. Could church turn bad just as easily? As we say in every post, it is our duty as Christians to keep the church a tool for great change and advancement in the world.
Our final point of discussion relates to hypocrisy. Almost every church preaches for change and says that Christians need to help the world, but most don't follow through. We cannot simply say that what we are doing is wrong but keep doing it. Relating back to last week, we cannot judge without expecting our own judgement. We have to get out of our bubbles and change. In our closing prayer for this week, one of our group made a humorous but true statement. Lord, forgive us for being idiots because we truly are.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
How the Past Affects Our Present
Why did Jesus want to come to Earth and become human? Didn't Jesus know what he was going to have to go through? Why would anyone want to come down to Earth instead of sitting in luxury in Heaven? These are some of the questions that we tried to answer today.
One of our members started us off with a story about a homeless man who regularly attended a church. Once a week, the church held a meal for the homeless people in the community, and not once did anyone see this man eat a "meal" at any other time during the week. One day, a teenage boy showed up for the homeless meal, but he was too late and there was no food left. The homeless man who probably ate a meal only on that day of the week got up and gave his food to the boy, then left, apparently in a joyous mood.
Another of our members told a similar story afterwards. The point that the stories make in relation to our questions about Jesus is that Jesus wanted to experience the misery of humans for himself. It is much easier to show sympathy for a person, or a race, if you have personally felt what they feel. Jesus wanted to show that he was with us, as he still is, and that he is not so high above us that we are unable to reach him. Yes, God is all-powerful, but that does not mean that he is going to push us away because we are unclean and sinful; Jesus' trials on Earth are tributes to God to show that there is still hope for us as humans.
After our stories were told and discussed, we read the passage about the rich young man seeking eternal life. In the passage, the man claims to have followed all the commandments, but Jesus tells him that to truly inherit eternal life, he must sell all he owns and give it to the poor. There are many lessons to be learned from each passage in the Bible, including this one, but we are going to focus on only one today.
You can follow all of the commandments for all of your life, but that won't get you into Heaven. Everything you do has to be to glorify God, as the Bible indicates when it tells us to pray without ceasing. Collecting riches and using time for your interests and relaxation doesn't do anything to help the needy or proclaim the good news and the word of God, which is what God expects and wants us to do.
Here in the US, we live well and have opportunity. With God on our side, we can do anything! In places like Haiti, however, this view is turned more into "with God on our side, we can survive anything." Poverty and poor government structure can cause many people to lose the chance to do what they want and send them into hard times. Jesus came down to Earth to show that he was and is willing to help us, even in our darkest times. In Haiti, for example, many children become domestic servants with less than 2% of all children graduating secondary school. To those people, the only way to accomplish or survive anything is with God on their side.
Reaffirming what we have constantly written throughout our posts, it is our duty as Christians to spread the word and show the world that things can improve if they believe in God and his greatness, which he showed to the world by sending Jesus into the world.
Our discussion went full circle and turned back towards what we do with our money, which we discussed after the parable about the rich young man. In our culture nowadays, we are constantly tempted to buy more than we need; one of our members commented that Americans are the most wasteful people in the world, which is probably true. Our member further told us one of her quotes, which we thought was a good little saying: "Stop being Americans!" In other words, stop wasting what you don't need.
The next nearly fourty days are Lent, so this is a very good time to give up something. This is the time to give up something that distracts you from doing God's work and to remember him and his mercy. Jesus is never too far away to help you!
One of our members started us off with a story about a homeless man who regularly attended a church. Once a week, the church held a meal for the homeless people in the community, and not once did anyone see this man eat a "meal" at any other time during the week. One day, a teenage boy showed up for the homeless meal, but he was too late and there was no food left. The homeless man who probably ate a meal only on that day of the week got up and gave his food to the boy, then left, apparently in a joyous mood.
Another of our members told a similar story afterwards. The point that the stories make in relation to our questions about Jesus is that Jesus wanted to experience the misery of humans for himself. It is much easier to show sympathy for a person, or a race, if you have personally felt what they feel. Jesus wanted to show that he was with us, as he still is, and that he is not so high above us that we are unable to reach him. Yes, God is all-powerful, but that does not mean that he is going to push us away because we are unclean and sinful; Jesus' trials on Earth are tributes to God to show that there is still hope for us as humans.
After our stories were told and discussed, we read the passage about the rich young man seeking eternal life. In the passage, the man claims to have followed all the commandments, but Jesus tells him that to truly inherit eternal life, he must sell all he owns and give it to the poor. There are many lessons to be learned from each passage in the Bible, including this one, but we are going to focus on only one today.
You can follow all of the commandments for all of your life, but that won't get you into Heaven. Everything you do has to be to glorify God, as the Bible indicates when it tells us to pray without ceasing. Collecting riches and using time for your interests and relaxation doesn't do anything to help the needy or proclaim the good news and the word of God, which is what God expects and wants us to do.
Here in the US, we live well and have opportunity. With God on our side, we can do anything! In places like Haiti, however, this view is turned more into "with God on our side, we can survive anything." Poverty and poor government structure can cause many people to lose the chance to do what they want and send them into hard times. Jesus came down to Earth to show that he was and is willing to help us, even in our darkest times. In Haiti, for example, many children become domestic servants with less than 2% of all children graduating secondary school. To those people, the only way to accomplish or survive anything is with God on their side.
Reaffirming what we have constantly written throughout our posts, it is our duty as Christians to spread the word and show the world that things can improve if they believe in God and his greatness, which he showed to the world by sending Jesus into the world.
Our discussion went full circle and turned back towards what we do with our money, which we discussed after the parable about the rich young man. In our culture nowadays, we are constantly tempted to buy more than we need; one of our members commented that Americans are the most wasteful people in the world, which is probably true. Our member further told us one of her quotes, which we thought was a good little saying: "Stop being Americans!" In other words, stop wasting what you don't need.
The next nearly fourty days are Lent, so this is a very good time to give up something. This is the time to give up something that distracts you from doing God's work and to remember him and his mercy. Jesus is never too far away to help you!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Life after Death, but Where?
We apologize for our prolonged absence; the weather and snow has affected our normal pattern of Sunday school and services.
Our main passage for today was a story about a woman who had a horrible childhood, eventually became a single mother with five kids, one of whom drowned to death, and in the end turned towards Christ before dying of a stroke. After the passage was read, we were asked where we believed this woman, Sally, would go after death.
There are many passages in the Bible that relate to how we are all judged by the law, but there are also many more which relate to God's mercy in salvation. The broad range of passages make it difficult for Christians to fully answer the question of where a person will go after death.
The discussion of the question turned to how we, as Christians, are supposed to go out and preach the word to people like Sally so that there is no question; sometimes a person need only hear the word once to repent and be saved. The ultimate question in this regard is the definition of repentance and how far one must go to fully repent and turn to Christ. Once again, this question is difficult to answer, but God's mercy does make it very much possible to repent, regardless of how long or how much you must repent to be saved.
Next, our discussion turned to how we are saved; are we saved by faith or works or all of the above? It was unanimous that we are saved by faith and that good works are simply the fruits of our faith. If we were saved in any way by good works, then some people might do good deeds for the wrong reason; one cannot be thinking of their own salvation when preaching or showing the word to others without becoming a hypocrite.
Moving on, a member of our group told us a dual-meaning parable about how a child always told their parent about an event at the last minute and the parent always complained and told the child to tell them ahead of time, but the child never grasped what their parent was saying for a very, very long time; when the child did listen, however, it made all the difference in the world.
The first meaning of the parable is that we don't always listen or want to listen to God's word, but when we do, it makes all the difference in the world. If we listen to God's word and grasp it, even if it's only once, it could change our lives forever for the better.
The second meaning of the parable is actually more of a question; can we be saved at the last minute? Can we hear the word and repent within a short period of time, as if the child was moving away shortly after finally hearing the word? This is a long debated topic, and it all comes down to repentance. Time is really of no interest to God, and as long as a person truly believes, repents, and is filled with faith, then they can be saved through Jesus and God's mercy. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to come to a final conclusion on this question.
The final answer that comes from the question of where a person, like Sally, is going to go after death is that we have no authority. Jesus himself specifically tells us that we are not supposed to judge others, and it is a very good assumption that this can be applied to judging ourselves as well. In the end, only God can make the final call, and only he should make the final call or any other accusations and judgments.
Even with our final answer determined, we decided to continue the debate. We next debated the fate of atheists, although we really just debated how and why there were atheists and what they believed. One of our group actually admitted that there was a time in his life when he did not believe in God, but he has since made a dramatic turn to God. He brought up a good point about how atheists typically can remember when they turned away from God, thus implying that there was and is a part of them that wants to or does believe in God and Christ. As Christians, we have to bring that part of everyone in the world out; it is our mission and our duty to spread the word.
Nobody can say who can be saved unless they are spreading the word to everyone, and even then it is not their judgement which decides. Non-believers and those with little to no faith are and can only be saved by those with great faith and those who show their faith to the world. Love your neighbor and go spread the word; wake up and do something for the glory of God.
Our main passage for today was a story about a woman who had a horrible childhood, eventually became a single mother with five kids, one of whom drowned to death, and in the end turned towards Christ before dying of a stroke. After the passage was read, we were asked where we believed this woman, Sally, would go after death.
There are many passages in the Bible that relate to how we are all judged by the law, but there are also many more which relate to God's mercy in salvation. The broad range of passages make it difficult for Christians to fully answer the question of where a person will go after death.
The discussion of the question turned to how we, as Christians, are supposed to go out and preach the word to people like Sally so that there is no question; sometimes a person need only hear the word once to repent and be saved. The ultimate question in this regard is the definition of repentance and how far one must go to fully repent and turn to Christ. Once again, this question is difficult to answer, but God's mercy does make it very much possible to repent, regardless of how long or how much you must repent to be saved.
Next, our discussion turned to how we are saved; are we saved by faith or works or all of the above? It was unanimous that we are saved by faith and that good works are simply the fruits of our faith. If we were saved in any way by good works, then some people might do good deeds for the wrong reason; one cannot be thinking of their own salvation when preaching or showing the word to others without becoming a hypocrite.
Moving on, a member of our group told us a dual-meaning parable about how a child always told their parent about an event at the last minute and the parent always complained and told the child to tell them ahead of time, but the child never grasped what their parent was saying for a very, very long time; when the child did listen, however, it made all the difference in the world.
The first meaning of the parable is that we don't always listen or want to listen to God's word, but when we do, it makes all the difference in the world. If we listen to God's word and grasp it, even if it's only once, it could change our lives forever for the better.
The second meaning of the parable is actually more of a question; can we be saved at the last minute? Can we hear the word and repent within a short period of time, as if the child was moving away shortly after finally hearing the word? This is a long debated topic, and it all comes down to repentance. Time is really of no interest to God, and as long as a person truly believes, repents, and is filled with faith, then they can be saved through Jesus and God's mercy. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to come to a final conclusion on this question.
The final answer that comes from the question of where a person, like Sally, is going to go after death is that we have no authority. Jesus himself specifically tells us that we are not supposed to judge others, and it is a very good assumption that this can be applied to judging ourselves as well. In the end, only God can make the final call, and only he should make the final call or any other accusations and judgments.
Even with our final answer determined, we decided to continue the debate. We next debated the fate of atheists, although we really just debated how and why there were atheists and what they believed. One of our group actually admitted that there was a time in his life when he did not believe in God, but he has since made a dramatic turn to God. He brought up a good point about how atheists typically can remember when they turned away from God, thus implying that there was and is a part of them that wants to or does believe in God and Christ. As Christians, we have to bring that part of everyone in the world out; it is our mission and our duty to spread the word.
Nobody can say who can be saved unless they are spreading the word to everyone, and even then it is not their judgement which decides. Non-believers and those with little to no faith are and can only be saved by those with great faith and those who show their faith to the world. Love your neighbor and go spread the word; wake up and do something for the glory of God.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Past, Present, and Future
Matthew 19:16-22
And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have observed; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
This is a parable about the rich man in Jesus. Although we may not think of ourselves as rich, when we compare ourselves to the people in Haiti, we are some of the richest people on the planet. Many times in the Bible, Jesus tells his followers and listeners to give to the poor or that the poor are better off spiritually than the rich, as he does here. We are bound by the Bible to help the people in Haiti, even if it means selling away half our possessions.
After we discussed this passage from the Bible, we started talking about spiritual gifts, which was one of the scriptures from our church service. Everyone has a gift, but most people don't realize what their gift is until later on in life. We're teenagers, so none of us really know what we want to do or be in the future. As we talked among ourselves, though, it became somewhat clear that the person who recognized their respective gift(s) the least was the actual person; in other words, everybody else would be telling you your gift before you thought of it.
Eventually, we pulled ourselves back towards our verses about Jesus and how the "many that are first will be last, and the last first (Matthew 19:30)." We ended up jumping around through all sorts of different verses in the Bible, though. Through all of our verse jumps, one of us made a remark regarding the parable of the prodical son. When people were getting pulled out of the rubble in Haiti, most people stalled on the thought of how many others were not saved. Instead, we should be joyful like the father of the prodical son and think along the lines of "woo-hoo; we saved one more!" Every life saved, whether spiritually or physically, is important to God, and we should rejoice whenever a life is saved.
At a local church camp, we hold Emmaus and Chyrsillis walks as spiritual retreats. At these retreats, according to some of our youth who have been on these walks, the leaders invoke the image of a stool to support you with three legs: faith, action, and study. Some people may feel more comfortable with one leg over another or the others, but all of the legs need to be there for a stable support. Most people are most comfortable with faith and study over action; this has led to many criticisms of Christians in that we do not live up to our faith, which is probably true for the most part. We need to live and do more for our community and others across the globe, such as in Haiti.
To be better Christians, we need to be more active, not solely rely on faith and study to get us through. What better an opportunity to help than in Haiti? The disaster in Haiti is horrible, but it opens up hundreds of thousands of opportunities to be active and become better Christians. Every person has to take a different path to God, and sometimes it can take a crisis like Haiti to show the right path.
And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have observed; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
This is a parable about the rich man in Jesus. Although we may not think of ourselves as rich, when we compare ourselves to the people in Haiti, we are some of the richest people on the planet. Many times in the Bible, Jesus tells his followers and listeners to give to the poor or that the poor are better off spiritually than the rich, as he does here. We are bound by the Bible to help the people in Haiti, even if it means selling away half our possessions.
After we discussed this passage from the Bible, we started talking about spiritual gifts, which was one of the scriptures from our church service. Everyone has a gift, but most people don't realize what their gift is until later on in life. We're teenagers, so none of us really know what we want to do or be in the future. As we talked among ourselves, though, it became somewhat clear that the person who recognized their respective gift(s) the least was the actual person; in other words, everybody else would be telling you your gift before you thought of it.
Eventually, we pulled ourselves back towards our verses about Jesus and how the "many that are first will be last, and the last first (Matthew 19:30)." We ended up jumping around through all sorts of different verses in the Bible, though. Through all of our verse jumps, one of us made a remark regarding the parable of the prodical son. When people were getting pulled out of the rubble in Haiti, most people stalled on the thought of how many others were not saved. Instead, we should be joyful like the father of the prodical son and think along the lines of "woo-hoo; we saved one more!" Every life saved, whether spiritually or physically, is important to God, and we should rejoice whenever a life is saved.
At a local church camp, we hold Emmaus and Chyrsillis walks as spiritual retreats. At these retreats, according to some of our youth who have been on these walks, the leaders invoke the image of a stool to support you with three legs: faith, action, and study. Some people may feel more comfortable with one leg over another or the others, but all of the legs need to be there for a stable support. Most people are most comfortable with faith and study over action; this has led to many criticisms of Christians in that we do not live up to our faith, which is probably true for the most part. We need to live and do more for our community and others across the globe, such as in Haiti.
To be better Christians, we need to be more active, not solely rely on faith and study to get us through. What better an opportunity to help than in Haiti? The disaster in Haiti is horrible, but it opens up hundreds of thousands of opportunities to be active and become better Christians. Every person has to take a different path to God, and sometimes it can take a crisis like Haiti to show the right path.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Have a Heart for Haiti
Haiti is in trouble; deep trouble. There have been estimates of up to 200,000 deaths due to the earthquake, although it could rise if the situation gets any worse. Today, we're discussing the situation, how it could be better, and what we should do to help the Haitians out during this crisis.
The first thing we started to discuss was the thievery. When disaster like this strikes, most people will be forced to steal for survival. In Haiti, people are invading the homes of the dead to get vital resources. For the most part, we here thought that this was okay; resources are scarce, and it's not as if they're stealing for profit or luxury.
The second topic that came up was immigration. The US is not far away from Haiti, and it is to be expected that many refugees will travel from Haiti to the US. Thankfully, the government is allowing refugees for the time being, and we're thankful that anyone able to get out of Haiti will be allowed to go somewhere. One of us commented that a great many Americans, at this point, would probably open their homes up to the Haitians in their time of great need.
Already, there are many relief efforts and missions traveling to Haiti, including a lot of churches. At this point, the problem is not necessarily a lack of resources, but rather a lack of transportation to get resources to everyone who needs them. Nevertheless, Haiti will need a lot of resources to get back on track, so it's hard to say when enough is going to be enough.
Our church, like many others, is making health kits to send down to Haiti. Our church is hoping for only around a hundred, but if thousands of churches across the globe make a hundred kits apiece, then hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti can get help and relief.
We got into a small debate over whether money would be of more assistance than resources. Referring directly to Haiti, money is relatively useless. We did determine, however, that money sent to relief organizations would help just as much, if not more, than actual resources, as the organizations would then be able to buy the resources that Haiti needs.
One of our teachers is a carpenter/builder and has developed a sort of puzzle structure. We used a similar design from him for Relay for Life, and it's a nice building; we used it without two of the sides up, and it was still an excellent protection against the rain. It's a 10x16ft structure and is ideal for quick and portable relief homes. He hopes to send some of them down to Haiti, which would house some of the now homeless Haitians.
If we can organize it, we hope to send an international mission trip to Haiti with our youth group. We would have to go with a larger group, but there is still a question of safety. One of the reasons that Haiti is in such a bad shape is that it has no real functional government; Haiti has been run basically by the UN for the past few years. Only one other country in the world is in a similar position of no government, but it is without UN assistance. The country? Somali -- home of the infamous pirates that are plaguing the rest of the world, including the US.
The first thing we started to discuss was the thievery. When disaster like this strikes, most people will be forced to steal for survival. In Haiti, people are invading the homes of the dead to get vital resources. For the most part, we here thought that this was okay; resources are scarce, and it's not as if they're stealing for profit or luxury.
The second topic that came up was immigration. The US is not far away from Haiti, and it is to be expected that many refugees will travel from Haiti to the US. Thankfully, the government is allowing refugees for the time being, and we're thankful that anyone able to get out of Haiti will be allowed to go somewhere. One of us commented that a great many Americans, at this point, would probably open their homes up to the Haitians in their time of great need.
Already, there are many relief efforts and missions traveling to Haiti, including a lot of churches. At this point, the problem is not necessarily a lack of resources, but rather a lack of transportation to get resources to everyone who needs them. Nevertheless, Haiti will need a lot of resources to get back on track, so it's hard to say when enough is going to be enough.
Our church, like many others, is making health kits to send down to Haiti. Our church is hoping for only around a hundred, but if thousands of churches across the globe make a hundred kits apiece, then hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti can get help and relief.
We got into a small debate over whether money would be of more assistance than resources. Referring directly to Haiti, money is relatively useless. We did determine, however, that money sent to relief organizations would help just as much, if not more, than actual resources, as the organizations would then be able to buy the resources that Haiti needs.
One of our teachers is a carpenter/builder and has developed a sort of puzzle structure. We used a similar design from him for Relay for Life, and it's a nice building; we used it without two of the sides up, and it was still an excellent protection against the rain. It's a 10x16ft structure and is ideal for quick and portable relief homes. He hopes to send some of them down to Haiti, which would house some of the now homeless Haitians.
If we can organize it, we hope to send an international mission trip to Haiti with our youth group. We would have to go with a larger group, but there is still a question of safety. One of the reasons that Haiti is in such a bad shape is that it has no real functional government; Haiti has been run basically by the UN for the past few years. Only one other country in the world is in a similar position of no government, but it is without UN assistance. The country? Somali -- home of the infamous pirates that are plaguing the rest of the world, including the US.
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