There are people who live in a secular world, worlds that is non-religious, but who identify, in their hearts, with Christianity. They are a breed of people who are challenging the Church to become ecumenical in its thinking and if the Church will not get out into the community to help others this group will be found doing the work of the ‘Church’. Pastoral Carers and/or Ministers have challenging roles that must include these Christians who will most likely never come into their Churches. The inclusion of these people will exemplify the most powerful form of love that could ever exist, a love that is unconditional and a love that does not come with wrong motives. The traditions of man must give way to this new generation of worshippers, worshippers who are not frequenting the Church but are in the communities helping, reading ‘spiritual’ books to help them learn about being great people, and having a relationship with God.
“Outside of assurance of personal conversion to Christ, no other spiritual conviction will help a pastor in his journey more than a firm conviction that God has called him to preach. The pastorate is not so much a profession as it is a calling.” Chaplains fill a vital role in caring the souls of those they serve, and their personal conviction of that will carry them through when the work is
* Action If I was speaking with a friend, I would most definitely tell them to keep God at the forefront of their lives. I would proceed by asking them how things have worked out on their own without praying on their situation. Often times when we do things without asking for God’s help, we make a mess of things in my opinion. I would encourage them to seek God’s word for the bible has the answers to the problems that we face today. I believe that integrating theology and psychology into practice can be attained and can benefit the client greatly.
I will teach my children about religion and anybody else that I come in contact with but I will show how religion do not and cannot bring forth change but only through having a relationship with Jesus Christ. I will continue to fight for religious freedoms and learn how to be a better advocate for it. Moreover, within my ministry of influence I will teach biblical truth about the moral problems and challenges that we face and will attempt to solve them with the moral standard of the Bible and not with humanistic values. I will challenge myself to continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus and my family through prayer and reading of the Bible. I will depend on God to open door so that I may minister to people that be guided by his grace.
He had answered many of my questions about my faith and what I believe is real. This does not mean that this book has changed my values and views of my religion, however has made me a more devote person to my religion. I agree with Paine as well that we are always contradicting ourselves. With my church group, we always say that we fit the Bible stories to fit and suit our need, but always show our true devotion. These stories are to be taken with a grain of salt and not to be take as seriously as they are being taken.
In order to receive salvation, one must have faith in the word of God and “preach Christ”. To “preach Christ” is to teach and minister about Jesus, who He is and what He did. Luther clearly tells us that no works can bring about salvation. He depicts an ideal Christian as one with great faith in God’s Word. In order to live a Christian life, one must look to Christ and place faith in Him.
Lot of persons don’t want to escape from the cage that it was created around them from the Christianity beliefs. Maybe they are using God just as an example of perfection that they can relay on, or maybe it is for them an example of supreme power that could give help and support in difficult moments. We should not forget all the way that Church made during time, and that all those proofs that gave credibility to Christianity may be all false. If god, as the father of human kind, would have existed, he wouldn’t let all those catastrophes to happen (Katrina, 2004’ Tsunami, and many others…). What kind of father would be the one that let its children to die in such terrible ways!?!
Growing up I was taught with Christian views to always forgive; however, after reading Simon Wiesenthal’s book I believe there are boundaries and sometimes we do not hold the power to forgive and we have to leave it up to God. Forgiveness has limitations such as sincerity, the power to forgive, and they can never forget. When there is no sincerity, power, or remembrance it is then out of our hands to forgive. “The question, for me, is not whether he should have forgiven, but whether he could have done so. Was it in his power to forgive?” (Fleischner 139) This question should be asked before we decide whether or not Karl should or should not have been forgiven.
Christians across the world battle on the issue that memes does or doesn’t exists. Religious memes and me metric may not be inherently good or bad superior or inferior but they do exist. That no matter what are cultures are we can evolve while staying true to ourselves and are roots. So whatever category one’s culture labels it’s all a meme of a belief in someone or something being the teacher, philosopher that we should follow his word and know that other cultures beliefs may seem to imitate each other. That some disagree that they believe in what another culture or religion believes to be what they believe to be Jesus and what he stands for also.
We are not allowed to choose what we like to worship and rejected what we do not like. We cannot just worship God for what he has done but also for what he will do. The ideal state of worship is to be close to Isaiah like he was in chapter six of that book of the Bible. When we are lost we need to seek (and hope to find) the holiness of God and become aware of our sin in order to truly worship. Instead of going through the motions at church, we need to truly focus on what we are worshiping.