Is This What Fall Feels Like?

It has been a couple of weeks since I have written a blog. The hill has been alive this past couple of weeks. The debate team has gone into full swing and has already gotten a couple of trophies. We have been to two tournaments this semester and look forward to a few more. Service Day is starting to take a toll on me, but I love the work that I am doing. It is exciting to see all the behind the scenes work of this beast of a project! I cannot wait to roll out the projects for the students and for us to serve Dayton! Neighbor2Neighbor has already started and we have had a rocky start. After trying to find projects and then rearranging dates, it has been difficult to get a firm start, but I believe that God will use this in his way and that I need to stay out of his way.

Homecoming was this past week and it was a blast! The week of Homecoming, Bryan has Spirit Week where we have dress-up days. My favorite of these days was Fictional Character day where I dressed like Hades from Hercules. 

I cannot express how much I love to participate in the themes of the week and how much this had made my very stressful week. During that week, we, the Outreach Ministries team, had to organize a Global Impact Week where mission organizations would come to Bryan for a few days. We had a chapel on Monday to plan, movie night, dinners on Tuesday, and a Networking Event on Wednesday. This was very stressful for us as we all had a short time to prepare all of it. Luckily, the week went well and has now wrapped up as of yesterday at 5:30. 

I have now entered into my busy day of Midterms and only have one more to go before I am almost free for Fall Break. One more midterm and then an essay to write. 

Some encouragement that I have realized this week is to let God take our stress. We always hear this in the church, to let go and let God, but how often do we really do it? I was so stressed for the past couple of days that I had only gotten around 2.5-ish hours of real sleep each night. For some that is a lot, but for me, I was struggling and struggling hard. It wasn't until Monday night after the movie that I was able to say, "God, I can't go on with all this stress, you can have it." I got 9 hours of restful sleep that night. My stress has been significantly lower since I gave that to God. If you are stressed today, then truly and honestly give it to God our Father. We have to let go of our want to control, he has us and will not let go. He will do the things that need to be done in his plan. Let him do what he will do and release your control. I cannot tell you how much calmer I feel right now then I did a couple of days ago. I pray that everyone can feel this calm or calmer today. May God bless you all! Amen. 

A Matter of the Heart

I have been writing a paper on idolatry for Theology of Worship called Idolatry: A Matter of the Heart. As I go through the topics that I have picked, I can thoroughly say that I feel convicted. I am talking on topics like pride, identity, religion, love, entertainment, and work. I have only gotten through the first two topics and let me tell you it is fun, yet I have been brought to the brink of tears due to the amount of conviction I feel.

I talked about pride in the main form of nationalism and patriotism. A lot of my followers will not like what I have to say, but I now firmly believe this. If we are putting our country first rather than God, then we are prideful and need to repent. I have repented of my patriotism for my country. I am not saying that we cannot be proud of our country, but when it comes to the point that we harm others because we are the "best nation in the world", then that is when we become the worst people in the world. Jesus looked upon people and saw them, helped them, and did not turn them away unless they said that they needed to do something else before they followed him (again, another form of pride). Many a time, we take too much pride in the USA because of the great successes that we have had. I know that 9/11 has just passed and I saw a lot of posts saying that people miss 9/12. I understand and I hope that this country will turn to God again, but to say we were at our greatest strength when we were all Americans, I don't know about that. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then your first and only identity is his; anything else is prideful.

To me, there is no Conservative Christian, no Liberal Christian, no Gay Christian, no Straight Christian. If you put anything in front of Christ (in words or not), then that is idolatry. Your identity is no longer first Christ, but in the first thing you speak in front of that. I do not understand why people get so bent out of shape trying to say what type of Christian they are. If you are truly a follower of Christ, then you don't care what the first word is in front of that because there should not be a word in front of that. Your political views are not a part of your Christianity, yes they should be molded by what the Bible says, but don't you dare try to mold what the Bible says to your political views!

I have only written on the first two points and I have gotten five pages out of my 8-10 page paper knocked out. I cannot wait to see what the Lord convicts me on next. God bless you all!

Would You be My Neighbor?

This year, I have begun my Junior year at Bryan College. I have been given so many opportunities to serve here at this school. This year, I am an Orientation Gateway Leader (OGL), Service Project Coordinator, Debate co-captain, and a full-time student. My job as an OGL is pretty simple as I help the new freshmen go from event to event throughout their first semester here at Bryan. The Coordinator job, however, is more extensive.

In this job, I help Outreach Ministries on campus prepare for our all college Service Day. This is where I will coordinate around 550-600 people to serve in the Dayton, TN area. I also get to coordinate smaller scale service days once a month. These other days will only involve one project and about 10-30 people each. Another thing that I get to do is help get volunteers for the mobile food drive that comes to Dayton once a month. Since each of my projects is only once a month and all leading up to the big Service Day, you might not think that it is too extensive, but all the behind-the-scenes work is hard. A lot of people want to have service projects done at their house or business but when I only have a few dates, I have to find one that fits both my (Bryan's) schedule and their schedule. Then I have to gather whatever materials that I can gather from here, coordinate carpools and people, and then pray that everything will go right in the project.

The rest of my duties are not so bad, I love to debate and have found my outlet to do so in a formal fashion. I also love studying ministry and getting to be involved in ministry. I am a member of Students For Life here. We go to the Care Center every week to help organize baby clothes, vacuum, sweep, mop, clean the kitchen, and basically help out with whatever they need so that they can help the women that come in for help with their pregnancy.

Today all of PCI, Practical Christian Involvement, had chapel all to themselves as we all told of our initiatives. We had PALS, tutoring, Bryan at Birchwood, Rhea of Sunshine, STRIDE, Senior Adult Ministry, Neighbor2Neighbor, SSTOP, Students for Life, and Refuge. We all had about two minutes to share why the student body should join each initiative. Each leader shared their passions and why they lead the initiative that they do.

This will be an interesting year for sure! I cannot wait for it to get even more started past the first month! Until then, God bless you all!