Personal Narrative: My Interview With A Pastor

Evil One and the Word of God abides in them.12 These individuals are striving to become more

I see language as a huge blessing. When utilized properly, it can encourage, teach, and help others. It can also be used to express ourselves to our core. To be able to reflect what is within our hearts, though, we must dive deep into emotions and language. Paired, they allow us to understand one another so that we can communicate and help each other through life, something that is definitely not meant to be done alone—which exactly explains why God gave us all community. With life being like an ocean, I truly believe that we cannot survive without God, first of all, and also without people. Because they are so important to me, I place emphasis on understanding how to properly use the English language so that I may glorify God, showing my thanks to Him with my every sentence whether it is verbal or written or thought. This portfolio, thus, is a reflection of my identity and journey with God—all constructed with language and emotions to portray my love for communicating with Him and His people. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable inyour sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14After being rescued by Him, I gained sight. I no longer saw the things around me and within me with a blurry lens; I took on the clearest lens, as though my eyes became cameras, to see things with truth. With this new vision and mindset, I began to see my own mistakes as well as those around me. Because of this, I understood what needed revision and what

It is similar to a diet in that respect. Every person is on a diet, but that certainly does not mean that everyone is on a good or healthy one. As Willard eases his way into his ultimate point of emphasis, he discusses three ways that spiritual formation is viewed in society. The first way that he describes it is by likening it to spiritual work or exercise. This is a perfect example of where spiritual formation is often viewed in conjunction with the Catholic Church. The aim here is that it deals with something embedded deep inside of a person. However, on the Protestant side of things, it is easy for spiritual formation to be viewed in a very pragmatic sense. If the ministry is doing well and the individual’s heart is in the right place, Willard says that no further inquiry is generally made. The second view of spiritual formation deals with the spiritual side of the person. It is closer to formation of the heart of a person and all of what that entails. The final part talked about is the shaping by the spiritual

I’d like to state the most obvious observation that I’ve made about spiritual formation; that is that I will always need to be seeking for ways to nurture my personal spirituality throughout my life. I know that to most people this may sound like a “duh” statement, but for me it has truly become a reality and one that I must admit I have been struggling to embrace. I was brought up in a church that, like most traditional churches, stayed happy living in the “comfort zone” of their Christianity. They took everything that the Bible said at face value without digging in to find out why they believed what they believed. I had never been challenged to look deeper into the text. In the past few years I have felt the need to tunnel out of this

Throughout my time with the Methodist church, I have experienced great opportunities and also many challenges. My family and I have been taught by a man who I think to be one of the most godly men I have ever met. Reverend Felder has always had a positive outlook on St. Luke UMC future even through trials and adversity. In fact, I truly think the Lord used him to save St. Luke because when he became pastor the city of Augusta had the land the church occupied labeled a future parking lot. However Felder had a vision for the church and the vision included having the sanctuary packed with families from the neighborhood of Harrisburg. The church is now an entity in the neighborhood that it was not before Reverend Felder came, and while is has a

In addition, going to the baptist church made me realize that no matter what your culture is, humans all want the same things. People want a sense of meaning and purpose, and to feel inspired, hopeful, unconditionally loved, accepted, and uplifted. People want to have an understanding of who they are, and what that entails. When people are feeling scared and insecure about the present and future, they demand explanations for the unknown, or the difficult elements of their life. Furthermore, people need order, structure, and security in their lives by being told what they should think/believe, how they should behave. People also seek a sense of belonging and community. Overall,it doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, Christian, Caucasian, or African American, at the end of the day, humans generally all want the same thing, but just have different ways of showing it or expressing it.

21). I agree, it is vital that the disciple is involved in an intentional, ongoing plan that challenges themselves to greater Christ-likeness which manifests itself in the nurturing of others toward wholeness. This is what we are called to do when we become children of God. Christian Spiritual formation cannot happen in solitude; therefore, the purpose of spiritual formation is to ultimately lived out in community. This aligns with my view of personal and corporate spiritual formation. If we are not conformed to the image of Christ, we cannot incarnate in our relationships with others. Therefore, if we say we love God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit we are to love others. The image of Christ will be seen as the ultimate reality of human wholeness, the consummation for which each heart longs (Mullholland, p. 21). Therefore, God’s people has a role in healing brokenness and injustice in the world (p. 21). We are to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew

Today was a boring and very uncomfortable day for me. Everyone know my last day here at Grace Christian Center is tomorrow so everyone is telling me that they’re sorry that I’m leaving. I’m not sure if its true or not , but its nice to hear. When I walked through the doors of GCC I went straight back to my seat and started cleaning out my desk. I don’t have much in there but I want to make sure that I leave it in better shape than when I got it. Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean that I have to leave my work area cluttered. After cleaning up my area I decided that I was going to go downstairs to eat lunch with the rest of the staff member, which was odd because that’s something that I normally run away from. Me and the staff ate

If I were to start my own Faith Community Practice I would first plan to sign up for EMU's online Faith Community Nursing Course in order to fully understand what an FCN is and how best to go about establishing my own practice. After completing the course, spend however much time I needed to figure out how exactly I want to run my practice. After figuring out a baseline plan, I would go about facing my other challenges. One challenge that I would most likely face is where to set up my practice. I would most likely want to start my practice in service to my home church at Lindale Mennonite Church. I don't believe we have an FCN practice there and I think it would an amazing opportunity to serve my home church in that manner if they allow. My

To say my faith life has been completely revamped in the last year would be an understatement. I had views and ideas about faith that seem somewhat vile to me know with the experiences I’ve had. From just lectures to the retreats my spiritual side has gone from that of a holiday catholic to a Campus Ministry Student. From little things to big ethic topics I’ve changed in a multitude of ways, my Spiritual Autobiography looks like looks like someone else wrote it compared to any year before it. I think faith is one of the most important aspects of our life and it took me until last year to realize it.

Never in my life did I think God would lead me to become a pastor. However, around the end of 2012, I really felt God calling me toward vocational ministry. I wasn’t really sure what that would look like in my life, and I struggled with God for a long time about the idea of giving up a “sure thing” with the army, for the unknown of serving in ministry. I just kept thinking, “Is this really what God is calling me to do?” This went on for quite a while. One night, in May 2014, God made it abundantly clear to me. My wife and I were attending the wedding of some close friends of ours. The pastor who was performing the ceremony was the pastor of the church my wife and I attended before I joined the military in 2010. After the ceremony, I was talking with him and mentioned that I was feeling like God was calling me into pastoral ministry.

Spiritual. Daily time spent in prayer along with a regular, unhurried time in the Bible is essential for growth. In the Bible, growth is linked to spiritual maturity and becoming more like Jesus (Romans 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:18). Time in prayer, at the beginning and the end of day

The book is divided into seven parts. The book focuses spiritual growth and it is a manual for building a Spirit-filled life in a world where perfection can only be found in God’s loving vision. Ortberg helps us gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. As the author emphasizes on

My journey with God started in February of 1993, when I went to a ladies’ conference in Columbus, Texas. It was while the speaker was explaining that she knew there were some of us out in the audience, who felt guilty about something they had done in their past, and they did not feel that God could forgive them for it. But then she quoted from God’s word; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NASB) The speaker continued on to say that all we need to do is

The Necessity of Community. Spiritual transformation takes place incrementally over time with others in the context of disciplines and practices that open us to God. In general, while we are still on this earth, our transformation will happen by degrees (II Corinthians 3:18)