The meaning of Behavior [Judith Schubert]
The theme of this issue-discovering virtues in delinquents- is and excellent reminder of the power of perception. "Virtue" and "Delinquents" are two words that do not seem to belong in the same sentece, and bu positioning them together, we are challenged to perceive them in a different way. What could be virtuousus about delinquency? [Judith Schubert]
Behavior tends to be categorized as "negative" or "positive". When we evaluate atrisk or troubled youth, we identify their strengths and their deficits. What we often fail to recognize is that seeing a behavior as positive or negative, often has more to do with the context in which the behavior is displayed, rather that with the behavior itself.
1. Positive and negative behavior are often two sides of the same coin.
It is easy to fall into the trap of classify a specific behavior as a strength if the behavior is used in a way that conforms to our values and as a deficit when it is used for purposes we do not support. As a result of this we aften try to extinguish the behavior, rather than chalenge it.
2. All behavior are meaning
No matter what the behavior it means something, it has a function. Rather than drawing immediate conclusion about disruptive or aggressive behaviors, look for pathern that might help decipher hte meaning behind the behavior.
3. Behavior is adaptive
People learn to behave in certain ways as a response to their enviroment. Those who have been institutionalized often develop repetitive behaviors; some may have learned to be manipulative because they were never allowed to express their feelings; another child might have become aggressive.
If a child's enviroment changes, the behavior might no longer be effective or necessary, but it is important to reconnize that at on time the behavior could have been critical to the child's very survival. It good to remember that it will take time to unlearn behaviors that are no longer necessary.
4. So-called "negative" behaviors can sometimes be channeled into positive action.
The actions of troubled youth can be surprising as we watch them engage in behaviors that seem to worl against their own best interests. If we search fot the meaning behing behavior and identify its adaptive function, we are in a better position to help youth channel their behavior in a positive direction that will move them towar autonomy, self-responsability, and productive changes.
[Judith Schubert is president of the Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI)]
from "Reclaiming Children and Youth - The journal of strengh-based interventions- ( Discovering the Virtues in Delinquent Children) Volume 16 Number 4 winter 2008.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Reclaiming Youth at Risk
Destructive Relationships
"Consider these children to have fallen among thieves, the thieves of ignorance and sin and ill fate and loss. Their birthrights were stolen. They have no belongings" [Karl Menninger] (1)
When caretakers fail to meet a child's most basic needs, the child learns that they are unpredictable or unreliable. Some children reach beyond their families in search of substitute attachments with other adults or peers.(2)
Contemporary society is creating a growing number of children at risk for relationship impairments. Today, the typical child is reared by a single parent or by parents who both work outside the home. The decline of extended families and intimate neighborhoods leaves an isolated nuclear family. Public policy has not kept pace with the reality that one or two unsupporte adults are often unequipped to succesfully rear their young. (3)
The school is the only institution providing ongoing, long-term relationships with all of our young. Some children spend only minutes a day in conversations with parents, but all are requiered by law to be in extended contact wiht the adults who staff our school. Educators have not yet risen to such challenge.(4)
Research shows that at each progressive level of the education system, relationships increasingly lack meaning and personl satisfaction. Not surprisingly, students at greatest risk of dropping out the school are those who have never been friends with any teacher.(5)
Children are looking after somebody to look up, looking after something to hold, the need of belonging has increased in the world of the children, leading them to look after models to copy, or after relationships that might fulfill the need they present. If we see that relationships are the answer of these need, we may find that gangs, drugs groups, or bands, are fulfiling the need of belonging, if we see the world of the gangs, we see that they provide to the child: propiety [places that the own by fighting for them], name [ nicknames that they get when they join the gang group] and recognitions [ in the case of commit a crime the might get a price or a different position in the gang staff]; this relationship is fulfiling the need of belonging, but in the time it become destructive, it leads the child to commit crimes, crimes leads to the police, the police to jail, jail to new destructive relationships and so on the circucle keep going.
In the same case, school should be the place where children should find the complete oposite side of the relationship, we still seen the same paternts: propiety, name and recognitions, but wiht a complete different focus, oriented to the grown of the children, but educators have not understand this yet, the modern world moves every day more towars consumerism, toward individualism, and toward "I THINK IN ME, YOU THINK IN YOU".
Parents are too stessed, schools are too impersonal, community is too disorganized to fulfill the most basic need of children to Belong.(6)
(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6) Bentro, Larry; Brokenleg, Martin; & Van Bocken, Steve. Reclaiming youth at risk: Our hope for the future. Bloomington, IN: National Education Service, 1990.
"Consider these children to have fallen among thieves, the thieves of ignorance and sin and ill fate and loss. Their birthrights were stolen. They have no belongings" [Karl Menninger] (1)
When caretakers fail to meet a child's most basic needs, the child learns that they are unpredictable or unreliable. Some children reach beyond their families in search of substitute attachments with other adults or peers.(2)
Contemporary society is creating a growing number of children at risk for relationship impairments. Today, the typical child is reared by a single parent or by parents who both work outside the home. The decline of extended families and intimate neighborhoods leaves an isolated nuclear family. Public policy has not kept pace with the reality that one or two unsupporte adults are often unequipped to succesfully rear their young. (3)
The school is the only institution providing ongoing, long-term relationships with all of our young. Some children spend only minutes a day in conversations with parents, but all are requiered by law to be in extended contact wiht the adults who staff our school. Educators have not yet risen to such challenge.(4)
Research shows that at each progressive level of the education system, relationships increasingly lack meaning and personl satisfaction. Not surprisingly, students at greatest risk of dropping out the school are those who have never been friends with any teacher.(5)
Children are looking after somebody to look up, looking after something to hold, the need of belonging has increased in the world of the children, leading them to look after models to copy, or after relationships that might fulfill the need they present. If we see that relationships are the answer of these need, we may find that gangs, drugs groups, or bands, are fulfiling the need of belonging, if we see the world of the gangs, we see that they provide to the child: propiety [places that the own by fighting for them], name [ nicknames that they get when they join the gang group] and recognitions [ in the case of commit a crime the might get a price or a different position in the gang staff]; this relationship is fulfiling the need of belonging, but in the time it become destructive, it leads the child to commit crimes, crimes leads to the police, the police to jail, jail to new destructive relationships and so on the circucle keep going.
In the same case, school should be the place where children should find the complete oposite side of the relationship, we still seen the same paternts: propiety, name and recognitions, but wiht a complete different focus, oriented to the grown of the children, but educators have not understand this yet, the modern world moves every day more towars consumerism, toward individualism, and toward "I THINK IN ME, YOU THINK IN YOU".
Parents are too stessed, schools are too impersonal, community is too disorganized to fulfill the most basic need of children to Belong.(6)
(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6) Bentro, Larry; Brokenleg, Martin; & Van Bocken, Steve. Reclaiming youth at risk: Our hope for the future. Bloomington, IN: National Education Service, 1990.
Friday, March 21, 2008
“There’s No Such Thing As a Bad Kid”
Father Don Bosco [August 16, 1815 – January 31, 1888]
Saint John Bosco, born Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco, and known in English as Don Bosco, was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and recognized pedagogue, who put into practice the dogma of his religion, employing teaching methods based on love rather than punishment. He placed his works under the protection of Francis de Sales; thus his followers styled themselves the Salesian Society. He is the only Saint with the title "Father and Teacher of Youth."
St. John Bosco succeeded in establishing a network of centers to carry on his work. In recognition of his work with disadvantaged youth he was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1934.(1)
Early Life
When he was little more than two years old his father died, leaving the support of three boys to the mother, Margaret Bosco. John's early years were spent as a shepherd and he received his first instruction at the hands of the parish priest. He possessed a ready wit, a retentive memory, and as years passed his appetite for study grew stronger. Owing to the poverty of the home, however, he was often obliged to turn from his books to the field, but the desire of what he had to give up never left him. In 1835 he entered the seminary at Chieri and after six years of study was ordained priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin.(2)
Early Ministry
When he was young, he would put on shows of his skills as a juggler, magician, and acrobat. The price of admission to these shows was a prayer. Don Bosco began as the chaplain of the Rifugio ("Refuge"), a girls’ boarding school founded in Turin by the Marchioness Giulia di Barolo. But he had many ministries on the side such as visiting prisoners, teaching catechism and helping out at country parishes. A growing group of boys would come to the Rifugio on Sundays and feast days to play and learn their catechism. They were too old to join the younger children in regular catechism classes in the parishes, which mostly chased them away. This was the beginning of the “Oratory of St. Francis de Sales”. Because of all their disorderly racket, the Marchioness spared her girls the distraction by terminating Bosco’s employment at the Rifugio.Don Bosco and his Oratory wandered around town for a few years and were turned out of several places in succession. Finally, he was able to rent a shed from a Mr. Pinardi. His mother moved in with him. The Oratory had a home, then, in 1846, in the new Valdocco neighborhood on the north end of town. Next year, he and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans.(3)
Don Bosco's Education System
Don Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education". He believed education to be a "matter of the heart" and said that the boys must not only be loved, but know that they are loved. He also pointed to three components of the Preventive System: reason, religion, and kindness. Music and games also went into the mix.(4)
Don Bosco gained a reputation early on of being a saint and miracle worker. For this reason Rua, Buzzetti, Cagliero and several others began to keep chronicles of his sayings and doings. Preserved in the Salesian archives, these are invaluable resources for studying his life. Later on, the Salesian Don Lemoyne collected and combined them into 45 scrapbooks with oral testimonies and Don Bosco’s own Memoirs of the Oratory. His aim was to write a detailed biography. This project eventually became a nineteen-volume affair, carried out by him and two other authors. These are the Biographical Memoirs. It is clearly not the work of professional historians, but a somewhat uneven compilation of those chronicles that preserve the memories of teenage boys and young men under the spell of a remarkable and beloved father figure.(5)
Salesians Family
The effort to keep on working the Oratory weren't enough, and after a few political, economic, and ecclesiastics conflicts, Father Don Bosco reached his dream under the advice of Urbano Rattazzi, who was the Justice Minister, who did not support the Church, but nevertheless recognized the value of Don Bosco’s work.
Todays Salesians mission is to teach young people various trades that will help them find decent jobs and become self-sufficient, contributing members of society. The Salesians insist that the needy help themselves in whatever way they can, even minimally. They do not encourage dependence or paternalism, but strive to live up to the working maxim, “helping others to help themselves.” Today, they continue their mission of caring for the poor children of the world with missionaries in over 131 countries. Following the great effort and example of Father Don Bosco.(6) (7)
(1)(3)(4)(5)(6) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bosco, John Bosco; downloaded March 21,2008
(2) : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02689d.htm, St. Giovanni Melchior Bosco; downloaded March 21, 2008
(7) : http://www.salesianmissions.org/aboutus/index.html, Salesian Missions Online; downloaded March 21, 2008
Felipe Concha
Saint John Bosco, born Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco, and known in English as Don Bosco, was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and recognized pedagogue, who put into practice the dogma of his religion, employing teaching methods based on love rather than punishment. He placed his works under the protection of Francis de Sales; thus his followers styled themselves the Salesian Society. He is the only Saint with the title "Father and Teacher of Youth."
St. John Bosco succeeded in establishing a network of centers to carry on his work. In recognition of his work with disadvantaged youth he was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1934.(1)
Early Life
When he was little more than two years old his father died, leaving the support of three boys to the mother, Margaret Bosco. John's early years were spent as a shepherd and he received his first instruction at the hands of the parish priest. He possessed a ready wit, a retentive memory, and as years passed his appetite for study grew stronger. Owing to the poverty of the home, however, he was often obliged to turn from his books to the field, but the desire of what he had to give up never left him. In 1835 he entered the seminary at Chieri and after six years of study was ordained priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin.(2)
Early Ministry
When he was young, he would put on shows of his skills as a juggler, magician, and acrobat. The price of admission to these shows was a prayer. Don Bosco began as the chaplain of the Rifugio ("Refuge"), a girls’ boarding school founded in Turin by the Marchioness Giulia di Barolo. But he had many ministries on the side such as visiting prisoners, teaching catechism and helping out at country parishes. A growing group of boys would come to the Rifugio on Sundays and feast days to play and learn their catechism. They were too old to join the younger children in regular catechism classes in the parishes, which mostly chased them away. This was the beginning of the “Oratory of St. Francis de Sales”. Because of all their disorderly racket, the Marchioness spared her girls the distraction by terminating Bosco’s employment at the Rifugio.Don Bosco and his Oratory wandered around town for a few years and were turned out of several places in succession. Finally, he was able to rent a shed from a Mr. Pinardi. His mother moved in with him. The Oratory had a home, then, in 1846, in the new Valdocco neighborhood on the north end of town. Next year, he and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans.(3)
Don Bosco's Education System
Don Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education". He believed education to be a "matter of the heart" and said that the boys must not only be loved, but know that they are loved. He also pointed to three components of the Preventive System: reason, religion, and kindness. Music and games also went into the mix.(4)
Don Bosco gained a reputation early on of being a saint and miracle worker. For this reason Rua, Buzzetti, Cagliero and several others began to keep chronicles of his sayings and doings. Preserved in the Salesian archives, these are invaluable resources for studying his life. Later on, the Salesian Don Lemoyne collected and combined them into 45 scrapbooks with oral testimonies and Don Bosco’s own Memoirs of the Oratory. His aim was to write a detailed biography. This project eventually became a nineteen-volume affair, carried out by him and two other authors. These are the Biographical Memoirs. It is clearly not the work of professional historians, but a somewhat uneven compilation of those chronicles that preserve the memories of teenage boys and young men under the spell of a remarkable and beloved father figure.(5)
Salesians Family
The effort to keep on working the Oratory weren't enough, and after a few political, economic, and ecclesiastics conflicts, Father Don Bosco reached his dream under the advice of Urbano Rattazzi, who was the Justice Minister, who did not support the Church, but nevertheless recognized the value of Don Bosco’s work.
Todays Salesians mission is to teach young people various trades that will help them find decent jobs and become self-sufficient, contributing members of society. The Salesians insist that the needy help themselves in whatever way they can, even minimally. They do not encourage dependence or paternalism, but strive to live up to the working maxim, “helping others to help themselves.” Today, they continue their mission of caring for the poor children of the world with missionaries in over 131 countries. Following the great effort and example of Father Don Bosco.(6) (7)
(1)(3)(4)(5)(6) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bosco, John Bosco; downloaded March 21,2008
(2) : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02689d.htm, St. Giovanni Melchior Bosco; downloaded March 21, 2008
(7) : http://www.salesianmissions.org/aboutus/index.html, Salesian Missions Online; downloaded March 21, 2008
Felipe Concha
Monday, March 10, 2008
After School Visit -- Friday 02/07/08
Wow...
I can believe we are in March, and I have so many things to do that it seem to be April already, and it mean that it is looking preaty much like May and then is June and then we are done for the first year of training....
So Many thing, so many challenges, so many experiences...
This past friday we visited our last After School Programs, and it was one of the biggest that we have seen so far.
Some times it seem that there is nothing more that we are going to lear, but it is super crazy to say something like that, life it is a constantly journey, which would we end when Jesus come back. I was so into my self this past weekend, trying to get as much i could, to understand behaviors, ways in that the children act, talk, play, interect one with each other, and others. And some times we are just so into what we are doing, so into what we have to think, and do right, and take care of, that we forgot the main thing, the great WHY we are doing what we are doing, and it is GOd, and I realize this not while we were in the After School Program, but in the ride back, talking with one of my Leaders/Friend/sister in Christ, it was then when I realize that everything we do, it is not for us, but is it for God saken, and I feel so gratefull that God has choosen me to do His job in the Earth, and I feel like i dont deserve it but God say to me "Here is my Servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight", and it is so powerful what God say, and I love how he star the sentece "here is my servant" it make me feel that I am nothing with out my Master, and that whatevet I do it is not for me, but for God.
And that is my conclusion from all this trips and visits, that in the end, we still need God to finished the work, and that with out him we are nothing.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burned, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke yoin you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and I will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11 : 25 -30
I can believe we are in March, and I have so many things to do that it seem to be April already, and it mean that it is looking preaty much like May and then is June and then we are done for the first year of training....
So Many thing, so many challenges, so many experiences...
This past friday we visited our last After School Programs, and it was one of the biggest that we have seen so far.
Some times it seem that there is nothing more that we are going to lear, but it is super crazy to say something like that, life it is a constantly journey, which would we end when Jesus come back. I was so into my self this past weekend, trying to get as much i could, to understand behaviors, ways in that the children act, talk, play, interect one with each other, and others. And some times we are just so into what we are doing, so into what we have to think, and do right, and take care of, that we forgot the main thing, the great WHY we are doing what we are doing, and it is GOd, and I realize this not while we were in the After School Program, but in the ride back, talking with one of my Leaders/Friend/sister in Christ, it was then when I realize that everything we do, it is not for us, but is it for God saken, and I feel so gratefull that God has choosen me to do His job in the Earth, and I feel like i dont deserve it but God say to me "Here is my Servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight", and it is so powerful what God say, and I love how he star the sentece "here is my servant" it make me feel that I am nothing with out my Master, and that whatevet I do it is not for me, but for God.
And that is my conclusion from all this trips and visits, that in the end, we still need God to finished the work, and that with out him we are nothing.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burned, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke yoin you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and I will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11 : 25 -30
Toward a Theology of Culture -- What in the World is going on?
Christian scholars and Pastors often critique culture, music, ot television and make ethical judgments without full recognition of the culture attitudes and biases hidden in their own subconscious.
Youth Leaders and seminarians have received a great deal of instruction about the Christian life, missions, and the church. But how are we to live in the world? what do we have in common with neighbors who are not Christias?
No one can live without culture. Living in any particular culture, Chistians are under a mandate to follow principles that provide for human growth.
We live in that which we must leave. Our lives have complicated dimensions, but we share in God's intention for our common good.
We have to understand that we live in a world full of different cultures, and that we have to be able to preach the gospel to all the creation without any distintion. But we also need to be careful in what type of thing we get involve, we must be sure and know our code of ethics, and our limits and bounderies, so we dont cross that line in between being part of this world and being in the world.
We also find that the Bible support both ideas of being complete set apart of what we call "The Word", but we also find that the Bible support the idea of being in the worl, and receiving what the world receive.
The Bible is clear when it talks abouth wath is worldy and what is the World, the world in resume is the perfect creation of God, and we must be glad to live in that perfect creation, but we also have to understand that the princes of the earth, Satan, has used what the world is, and turn it to what he want it to be, creating a worldy desire, of thing without any sense or just focused to what mean to be apart of God.
Both extrems are far away of what God would like to hear, we as Youth Pastor should stand in between, creating a balance in what culture say, keeping the ministry high and modern, but at the same time that we get new thecnology, but need to keep working and getting our christian live modern, I dont mean with this that we have to change what we are, but we need to add new items at what we do, and how we approach different situation that come with the progress, and the new thinking process, and the presure, etc.
Youth Leaders and seminarians have received a great deal of instruction about the Christian life, missions, and the church. But how are we to live in the world? what do we have in common with neighbors who are not Christias?
No one can live without culture. Living in any particular culture, Chistians are under a mandate to follow principles that provide for human growth.
We live in that which we must leave. Our lives have complicated dimensions, but we share in God's intention for our common good.
We have to understand that we live in a world full of different cultures, and that we have to be able to preach the gospel to all the creation without any distintion. But we also need to be careful in what type of thing we get involve, we must be sure and know our code of ethics, and our limits and bounderies, so we dont cross that line in between being part of this world and being in the world.
We also find that the Bible support both ideas of being complete set apart of what we call "The Word", but we also find that the Bible support the idea of being in the worl, and receiving what the world receive.
The Bible is clear when it talks abouth wath is worldy and what is the World, the world in resume is the perfect creation of God, and we must be glad to live in that perfect creation, but we also have to understand that the princes of the earth, Satan, has used what the world is, and turn it to what he want it to be, creating a worldy desire, of thing without any sense or just focused to what mean to be apart of God.
Both extrems are far away of what God would like to hear, we as Youth Pastor should stand in between, creating a balance in what culture say, keeping the ministry high and modern, but at the same time that we get new thecnology, but need to keep working and getting our christian live modern, I dont mean with this that we have to change what we are, but we need to add new items at what we do, and how we approach different situation that come with the progress, and the new thinking process, and the presure, etc.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Postmodernity in the Marketplace
"When the forms if an old culture are dyingm the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure"
Rudolph Bahro, quoted in The Post Evangelical
Why study Popular Culture?
- Popular culture is related to Movies, music, and television, this are the primary form of disseminating values, ideas, and ethics.
- Popular culture serves as way of comunication of hte postmodern world.
Popular Culture both reflects who we are as people and also helps shape us as people. The implications if both factors are profund. We have participated in number of conversations about whether popular culture shapes public ideas or merely acts as a mirror reflecting our ideas back to us.
Culture was created for God, this should be a reason enough to study it , Postmodernism reflect it ideals and values through the media, the popular culture which is directly influence to the youth no matter if they are part of the church or if they are not, it still been a strong influence.
To know what it is Popular Culture about would help us to understand the new process for which youth in this time is going through, confronting difficult transition from adolecens to adulthood, creating a tension in the teen's creating questions like who i am? and what is my place in the world?
Postmodernism created a status of indivituation, where confront the youth we the picture of the thinking proces in order to formulate a desicion which could affect the rest of his life, this pression ( internal and external ) is affected for what they hear and see in the media that surrownded. we need to be aware of what happend in our around, in our comunity, it doesn't matter how many theory we may know, but if we dont know how to apply it to our daily life, it would be unworthy.
Rudolph Bahro, quoted in The Post Evangelical
Why study Popular Culture?
- Popular culture is related to Movies, music, and television, this are the primary form of disseminating values, ideas, and ethics.
- Popular culture serves as way of comunication of hte postmodern world.
Popular Culture both reflects who we are as people and also helps shape us as people. The implications if both factors are profund. We have participated in number of conversations about whether popular culture shapes public ideas or merely acts as a mirror reflecting our ideas back to us.
Culture was created for God, this should be a reason enough to study it , Postmodernism reflect it ideals and values through the media, the popular culture which is directly influence to the youth no matter if they are part of the church or if they are not, it still been a strong influence.
To know what it is Popular Culture about would help us to understand the new process for which youth in this time is going through, confronting difficult transition from adolecens to adulthood, creating a tension in the teen's creating questions like who i am? and what is my place in the world?
Postmodernism created a status of indivituation, where confront the youth we the picture of the thinking proces in order to formulate a desicion which could affect the rest of his life, this pression ( internal and external ) is affected for what they hear and see in the media that surrownded. we need to be aware of what happend in our around, in our comunity, it doesn't matter how many theory we may know, but if we dont know how to apply it to our daily life, it would be unworthy.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Friday After School Program Visit
The conflict between the moral responsibility, and the legal responsibility.
This past Friday I was face to this question, what I am going to do if I see the need in the community, but I don’t reach the legal standard?.
Probably in the every day ministry we are going to face this question, probably it is not going to be so general like: should I run a after school program if I don’t have the license and the permission from the respective authority?, but it probably would sound like: should I help that little illegal kid, who just came to the country, he doesn’t have papers to go to the doctor or to even apply to a school, or for others after school programs?
From our Moral or for our Christian point of view, we probably are going to choose to help, because that is what we are told, but what comes with this decision, what are the repercussions of out acts, I have to remember that I am not alone in this, and that I am part of a bigger organization and that I have to be responsible in front of the respective authorities.
This past Friday I was challenge to do what is right to do, I was challenge to go “against the flow”, or to “go with the flow” it depends from were you see it, but most of all, to do what is right, when is right.
This past Friday I was face to this question, what I am going to do if I see the need in the community, but I don’t reach the legal standard?.
Probably in the every day ministry we are going to face this question, probably it is not going to be so general like: should I run a after school program if I don’t have the license and the permission from the respective authority?, but it probably would sound like: should I help that little illegal kid, who just came to the country, he doesn’t have papers to go to the doctor or to even apply to a school, or for others after school programs?
From our Moral or for our Christian point of view, we probably are going to choose to help, because that is what we are told, but what comes with this decision, what are the repercussions of out acts, I have to remember that I am not alone in this, and that I am part of a bigger organization and that I have to be responsible in front of the respective authorities.
This past Friday I was challenge to do what is right to do, I was challenge to go “against the flow”, or to “go with the flow” it depends from were you see it, but most of all, to do what is right, when is right.
Sunday Holiness meeting, February 24, 2008
What a great experience was the one I lived, the way that the Holy Spirit moved at that places was awesome. Most of the time we just are so attach to the structure of the program, to the time, to the assistance, even to the space, that we forgot that this is not for us, it is for God, and He is the only one worthy of worship and praise.
Every experience is getting deeper and deepen in my heart, and every day, every thing make more sense.
This Sunday we were challenge with the question if we were strong enough. We read from Joshua 1: 1-9, and I must say that this passage keep getting in my way, and it is probably because I am keep missing something, and it must be because of these, that it keep getting in my way.
This passage is particular special for me; this is the scripture that my dear father give to me every time I leave from home, to a concert, to a trip, to a tour, to a new adventure in a different country. To be strong, to stay for what it right, but also to recognize that it takes courage to do it and to stand up and do it are always the words that he gave me, and I feel that God is telling me the same, he is leading me to what he want me to do, God is taking me to the place where he wants me to be.
One day I promised that I will follow Him “every time, every where, no matter what” and it takes courage to do it, but God is there to give me the strength to keep going.
Lead me, Lord, I will follow you
Lead me, Lord, I will go
You have called me, I will answer
Lead me, Lord, I will go.
Every experience is getting deeper and deepen in my heart, and every day, every thing make more sense.
This Sunday we were challenge with the question if we were strong enough. We read from Joshua 1: 1-9, and I must say that this passage keep getting in my way, and it is probably because I am keep missing something, and it must be because of these, that it keep getting in my way.
This passage is particular special for me; this is the scripture that my dear father give to me every time I leave from home, to a concert, to a trip, to a tour, to a new adventure in a different country. To be strong, to stay for what it right, but also to recognize that it takes courage to do it and to stand up and do it are always the words that he gave me, and I feel that God is telling me the same, he is leading me to what he want me to do, God is taking me to the place where he wants me to be.
One day I promised that I will follow Him “every time, every where, no matter what” and it takes courage to do it, but God is there to give me the strength to keep going.
Lead me, Lord, I will follow you
Lead me, Lord, I will go
You have called me, I will answer
Lead me, Lord, I will go.
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