Category: General

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Dr. King is one of the heroes of both the civil rights movement and also of the Christian faith. Dr. King’s commitment to his faith led to one of the best examples of the correct way to mix God and politics that the United States has ever seen. Dr. King was not afraid to step out in faith to seek change that seemed impossible at the time. Even when cast into the public spotlight, Dr. King retained his integrity and remembered that his ultimate goal was to bring glory to God. While started with noble intentions, many recent religious political movements, such as the Religious Right, seem to have lost sight of the ultimate goal in favor of attempting to stay in power continually. Christian politicians today would be well advised to follow Dr. King’s example, instead of attempting to hide their faith or use their seemingly meaningless faith as a trump card in elections.

JR has an excellent post in celebration of Martin Luther King day. The post is largely a sermon that Dr. King preached about the role of faith, prayer, and God. Dr. King’s text is Mark 9:14-29.

http://www.jrwoodward.net/jrwoodward/2006/01/three_kinds_of__1.html

Those of you who have been around me for a while know that I like goals. I am very vision oriented–I believe in having a set direction and establishing a path of how to get there (think Proverbs 29:18). However, I always shy away from making New Year’s resolutions, or for that matter, talking about goals in January, for fear that they will be seen as New Year’s resolutions. I think my fear of New Year’s resolutions comes from the popular perception that new years resolutions by definition have no follow through. I’ve also shied away from making my goals public, probably out of fear that I’ll be held to them. I’m not going to do that this semester. I’ve been contemplating writing this post for several weeks, but thanks to Matt Rogers for giving me the kick in the seat of the pants I needed to actually get the list finalized and posted. Feel free to ask me how I’m doing with any of the goals listed below.

1. Prayer
   I firmly believe that having an active prayer life is one of the most important parts of being a Christian. While I feel that I’ve improved my prayer life greatly over the past few years and especially over the last semester, I feel that I’m not where I should be with prayer. I also feel that I have dropped the ball on prayer with regards to vtONE. We used to have an prayer team, which is no longer the case. Nearly everything that happened as a result of vtONE this past semester is a direct answer to prayers prayed over the past three years, which is amazing, but it also tells me how important prayer is and how vtONE needs to do more in the area of prayer. Personally, I need to be more consistent about praying for campus transformation, people that are in my life (especially ones that I see infrequently), and my family. I need to do a better job writing down what I’ve been praying for, to make sure that I don’t miss seeing God’s answers to prayers.
2. Scripture memorization
   Something else that I need to be working on is memorizing more scripture. I figure that I’ve been a Christian for at least 13 years now, and yet I don’t have very much of the Bible memorized. Having Scripture memorized makes handling a lot of situations easier, since you know a truth to apply to the situation. Another plus is that it makes writing or preparing to speak easier–less things that need looking up. This semester, I want to memorize 1 John, plus another passage a week. This week is Matthew 22:36-40.
3. People
   One of the core values of my church in DC is that “people matter to God and to us.” I firmly believe in that statement, but I’ve done both really good and really bad in that area. Last semester, I was averaging close to a month turn around on personal emails to me–many from people who I consider close friends and mentors. That’s just not acceptable! I’ve done a good job spending time with lots of different people and making myself accessible to my friends, but only the friends who live in close proximity to me. I also haven’t taken enough time to invest myself into many of the people who I have been working with. A lot of that comes down to people who are helping with vtONE, who have not seen near as much of me as they should. I also need to make more of an effort to build relationships with the campus ministers from the ministries that sponsor vtONE.
4. Personal fitness
   I didn’t want to put this as a goal, because I’ve done a great job of making this a goal and a horrible job of making it happen. However, when I was working on the list earlier, my roommate Justin asked me to go running with him (we ran two miles). I took the hint. Even though I figure I walk between three and five miles on an average day with classes, I am not in as good of shape as I should be. I need to work on establishing healthy habits, because I’m already noticing that my metabolism is starting to slow down. I also feel better when I’ve been exercising regularly.

Again, please feel free to ask me about any or all of these goals (please be specific!). I need the encouragement and accountability!

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light,
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:2-7