Divine Vocation In Another Life By John Walcott

Salvation describes the deliverance by God for those who believe in him. It is the saving of the soul from sin (and its consequences) through Gods will and grace. Though it takes different forms in every religion, the principle is still the same, often emphasising the necessity of both good works, repentance, and asceticism, as well as divine intervention (in this case the action being the grace of God). If assuming that Christ is the full truth, then the only way to gain access to God after death is through the salvation given by the Christian God. Jesus himself has indicated that a person must hear the word, believe it, repent of past sins, and be willing to confess faith before others, be baptized into Christ for the remission of sins, and then continue to live a faithful life throughout this physical life if we are to go to heaven.

The voice of vocation is mostly discerned through the heart; therefore, one must consciously be aware of the matters that occupy the heart. In John Neafsey’s “A Sacred Voice Is Calling,” Neafsey asserts “The voice of vocation is the voice of God” (Neafsey, 6). By hearing the voice of God, we’re able to reach the destiny God predestined us for in life and especially in our vocations. In order to hear the voice of God, you have to be able to discern between the many voices you hear every day, the voice of your conscience, and God’s voice. You do so by: consistently managing the matters of the heart- monitoring what you allow to physically and mentally enter into your heart, learning to discern between those things by familiarizing yourself with

In this paper, I will review Charles Ryrie’s book The Holy Spirit. I will detail what I feel the book is about. I will emphasize various points given by the author that stood out to me. Finally, I will give my personal evaluation of the book.

     Lives of the Saints is a story that examines the complexities and tribulations of everyday life in a small town. Throughout the novel, we discover that even the most trustworthy and caring individuals live secret lives behind closed doors, and that the surface appearance of minor communities can be very deceptive. Some people spend their entire adult-lives trying to knock down these doors and discover the truth, but perhaps they are overlooking the key to the lock… our children.

However, in the following stanzas, Carter changes his tone and tense to show how he felt growing up with his father. He states, “I despised the discipline / he used to shape what I should be” (7-8). This shows Carter, even though he disliked the means of reprimand his father implemented, understands his father’s ways were to help him become the man he “should be.” Through this insight, Carter says, “not owning up that he might feel / his own when he punished me” (9-10). This is possibly saying not only did he bear the chastisement, but his father sensed the “pain” as well. Yet again, maybe Carter has a deeper message and is saying fathers and their children share the same troubles and triumphs. In addition, Carter remembers how he “didn’t show [his] need to him, / since his response to an appeal / would not have meant as much” (11-13). Furthermore, he states “his response,” (12) “would not have… / …been as real” (14). Telling such a harsh reality, Carter contrasts his statement and relays to the reader through “those rare [hard] times,” (15) “…the pure joy / survive[d]” (16-17).

Walcott effectively separates the poem into two parts according to the state of mind he was in: fright and then wonder. He shifts from these two contrasting moods by stating “There’s childhood, and there’s childhood’s

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and enlarge his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. He wanted to understand what changed her like this. He wanted to relate with his wife so he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel began his journey and interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament. Strobel splits the case for Christ into three basic sections: Examining the Record, Analyzing Jesus, and Researching the Resurrection.

I had the privilege of interviewing Brian Bagwell for this project. He is, in my opinion, one of most humble, wisest man we have at Church of the Highlands. Once you get through a joke or two, the fruits of the spirit radiate from his personality. A man that I have the privilege to call my mentor and teacher. He is currently serving on staff at the Church of the Highlands as a Dream Team Coordinator. His shares the vision of the church which is passed down from our senior pastor, Chris Hodges. Evangelism is the definition of the church so to speak, Church of the Highlands stands behind the final authority of God’s word which is the bible. It is often said among the staff “we do not argue the essentials, but we can disagree the non essentials.” The church believes and acts in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, and helping people move through four steps our God has outlined in the Great Commission. Our Church exists to see people saved, delivered, redeemed, and fulfilled. This is accomplished with four systems that allow the people to move through the four steps. The first is weekend services to allow them to know God (saved), small groups to find freedom (delivered), growth track to discover purpose (redeemed), and dream team to be fulfilled and make a difference (fulfilled). This vision is how the church evangelizes (Bagwell). This vision is clear to all members of the church who call Church of the Highlands home, and even clear to people

Often times we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. Beth Felker Jones in her work entitled “God the Spirit” serves as an introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit in a distinctly Wesleyan and Ecumenical Perspective. Jones is working against the notion that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is often the most neglected of all Christian teachings (1). She recognizes her experience within the Wesleyan tradition as one that shapes her pneumatology and this book. She asserts that one of Wesleyan Christianity’s special gifts is it’s “leaning against any tendency to neglect the Spirit” (4). Even with this framework she aims to place the Wesleyan perspective in a larger ecumenical milieu that shows the continuity of a Wesleyan pneumatology with the Tradition of the Church. Overall, her approach is very accessible, as she assumes very little and writes in such a way that allows her to cover large dogmatic topics clearly and concisely. By merit of simply being an introduction only style book, there is the risk of glossing over topics and not providing enough in depth discussion to fully understand and comprehend the doctrine discussed. A reader should feel confident that Jones has indeed provided us with a solid introduction to Wesleyan pneumatology that has the ability to bear fruit and initiate growth in the life of the believer.

Christopher “Alexander Supertramp” McCandless was a dreamer. However, unlike most of us nowadays, Christopher turned his desire for adventure into reality. Similar to Buddha, he gave up his wealth, family, home, and most possessions except the ones he carried before embarking on his journey. He traveled by various methods, mostly on foot, to eventually reach his desired goal in the Alaskan wilderness. Unfortunately, due to various mistakes, Christopher ultimately passed and his body was found in a neglected Fairbank City Transit Bus. His motivation to achieve his goal was based on the many aspects of his life. Chris’s dysfunctional family weighed heavily on him, one prime reason for driving him onto the road of freedom.

Spiritual disciplines will prepare us for our journey in Christ. I feel if understanding correctly, the classical Christian Pilgrimage remind us that we all have issues requiring regular examination. In chapter eight, the classical Christian Pilgrimage tells us we are at different stages on the path of wholeness in Christ. However, in my thoughts some areas of our Christian journey we may be doing well, but in other areas we have not touched at all. Not to mention, these are the place we are not ready or capable of handling yet, however, as we mature in God and He knows what we can handle, then we are awakened. God awakens us to our true selves which have not been completely revealed. In reality, once we reach maturity to God, he reveals all that is hidden deep inside of us (the real us/you). By the same token, he let us see the inner behaviors, attitudes, desires, in fact how we measure up in them being Christ-like. I feel the awakening stage deals with the comfort of being set free of these issues that are holding us back also causing detours on our path to wholeness in Christ. Equally, the threat is being afraid to see who we really are; also how far from Christ-like we really are. We must first be awakened from our separation also alienation from God (Mulholland 79-82).

Alice Walker wrote the poem “Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit,” to express that we as humans live different lives, some harder than others, and some just a different type of harder; but in the end we live the way we can and to our ability. Alice Walker was born in 1944 in Putman County, Georgia. She was the youngest of eight children. Walker attended Spelman College in 1961 on a full scholarship. In 1962, during her education at Spelman she met

Simply put in words, the parents’ love is a child lost in a large maze

Spiritual autobiographies can be loosely defined as an individual's story about how God has interacted with their life. Sometimes it touches on if they had lost their faith and how God gave it back, or how their faith had been made stronger. It is hard to put Ghazalis book into one category, but spiritual autobiography does make sense.

I really love how the poet empathized and encouraged his readers to treat their lives in a meaningful way. For example, in the second stanza, he uses a didactic tone to say, “Life is real! Life is earnest!” He repeated the word life twice with the exclamation marks to put emphasis to the readers about his point. His major point is that life is real and serious and it is not something that can be treated in an inessential or meaningless way. He also asserts that valuable life comes from taking actions and patients. The last line of the poem states “still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.” This verse means that although life can be a hard and exhausting work, it is worthwhile when considering the amount of development