The call to discipleship Essay Example for Free

The call to discipleship Essay Vocation comes from the Latin word calling which we as Christians believe is a calling from God to become followers of Jesus and make our pilgrimage her on earth. Throughout the old and new testament God has called to people and inspired them to begin their individual vocation through the use of the holy spirit which strengthens the individuals mind and body since God is now with them to guide the on their journey. Presumable of the most famous callings in the Old Testament was that of Moses where he was called by God when the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush allowing him to received the Holy Spirit which enabled him to embark on his vocation to lead his people into freedom and salvation from their Egyptian rulers. Consequently many people now, in contemporary society are inspired and motivated by this same Holy Spirit giving them the spiritual strength to begin on their own vocation as God uses the Holy Spirit to speak with his people directly as in the burning bush or in directly as in through life experiences, natural events or historical events. The Gospel indicate that a decisive moment for Jesus when he realised his calling was with his meeting with John the Baptist, where upon coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit, like a dove, descend on him and a voice come out from heaven saying you are my son the beloved; my favour rests at you. Consequently it is at this point that Jesus realised his calling when receiving the Holy Spirit, leading him to begin his public ministry as is displayed in Matthew 4:1-2. Essentially Jesus baptism allowed him to foresee his vocation as well as strengthening his mind and body to continue with his vocation even though he known of the troubled times he will come across as God was there to guide and protect him. Furthermore due to Jesus vocation Simon and Andrew acknowledged there when they were recruited by Jesus to became his disciples as Jesus announces he will make the fishers, fishers of men causing them to leave their nets and follow him as they realised t heir vocation was to be a disciple for Jesus by learner for the wise man, as told in Mark 16:20. Through his various teaching and parables, Jesus taught his disciples to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Matthew 5:44, outlining his teaching about loving your neighbours on the Sermon on the Mount in Mark 7:24-27. During which his expands on the Ten Commandments Moses had inscribed on the rock teaching that the most important commandment was to love God with all your heart, mind and strength followed closely by the golden rule telling early Christians to do onto others as you would like them to do onto you. After Jesus death many of these teachings were continued by the work of the apostles who were filled with the energy of God as they saw tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there filling them with the holy spirit inspiring them to teach to people across the world as Jesus had done Acts 2:1-5. Consequently all the marks of a disciple of Jesus being love, compassion and service to the lord stayed with the disciple well after Jesus death as a result of his teaching prior to his death, such as in the last supper John 13:14 where Jesus washed the feets of his disciple if I, your lord and teacher have washed your feet, you then should wash the feet of others. Furthermore the fact that disciple comes from the Latin word learner proved to be the bases of which the disciples had to undergo before they were able to able apostles of the lord and spread the word of God. Baptism, being a Greek work for being bathed or totally washed is the sacrament for the initiation of a person into the Christian community, helping us unshackle our souls from the original sin committed Adam and Eve from their failure to obey God. For Catholics baptism is the normal way by which a person becomes a Christian and is celebrated by a religious ceremony of initiation by a person into the Christian community. The origin of baptism began with the baptism of Jesus marking a new beginning in his life since he received the Holy Spirit and God declared him to be his son. Through this sacrament a person who is baptised becomes a child of God by receiving the Holy Spirit as well as their calling from God. They are many different types of paths a person can follow each with an individual vocation ranging from discipleship, being called a witness or being a member a community. The laity can follow in Jesus example and lead a vocation of their own in several different ways all through the work they do. The call to religious life is the vocation undertaken by monks and nuns who believe that to be able to show complete and utter dedication to their religion means they must isolate themselves from the busyness of contemporary by spending most of their lives praying and reflecting. Furthermore the call to Priesthood is another vocation that some few select people in contemporary society embark on which involves them taking the three evangelical as those who chose the religious life. Although people recognise these vocations are important as they show dedication to God, the call to married life and parenthood also show the same devotion to God since 1 Corinthians tell us that . Consequently this vocation can only be undertaken by the laity whom have not had to take any of the three evangelical counsel preventing them from marring or having children. Additionally as well as these vocations there are many others which people do as a career although not to obtain money but to give service to others through their job e.g. doctor, nurse, teacher or social worker. In conclusion there are many ways in which to show love towards God such as praying, attending mass and showing compassion towards others which Jeusu taught us to do, during his time here on earth. aii) explain why some Christians join communities and take vows of poverty chastity and obedience For the many Christian that choose to dedicate there lives to God and live their life in a religious order, the fundamental reason they that believe that this type of life will be better suited to them is that they deem that the new change in life will help them come closer to Jesus in many new ways as they will be encouraged in that pursuit by the examples of other sincere Christian who want to do the same. Additionally it is easier for them to achieve their purpose without the distractions and busy-ness of modern living with its emphasis on materialism. This life new type of life relieves them of the demands of partners, children or work and thus giving them more time to spend in prayer, meditation and worship. The roots of monasteries can be traced back to the time of Jesus when Christians were being persecuted for their belief, because of this to be a faithful Christian meant being willing to be a martyr, which required a high level of dedication to the gospel. However as Christianity came into favour and the persecution stopped some Christians desired to restore the high level of dedication as they had experience during the persecution. They did this by living as hermit in isolated places such as deserts and eventually joined together in communities setting the beginning of a monastic life. At this present time these communities of Christian who have separated themselves from their worldly possessions to commit to become as perfect Christians as possible are called monasteries. These days the people living this kind of life are called monks and nuns and abide by arrangement which they must live under called a rule, the best known monastic rule being that of Saint Benedict. Religious communities are now more diverse in nature but all share the same desire for dedication to the Gospel. The three evangelical counsels which monks and nuns take when they join a religious order are the vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. The vow of poverty is taken by monks and nuns to allow them to experience the life of the poor as theyre more sensitive to the needs of the poor when poor themselves than being blinded by wealth. Consequently to do this shows complete trust in God as it enable them to live in the service of others as Jesus did, founding the origins of Christians poverty. Furthermore for someone to be a true follower of God the must give up all their earthly possession to inherit the treasures of heaven as Jesus said to the rich young man (Mark 10:17-22) Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Furthermore monks and nuns take the vow of chastity as living a celibate life allows them to dedicate their life to the Gospels without the distraction of family life or working life. Living a celibate life mean that both monks and nuns have to give up their sexual relations like Jesus and not have a husband, wife or children because Christians husbands and wives have the duties of loving each other and share in the responsibility of looking after the children, limiting what they can do to promote the gospel and live in service to others like Jesus disciples. The third of the three evangelical counsels, which monks and nuns take, is the vow of obedience. They vow to be obedient to God and follow in Jesus example as the bible depicts Jesus as being in perfect obedience to God since Christians believe that he died not because he wanted to, but in accordance with Gods will (Mark 14:32-36) Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it. For the dedicated Christians who want to be as obedient as Jesus they must all obey human authority that in included in obedience to God because all authority comes from God, although many people find it difficult to submit authority because of their pride. Consequently the vow of obedience enables a religious community to be united in the service of God and others with an abbot if chosen by monks or mother superior if chosen by nuns leading them. There are many religious orders in contemporary society all whom follow the examples set by Jesus although in different ways. Apostolic order or those who lead active lives try to show their love for God by helping their neighbours directly. For example Benedictine monks provide education in their schools and by doing this show their love towards their neighbours which in turn shows love for God. However there are orders whom unlike the Benedictine monks follow the contemplative life by being totally focused on God. This requires them to be separated from the everyday world and be committed to God as a contemplative person, mainly monks and nuns, is one who seeks to live with a permanent awareness of Gods presence. Consequently orders such as these show their devotion to God by reading and meditating on scriptures in order to understand Gods purpose and to experience his love in their lives. Additionally they spend most of the time in prayer to God to be able to listen to what he has to say to them. aiii) explain the purpose and practice of ONE particular religious community An example of a religious order that exits in contemporary society and leads both active and contemplative lives is that of the Friars of the Order of Preachers, known as Dominicans after they founder St Dominic. They are a religious order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. The Order was founded in the south of France in the early thirteenth century where St Dominic realised that some of the central truths of the gospel were being denied, and saw the need to establish a preaching community. Consequently Dominic and his brothers showed by their lives and in their preaching that it was possible to live a radical form of life without abandoning the truth of the gospel. This message soon spread quickly throughout Europe, being especially strong in the centres of learning. The Order was known from the beginning to have been instituted especially for preaching and the salvation of souls and is appointed entirely for the complete evangelisation of the Word of God. Dominican friars live in priories, usually with at least six brothers under an elected prior. The Divine Office and Mass are sung daily by the community, and form the heart of the common life. Sharing meals and recreation together is also an important part of community life. Any works of the brothers are seen as works they do as a member of the priory. They profess obedience directly to the Master of the Order, and so can be moved to another priory, as the needs of the Church and if the Order requires. As part of their profession of obedience they also bind themselves to the celibate life and the life of personal poverty, so as to be free for the common apostolate. Their life is not only a witness to the gospel in itself, but prepares them to preach that gospel. So that they can minister the word and the sacraments of faith, most of the brothers are ordained priests; however there are also non-ordained brothers who contribute in various ways to the preaching community and thus share fully in the work of the order. As they are required to be men of prayer, in times of quiet contemplation as well as in the liturgy and in all that they do, they must never lose touch with the God whom they study and preach. Dominican friars are both apostolic and contemplative. Contemplation means both prayer and study, so all the brothers are called upon to devote time to study, whatever their other work might be. In a number of cases this means full-time academic research and teaching, but for every friar it means a continual enrichment of their preaching. The first eight years of a friars life in the Order are set aside for full-time initial formation, principally the study of theology and philosophy, according to the needs and abilities of the brothers. The purpose of their regular and contemplative life is to prepare them to preach the gospel, not only in the homilies given at Mass, but also by lecturing, writing books and pamphlets, appearing on radio or television and producing material for the Internet. They preach their gospel to the people they meet in their work in parishes, schools, hospitals, prisons, universities and all the other places where Dominican friars are found. Wherever their work takes them, they try to emulate their founder St Dominic, who, it was said, spoke always either to God or about God. Dominican priories in particular areas are grouped into provinces. It is the province, which is responsible for admitting, training and nurturing friars, and so a province builds up over time its own character and traditions. The English province covers the whole of Great Britain, and is also given the care of three islands in the West Indies. In Britain there are 75 friars in seven houses, at Oxford, London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Newcastle, Leicester and Glasgow. Apart from prayer and study there is a wide range of work that is done in these houses: parishes, chaplaincies to universities, schools, hospitals and prisons. A number of brothers are writers or lecturers, many of who teach in Blackfriars, a Hall of the University of Oxford run by the Order. There are nearly forty provinces of friars in the Order of Preachers, from all parts of the world, all united by obedience to the Master of the Order. Sharing in the charism of the order there are also enclosed nuns, apostolic sisters and members of Dominican lay fraternities, priestly fraternities and secular institutes. Their order has a world-wide mission, and so they work to spread the gospel not only by preaching in their own lands but also in those places around the world where the Christian message of hope has not been heard. b) Give response to the view that: Christians should lead active rather than contemplative lives. In the argument concerning whether Christians should lead an active rather than a contemplative life my beliefs would strongly support the argument for many reasons. The fundamental reason being that Jesus led an active life during his time here on earth by helping others and preaching the Word of God. Nevertheless many people believe that leading a contemplative life shows greater devotion to God as Jesus himself said that the first and greatest commandment is to love God and this should come above all other in his teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Consequently because of this many people may misinterpret the message given since not only can show the same devotion and love by leading a contemplative life but you can also show the same devotion and love by leading an active life. This is supported by the parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46) come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me, indicating that both active and contemplative lives show love to God as Jesus taught us that love must be more than mere words but we are charged to act on our love and this can only be done by living an active life since you go out and help people rather than pray all day. Furthermore Jesus sent his disciples as apostles with specific tasks (Mark 6:7-13) he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits tells us that we should follow the apostles example and lead an active life since Jesus told his own disciples to lead an active life making sure that Christianity exists in contemporary society as the apostles spread the word of God to all parts of the world they went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. Despite this clear example of why people should lead an active life some still disagree and say that Jesus praised the example of Mary over Martha (Luke 10:38-42) Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her telling them that showing devotion to God through prayer and contemplation is more worthy of praise. However even though Jesus may have said this, the fact that Christians should be Christ like means we should therefore do the kind of work he did and he led an active life himself. The Gospel offers us numerous examples of the compassion shown by Jesus to the sick, the lame, the lepers and those who were considered to be outcastes of his society. Jesus prayed over them but he also cured them. Consequently many Christians use this as their inspiration to act on their love of other through giving active service in their communities e.g. St Vincent De Paul, CAFOD, Missionaries of Charity all whom work to help the outcastes of our society. Those who lead contemplative lives, on the other hand say that Jesus himself went off to pray on different occasions such as his 40 days in the desert meaning he did sometimes lead a contemplative life therefore being alone to pray and mediate in order to communicate with God is a very important part of Christian Vocation. Nevertheless all Christians have a vocation to evangelise and this can only be done by leading an active life since in a contemplative monks and nuns usually live in enclosed orders cut off from the outside world to focus on their relationship with God. They defend their way of life by saying Jesus warned us against the possibility of becoming tangled up in material possessions in the Parable of the Rich Young Man (Mark 10:17-22) as it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Leading a contemplative life prevents this materialistic temptations encroach on life as they take vows of chastity, obedience and poverty to join their orders and do not mix with society. In conclusion I consider that leading an active life would be better than leading a contemplative life because it gives you the opportunity to help others which is what Jesus himself did and told others to do during his time here on earth. However, we should also combine this with times set aside in our day for prayer and contemplation. Sundays should be set aside for attending Mass and receiving Holy Communion. Many religious orders show us how it is possible to combine the active and contemplative life and Mother Teresas order. The Missionaries of Charity is an example. These sisters have special times during their day, which they set aside for prayer, meditation and contemplation. They also go to work in the Homes for the dying, the orphans or in the communities. For other monks and nuns who join contemplative orders, this is their choice and their belief that this is their vocation, a different route to heaven but no less important.

the mind Essay -- essays research papers

Free Your Mind - Free Your Life. Escape entrapment by developing: thought emotion, and communication. Clear out your mental garbage and Develop new ways of thinking. Avoid being overwhelmed - by your emotions or by another's. Be in control of your feelings and be in control your life. Renew your mind and renew your existence. We are trapped within our minds within our universes. Like the maker of the computer who becomes controlled by his creation, we as spiritual beings have become entrapped within our own creations - our minds. Developed, like the computer, to free us from the tedium of routine existence, our minds have become our masters. Made originally for us to control, they now control us. Minds full of junk As beings living now, we have minds filled with junk - perhaps from many aeons ago. And ways of doing things that belong in the days of tooth and claw! We need to both clean out our minds, and remake new, more useful programs to help us live effectively and to continue our spiritual quest. Our minds contain thoughts, procedures and images - pictures, sounds, feelings and taste-smells. We think by following procedures we have developed - but probably long forgotten and long been unaware of. For example, in a phobic situation, we see something which we associate with some emotions and consequently behave in a certain way. In the phobic state the emotion is fear and the behaviour is probably escape or attack. In a phobia the thing we are afraid of is not a threat to the body. "Nothing is a threat to the spirit!" (Nothing is a threat to the spirit!) The fear is irrational or extreme. Even if we do not have phobias, the principle affects all of us. The way we think in phobicly does not help us at all. At the very most it is a relic from some past threat. Phobias are not usually big issues with many of us, but their principle affects us all, when we think of irrational nervousness in situations where there is no physical threat. And the same mechanism works whenever we loose control of ourselves, either due to extremely pleasurable or painful emotions. We react with too much emotion and overwhelm ourselves. When we hear speech in a certain tone, for example, and we note certain actions we might conclude that the other person doesn't like us, and we think we should get our own back. Mental program: ... When ... ...fainted in a certain situation. She could not recall the image she made in that situation - that frightened her so much she fainted. So Freud sent her back to that situation, with the instructions that she should remember the image this time! By becoming aware and confronting the image, the girl was able to overcome her fainting attacks! Making Progress In making our progress we need to clear the mind of old, useless thoughts. We need to be aware of them and deal with them appropriately. These thoughts can be mental images, sounds, etc, and also language. Our minds can generalise and the troublesome thinking might be extremely abstract generalisations. By clearing the mind of this debris and replacing old, useless procedures with useful ones we can begin to make spiritual progress, and begin to learn about our true nature. Minds are useful, but not minds filled with garbage. The answer isn't to throw out the mind, but to clean it up and put the right data in it this time! Freed of our fears and our excitements, we can begin to live live more fully and happily, attaining our goals for the benefit of all. We will also have removed some of the impediments to spiritual development.

You Decide: Leonard Cooper Charter School Is a K-12 School

Print This Page Scenario Scenario Summary Leonard Cooper Charter School is a K-12 school with approximately 1,000 students. The school wants to develop a local area network that meets the needs of the school now and is scalable for the future. There have been numerous complaints about the speed and reliability of the network, especially since a new addition to the building was added a few years back. Your Role and Assignment You are the systems administrator contracted by Leonard Cooper to upgrade the local area network to meet the ever-increasing needs of the building's students and faculty members.Your first task is to interview key stakeholders to determine what the key areas of concern are. Activity The charter school's CEO has requested your help in updating the network to meet the demands of the building's faculty members and students. Your job is to interview the key stakeholders and to take action to remedy the issues that they have. Write a two to three page proposal address ing each of the stakeholder concerns. Use the technologies below for the areas of concern. All of the technologies listed below will not be used, so be careful with your choices.You must use one of the solutions below to address each area of concern. Be specific in your responses, and justify the use of each technology based upon the concern. Category 2 UTP 10Base – T Ethernet Cabling Category 5 UTP 100Base – T Ethernet Cabling Category 6 UTP 1000Base – T Ethernet Cabling Server Farm File Server Print Server 8 port hub 16 port hub 24 port hub 8 port switch 16 port switch 24 port switch Storage area network RAID Fiber 1000Based-F Domain controllers Bus topology Topology Microwave wireless media Infrared wireless media Radio wireless media K E Y P L A Y E R S Helen Ross, Network Technician, FemaleBack to top â€Å"I don't know who designed our old network or what they were thinking. You see, my job is to support the faculty in the building and to fix minor networ k issues. Well, we often have major issues in our building, and I'm hoping that you can make things better. Printing is a really problematic area for us. You see, we have over 50 networked printers in this building. Although we do need the printers, we need some way to consolidate the management of print jobs, as the queues on these printers often are filled. We also need to navigate to each printer individually to clear them.There has to be a better way because this is ridiculous. Collisions have become a problem for us as well since we started to add new computers a few years ago. In the morning when everyone gets in, network performance slows to a crawl because everyone is busy on the network with their morning attendance and checking e-mail. After performing a network analysis, I figured out that there were way too many collisions on the network. There has to be a way to fix this. † John Fischer, HVAC Tech, Male Back to top â€Å"You know, 20 years ago when I started in t his business, I never had to have discussions with the computer folks.My, how have times changed! Today, about 90% of my equipment located within the facility can be managed via my laptop and Web browser. Whenever I plug my laptop into the telephone looking jack in the wall, my operating system says that I'm now operating at 10 megabits. Then, whenever I browse to my equipment, I cannot retrieve any data. After going back and forth with the HVAC support techs, they determined that my connection needed to be 100 megabits. They said it must be my network because they were able to walk me through confirming my network card supported up to a 1 Gigabit connection.It would sure make my job a lot easier if I could manage this equipment via the Web. It would also be great to have the option of connecting to this equipment via a wireless connection of some sort. † Selena Daniels, Principal, Female Back to top â€Å"Thank goodness you are here to fix this mess. A few years ago, we adde d a new wing to the building. I'm glad we were able to fund the construction, but the network must have been underfunded. Each of the classroom areas does not have a live network connection port, and that has been a big problem for us because we cannot add additional network devices to the classroom.I asked the previous systems contractor about this, and she said that we have the ability to connect up to 7 classrooms, not 23. She said that's way too many. It's not too many when you have faculty members who now have desktops that are, basically, large paper weights. I need my people connected to the network in this wing, and that equipment needs to be used – bottom line. As for the seven classrooms I do have connected, the faculty there often complain that the connection from their area to the mail server at the other end of the building is often very slow. â€Å"Alfred Wingfield, IT Director, Male Back to top â€Å"This has been a long time coming. I told the contractors th at expanded our building a few years ago that we needed two things: just two simple things. One was and updated cable infrastructure that would enable us to integrate our voice over an I. P. system with our current data system. The other was that all of our backbone switches would be connected to each other with a high speed connection. What did I get? I got neither one of these request taken care of. I swear, I don't know how that crew left here with a pay check. Our voice over I.P. phones will not work because the vendor says we should be running at least a 1,000, 100 based network. As far as the backbone is concerned, after our last testing, I can honestly conclude that it is not running up to par. There is an extreme bottleneck, and communication from one end of the building to the other is sporadic at best. They gave us a twisted pair connection between our old wing backbone switch and the new wing backbone switch, which are about 120 meters apart. You have to have a better sol ution for us than this because this has been one frustrating ordeal! â€Å"

Democracy For Realist, Christopher H. Achen And Larry M....

Elections Can Determine Public Policy In their book, Democracy For Realist, Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels make a demanding argument about the U.S democratic election process. In short, their statistical analysis backed by social-scientific evidence concludes that public policy in America is not determined by elections. A slap in the face to decades of political science conventional wisdom as well as to the millions who still hold faith in the strong words spoken by Abraham Lincoln, â€Å"government of the people, by the people, for the people,† (Gettysburg Address, 1863). Achen and Bartels challenge two traditional models of elections, the first being the spatial theory, the second being the retrospective voting theory, collectively referring both as the â€Å"folk theory of democracy†. Their findings, although utterly depressing, comes across as a completely true reality in this age of modern politics. That being said, this paper will attempt to refute some of their findings. In doing so the goal is to address the question, do elections determine public policy? The answer to this question has important implications for understanding and modeling policy formation in a representative democracy. From both a theoretical and practical point of view, it is important to understand if voters still have the ability to provide meaningful input into public policies, or if the government simply bypasses citizens in favor of economic elites and interest groups with strong