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Sunrise Super Kids Preschool and Primary School is a community situated in Mokopane. There are lots of different opportunities to build bridges for the faith community to respond to various challenges that they are facing.
The children at this school have discipline issues. A faith community needs to realize that discipline starts within a child’s heart and can only improve by the grace of God. According to the true nature of missional calling, we must educate the students on God’s truths and provide a reason why certain rules are in place by use of God’s word. God should be at the center of discipline efforts. This will ensure that the children understand why discipline is important.
Another issue that this community faces is social-emotional issues that include: bullying, social isolation, and emotional traumas. As a faith community, we should show love, kindness, and generosity to those around us to set an example of how to treat others with respect. It is important to set a good example for kids. This alone however is not enough. We should create an awareness of these issues practically: presenting a play or creating a story so that the children can experience empathy towards bullying isolation or traumas that their classmates face. Creating awareness among the teachers in this community is important to build bridges so that further inspection of these challenges can be faced and overcome.
Poverty is also a need in this community. Some children don’t even have a lunchbox at school with food to fuel their bodies. This creates a further problem among kids of not performing well academically. As followers of Christ, we should foster a culture of generosity and compassion by promoting charitable giving within a community. We can establish or support organizations that, for example, host soup kitchens or food pantries, do clothing drives, support financial aid, and have shelter provisions. We can promote economic development by advocating for policies that support job creation and growth and supporting local businesses. By doing these things, the faith community builds bridges from the economy to the community to the people and then ultimately to the children that they send to this school so that they can learn more efficiently.
To conclude, the faith community should cultivate opportunities in communities to create a space of growth and respond to different challenges in communities.
Dear Juwayda,
It is clear that you have a good understanding of what humility and having a Christlike presence is. By use of your various examples, you have made it clear that serving others is a way of showing Christ-like humility. By making time for the people in Mavhusa, and by going to them in their homes, a presence of the holy spirit is conveyed to the people. This, as you explained, builds up trust in communities. Through reading your discussion, the power in establishing a humble, Christlike presence is made very clear.
Colossians 3:12: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”
According to cslewisinstitute.org, one should lay down a biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness, find examples from scripture and come to practical conclusions. This is having a Christ-like presence. True humility seeks to bring honor and glory to God while looking out for the interests of others. Jesus is the best example of this Biblical characteristic.
This is seen in the way that Jesus willingly became a servant, he washed his disciple’s feet and he ultimately died on the cross for our sins. Jesus impacted those around him through servant leadership. Having a humble and Christ-like presence has a big impact on communities.
Humility and having a Christ-like presence has the power to reduce conflict, improve communication, promote learning and growth, address systematic issues, and ultimately drive a community to live a Godly life. As followers of Jesus we can do this by actively listening to others and doing self-reflection on our own humility. And we can work on having a Christ-like presence through prayer and sharing the faith.
The need of healthcare in Zambia, as you described, is very big. You and your church therefore shows the goodness of God in their community. By saving lives and curing illnesses, I believe that the community of Zambia could really experience God’s miracles and therefore also share His goodness to the rest of the people in the community. As you said in your discussion, the amount of people that this outreach helped is a testimony of God’s grace and love.
I am apart of a local church in Hermanus called Onrusrivier. There is a wide range of needs that can be met by me and my church. An example of these needs can be seen in an outreach we did to a small town in the Northern Cape called Victoria West. We met the community’s social and emotional needs by praying with and for them and spending time with them. Having open conversations with them about the negatives of their community, enabled them to create solutions to these problems and also empowered them to make a difference. We also supplied food to their community for the week that we were there. In doing so we not only momentarily solved their food insecurity, but inspired local leaders of the community to open a soup kitchen within the community. This is a definite display of God’s goodness in the lives of the community that we reached.
Starting with Jesus as a central point in your discussion really reminded me that missions are grounded in the love of Jesus. The use of Luke 4:16-37 really shows how missions is an expression of the nature of God and it really ties in with the central message that we as missionaries must imitate Christ in order to then express God’s nature.
Missions can be defined as proclaiming the gospel, making disciples and sharing the faith whilst serving others in different communities. Missions is an expression of the nature of God because Jesus himself came down to earth, preaching the gospel, making disciples of all nations and serving others miraculously. Missions therefore shows the loving, compassionate and healing nature of God.
I loved your approach of looking at the spiritual leader’s home life. By starting at home and establishing a relationship with God as a family, the leader and his/her family can make an impact on the rest of the community.
I agree with the statement of having a spiritual leader’s children learn about what it means to give from a very young age. As a spiritual leader it is important to teach their kids what it is to live like Christ.
The explanation of leaders having a big responsibility made me reconsider my perspective on spiritual leaders. They are only human, but still the way they love and lead has a big impact. As you said, it is very important for leaders to have a spiritually healthy life.
[reply to Jade Julius]
DISCUSSION 1
A leader should spiritually transform his/her own family by nurturing his/her own spiritual disciplines. The leader should discover him/herself as a person of Christian virtue and character. Good leaders must first lead themselves to Christ before being able to transform his/her family spiritually. The leader should help improve each family member’s mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Strategies that a spiritual leader can use to help his/her family grow includes: having prayer sessions together daily to communicate with God and to ask for spiritual growth or any other situation that the family has to work through together. The leader could urge his/her family to go to church together, study scripture together and even actively talking about spiritual matters. Spiritually should be made apart of daily family life. Families could also fast together to keep each other accountable and to encourage each other. A lot of valuable spiritual conversations could arise by doing these things.
The dangers for families that are led by spiritual leaders and vocational ministers could include: stress/burnout due to different responsibilities and schedules that they might have to face. This is a danger because the well-being of the spiritual leader/vocational minister affects the well-being of those around them [family]. These leaders might also experience difficulty when dealing with their work-life balance, in other words they will struggle to give equal attention to both their families and their congregation. Thus the spiritual formation of the family will be negatively affcted because of the fact that balance has been broken.
A spiritual leader’s care for his/her family has a significant impact on the families in the congregation. The care acts as a visual example of how one should care for family. The spiritual leader acts as a role model as he/she is in contact with all the members of the congregation. A good example of care and help with spiritual formation towards his/her family shown by the spiritual leader will enable the motivation for spiritual growth within a lot of different families in the congregation. It could also build trust and spirituality within the community.
Yache Calitz: Discussion 1
A leader should spiritually transform his/her own family by nurturing his/her own spiritual disciplines. The leader should discover him/herself as a person of Christian virtue and character. Good leaders must first lead themselves to Christ before being able to transform his/her family spiritually. The leader should help improve each family member’s mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Strategies that a spiritual leader can use to help his/her family grow includes: having prayer sessions together daily to communicate with God and to ask for spiritual growth or any other situation that the family has to work through together. The leader could urge his/her family to go to church together, study scripture together and even actively talking about spiritual matters. Spiritually should be made apart of daily family life. Families could also fast together to keep each other accountable and to encourage each other. A lot of valuable spiritual conversations could arise by doing these things.
The dangers for families that are led by spiritual leaders and vocational ministers could include: stress/burnout due to different responsibilities and schedules that they might have to face. This is a danger because the well-being of the spiritual leader/vocational minister affects the well-being of those around them [family]. These leaders might also experience difficulty when dealing with their work-life balance, in other words they will struggle to give equal attention to both their families and their congregation. Thus the spiritual formation of the family will be negatively affected because of the fact that balance has been broken.
A spiritual leader’s care for his/her family has a significant impact on the families in the congregation. The care acts as a visual example of how one should care for family. The spiritual leader acts as a role model as he/she is in contact with all the members of the congregation. A good example of care and help with spiritual formation towards his/her family shown by the spiritual leader will enable the motivation for spiritual growth within a lot of different families in the congregation. It could also build trust and spirituality within the community.
Authenticity is the ability to live your life according to your true goals and values while disregarding what others might do otherwise. To be true to your spirit. Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of he mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
People often get wrapped up in the idea that they were put on this earth to go to drastic measures in order to discover their one true calling in life to find their purpose. I was one of these people. From a very young age living a difficult life was a normality. I’ve been surrounded by negativity for most of my childhood, where the thought of an authentic calling to my purpose in life seemed impossible. I have always strived for perfection. I have a hunger to improve myself every single day of my life. My values are strong. Honesty, integrity, compassion, loyalty, dependability, adaptability and kindness.
Looking back on my life, God has always been present. I was born into a strong Christian family, regardless of their own faults. I have always had a wonderful church community. God spoke to me through the church without me knowing. I was given the opportunity to go on my first outreach in 2020. After that outreach my whole life changed. Suddenly the hunger I had for finding my true purpose in life changed to a hunger to serve God, know God, love God, and to be His child. Matthew 19:14 “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” I no longer needed to discover my purpose because God IS my purpose. I went on several more outreaches with God always roaming in my heart.
On my most recent outreach I was given the task of praying for many members of the youth in Victoria-Wes. There was about 25 individuals who came to me one-by-one for me to pray for them. I have never been the person to do tasks like this. I am not a person who usually leads others or even talks much, so being given this task came to a big shock. I did not think that I would ever be able to do it. As I sat in the prayer room, individuals appeared one after the other. God breathed his word into my heart, he led me through the storms of these peoples stories and allowed me to open up to them, praying for them. I realized that God is calling me to be apart of the service to His kingdom. I gave my life to Him and allowed him to be the puppet master of the strings of my heart, leading me to the place I am meant to be.
A minister’s authentic calling therefore enables an authentic flow of ministry. God speaks to others through your authentic way of living, through your life and the way God moves through you. This will allow them to learn from your way of living and will then discover that their true calling is in fact to be apart of God’s kingdom.
