Televised prayer

So I was watching TV the other day, and I was just flipping through the channels. Then I saw an infomercial about a "financial seed". So the reverend was "preaching" about how people should buy a financial seed for $100 and expect 7 days of miracles in return.

At first, I instantly thought, "wow how can people believe this?" then I tried to think of reasons why. He did a pretty good job of attacking disbelief and questions about morals. Like, he said that "it's not buying miracles, it's an offering...after all, people like Isaac made offerings and got miracles in return". What I found most interesting was his prayer. He started off by bowing his head and saying something like, "Lord, help these people by..." and then a little later, he looked up and started marketing the sale with "...that they will want to donate this offering and they can believe in Your 7 days of miracles". Then he bowed his head again and ended with "in Jesus name, amen". I found this interesting how he turned prayer into an infomercial. It makes me question how people view Christianity. I mean, where is this money going to? Does he think he's serving God by using his resources to call out to people? And I think this is also one of those Christian stereotypes- the televised donation. So yeah. I know that there are quite a few branches of Christianity/Catholicism, so where does "believing" and "serving" begin and end?

--Sabrina

Friends?

So..., I'm the third last one(Teresa and Alan didn't blog yet) to blog and I'm not sure how to blog since i never blogged before. Anyways, I'm blogging because I'm bored and no one has been blogging lately so here goes.... Lately, my friend and I weren't really talking to each other, in fact, he has been ignoring and this was what happened.

Last week, i was at Cantonese school and he was practicing tae-kwon-do on me. For self-defense, i hit him (accidentally, not on purpose) and he says it hurt really bad(there wasn't a bruise or a cut, by the way) and also his tae-kwon-do moves hurt double as much of what i did to him so i don't know why he's complaining about that. After that, he went back to his group and told his group mates that he should 'get new friends'(note that he is, in fact, an atheist. I know because he told me. Also, he is a honour student and he talks behind people's back like the time he wrote a quiz about his teacher being a total fail since she always make mistakes in a class. That teacher is my history/geography teacher, i don't care if she makes mistakes and she is a christian. I know because she told my class and many others.).

Obviously, i felt kind of offended because that was kind of 'mean' to say that I wasn't a very good person. In the next following days or next week, every time i tried to talk to him, he ignores me and gives me the silent treatment. He evens spends more time with his other friends than me like he used to. I tried to ask him why he wasn't talking to me but he didn't give an answer. When i got back home on Thursday, i started my computer and noticed that he replied to a quiz on FaceBook in a negative way and that really lowered my hopes of still being friends.

Its almost the end of the year and I still want to be friends with him even though he is going to ACCI(Albert Campbell) and I'm going to ACI(Agincourt). So can you please pray for me and him to give me strength to confront him and discuss the problem.

Thanks and hope to see ya at fellowship and Sunday school! :]

-Billy

P.S.:If this post looks weird, don't blame me, this is my first post.

In Need of God

Hey, lookies! My first blog here! :D

So anyway, the reason why I'm blogging here is because, well, I have this friend, who I believe desperately needs to have God in her life..

I mean, she's had all these problems for a long time. They stress her out and they've made her into a very unhappy person. She seems happy on the outside, but she's always thinking negatively about things, not believing in herself, and only depending on her friends to help her get through. So right now, I'm talking to her on MSN and stuff, and she mentioned how I don't need to worry about the things that she has to.

(Before this, I had been telling her how she needs to think positively, everything has a positive side and that she can't always think that there will be someone to guide her when it comes to things like this because sometimes there won't be anyone. (Keep in mind that this friend is a non-Christian, although she has Christian beliefs and is practically a Christian-yet-not-a-Christian, 'cause that totally made sense, yeah.))

Kay, so back to the worrying about things. I told her that, sure, yeah, I do worry about things, but for those things, I trust my friends and myself to work on getting through it, and for the other things, I need to learn to trust myself to be able to fix it, and that that was the part that she needed to learn. I then asked her about what kinds of problems she meant and she said "School.. Life... Everything." I told her, that she needs to make attempts to fix them, to think positively and trust that you wil pull thorugh, but she said that she didn't know how to fix them, how to pull through and that she can't even control most of these things.

So I told her, that that's why she needed to have trust... but she didn't know what to trust, "Trust what? The air?! ..." was her response. I told her, that I trust in myself and in God. But she isn't Christian, so she didn't even know what to say to that. Her response (quoted, from just now): "I don't even know what to say to that... I'm not Christian... -_-"

This whole time, I was thinking, she really needs to be introduced to God. For myself, when I have problems, I pray to God and know that eventually, he will help me pull through. Right now, I think that this friend of mine REALLY needs to find God in her life... so you guys, if you can, pray for her please. And I haven't even replied to what she said, because I don't know how to tell her that I think she should become a Christian.. maybe I'll just say it. o___o

So yeah, pray for her! :)

Thanks!

- Vessi

EDIT: I posted this at 11:11! xD

A sad kind of bliss

So please bear with me because I'm kind of at a loss for words right now, but I felt the need to blog. Today was a tough day. My friend's been having some problems, so during class, me and a teacher sorta gave her an intervention. It was just...hard because I didn't know what to say or do. I said all that I could in worldly terms, so when I ran out of things to say, I knew it was time to bring up God. See, this friend was one of the people that helped introduce me to Christianity. Now to see her so far away, it really struck me deep. I even said to her, "you helped save my life, now I want to help save yours". If you're been following my blogs, you know that I've shied away for a while from the opportunity to outreach. I didn't want to let this opportunity go. At all. Again, it was hard because I didn't know what to say to her rebuttals. It's not even a matter of her not understanding the concepts, it's a matter of her having tunnel vision. Like, I would say "you gotta stop doing this to yourself because you're a temple of God". Then she responded with, "why can't I be a beautiful temple". Like dang, I didn't know how to make it about God because this whole discussion was based around her. So anyway, we also had a talk with the teacher who is also a Christian. After a while, we prayed together, and that's when I basically broke down. The last time I cried during a prayer was out of sadness. This time, it was out of passion. Yes, the situation was killing me, but I was also glad at the same time that I'm able to be apart of this. I don't even know how to explain it, but I literally felt like we were crying out to God so passionately.

Then later that day we had T4C, and during the prayer, I started crying to out of pure joy. I was so thankful for all that I have been blessed with. To have the opportunity to be a part of this religion. For all that I've been apart of. I have a really strong attachment to school fellowships because that's where I feel like I became.

I gotta say that I'm a little traumatized by today's events and I'm over emotional and a mess of emotions. Almost hysterical. I'm kind of laughing and crying right now. In the middle of this blog, I just started praying. It felt awesome.

-Sabrina