Week 5: Being Accepting of Others
(Sorry this is late!)
This week's topic will cover some controversial issues. Please, if you get offended, feel free to PM us. It's fine to share your stand point, however if any debating goes out of hand, we will delete the comments. If you'd like to discuss some of the things you're hearing about, we ask you to private message us. Thank you for your understanding.
Hey girls! Jamie here! Thanks for joining us this week! Super glad you've come!
This week, we'll be taking a look at what it means to be accepting of others. It's something today's society has a lot of trouble with, and unfortunately something Christianity has been labeled with being bad at. It's not something we want, but sadly, when most non-believers think about Christianity, they see a Westboro Baptist Church attending, Islamophobic, white-trash, God freak who forces their religion on everyone around them. We (most of us at least) know that isn't true, well, maybe everything other then the God freak part. :)
I want to change that. I feel like Christianity is getting a really bad rap just because of a small minority of our religion. In my mind, thinking all Christians are haters is the same as thinking all Muslims are terrorists, or all Caucasian people are racist. It's not true, but for some reason it's recently become the norm in today's society. There isn't a movement about it like there are other things, and some Christians don't really seem to care that their religion's reputation is being tarnished.
If you haven't already, please watch the video shown above. If you for some reason can't play it, you can find it on YouTube at "A girl's message to all Christians".
I absolutely love everything about this video. I couldn't have said it better myself. She's completely right, and however it is our job to spread the word of the Lord, it's also our job to love everyone. It's also not our job to force it down people's throats or not want to be near them when we figure out our religions differ. The reality is, there's people out there that aren't Christians. We need to learn to accept them and love them, just like everyone else, and not try to immediately tell them they're living a lie and become a Christian or they'll spend eternity in Hell. If we love them and treat them with kindness, that will plant a send, and maybe, just maybe grow into something beautiful. (That sounded really cheesy XD)
It lights a fire inside of me when I watch the news or am reading the comments on a website and I see something that says "God HATES fags" and stuff like that. Don't think this is real? Do a quick search of "Westboro Baptist Church" and you'll see hundreds of images like this:
There's even pictures of children with signs as mean as this. This sends a signal of hate and disgust towards the world and that makes me angry!
No matter where you stand with the LGBTQ+ community, God loves them the same as everyone else. They are humans that were created in God's image, and we all, Christian or not, should treat them like it! I mean, really, where do these people get their information, because if I remember correctly, one of the 10 Commandments is to "Love your neighbor" but how did that turn into hate? Apparently, I can't stay on this subject for long without getting angry!
This church is also hating on other religions, army veterans, even races. We've already discussed religion, but I'm going to add on a bit. Sometimes, you can't blame people for their religion. They've maybe been raised that way and literally don't know any different. And, we have to remember that the majority of people in other religions feel just as strongly about theirs as do about ours. They think we're the ones who are wrong. We can't blame them for being the way they were raised.
Army veterans. I honestly don't even understand why they are hating on these wonderful people. They risk they're lives every single day to keep us safe. How could they hate on them? I don't even know...
And lastly, races. How could you hate someone for being how they were born? It's not their fault, it's not even something they could change. There was this 6th grade boy once, and a student in his class asked their science teacher why everyone had different skin colors. The teacher didn't know the answer, but the boy did. He told his class his theory. His theory was: Maybe when God created Adam and Eve, Adam had a bit darker skin than Eve. When they had children, some of their children inherited Adam's skin color. When their children had children, maybe some of them had skin that was darker than Adam's, some lighter. Well after a while, you have many different skin colors because of different genes. Recently, there was this girl who was asked to peel potatoes. She snap chatted a lesson that nobody could forget. It said something along the lines of this: We may not all look the same on the outside, but when you peel off all the skin, we're the same. Think about it! It's true!
So as you can see, God calls on us to LOVE others, and the girl in the video told us, not JUDGE them by something that makes them who they are.
Even though the things these people say are hurtful, mean, nasty, and all that, guess who still loves them? Guess who is willing to give them a second chance? Comment here, don't look!
Yup, GOD! He still loves them, he loves everyone, no matter what! Isn't that amazing!? Seriously, think about that for a second. GOD, the creator of the Universe loves you! You! Along with everyone else, no matter their race, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender, past mistakes, future mistakes, current mistakes, everything! He loves you! And He wants us to do the same. It will be really hard at first, but the harder we strive to be closer to God, the easier it will become.
Sorry if that got intense. I just get really worked up over this topic. Anyways, does anyone have anything else they'd like to add? If so, please comment, I'd love to hear!
I know this all sounds so far away, like you'll never meet one of these hateful Christians. The sad truth is that they're all around us. I've only met one, but I came into contact with him on a daily basis.
I live in a tiny rural town with only one church. There's only a few people who attend there (I go to the next town over) so the rate of church goers is very low. Barely anyone in my school actually goes to church, and the size of Atheists, Agnostic, Satanic, and just non-believers is very high. So high, most of my friends would be counted into that group. We already have a problem with most of the students hating Christians, and last year there was a teacher who was fueling their hate.
He really liked to share his opinion, and since he was the Current Events teacher, that's okay, right? Well, in some ways. All of his lessons showed both sides but really only showed the Republican standpoint as the "Good guys". I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Republicans, I'm just saying he really wasn't teaching fairly. You could tell he was very against the LGBTQ+. There were a few times he spoke this opinion, but the there was once when he crossed the line. We were watching a daily news video, and when one of the reporters came on, he said "Ha! He looks gay!" He then continued to laugh each time the guy came on the screen. No one else laughed with him. He was also pretty racist. We had many African American students and one Asian student. When they raised their hands or said anything in class he mocked them in "light, humorous" ways. :/... This was bad enough alone, but the worst part was that he spoke A LOT about his religion. Usually, this would be a great thing, wonderful actually. Though-out the year, I heard kids in the hallway say things like "Did you hear what Mr. Jdbxhsjjdk (not real name) said today? Well, it makes since, I mean, he is a Christian...". This gave all the kids in my whole school the idea that Christianity was mean and evil, when it's actually about love and faith. Luckily, he was fired at the end of this year.
The point of this lesson is in no way to make you hate other Christians. It's the exact opposite. What I want you to get out of this lesson is to watch what you do and how you act, because non-believers, believers, and everyone in between are watching and deciding how they feel about the Lord. Another thing take out of this that there Christians who feel like God doesn't love everyone equally, and it's our job to show everyone that our religion isn't what it's been said to be. More importantly, LOVE and ACCEPT everyone. Jesus commonly ate with prostitutes, tax collectors, the homeless, the sick, and he accepted them and loved them as much as everyone else. Strive to be like him.
Before we leave on this beautiful Monday, I have a few questions for you:
~Did anyone enjoy this lesson?
~Did you get anything out of it? If so, how did it help you?
~Did you enjoy the video?
~Anything you would add or take out?
~Did you feel like it was too aggressive?
~Any other questions or comments?
~Are you guys enjoying this Bible study? If so, would you do another?
~Do you have any ideas about future Bible studies we could do?
Thanks for attending everyone! If I offended you with this, I'm very sorry. Do you guys think this lesson was too... ya know? BOOM? Anyways, I'll try harder next time XD! See y'all later! Jamisters out!
Tagging most people... there are most but I can't remember lol...
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