Attitude of Gratitude (and some freebies!)

This time of year it seems like the idea of gratitude is everywhere. Thanksgiving brings it to the forefront, but being thankful is important all year long. So whether you're looking to spice up your desktop over the holiday weekend or want a simple reminder to be appreciative every day, check out these sweet desktop wallpapers that you can download for free!

This first one is from smashingmagazine.com. You'll have to scroll a bit on the page to find it, but then it's available in several dimensions (it also has a calendar option, but unless you have a time machine and can go back to 2008, it won't do you much good).

If you're more of a minimalist here's one from minimalwall.com

But were you diggin' the nature and quotables from our first post? Bella's Creations made this cutie!

Finally if you're just looking for some quirky holiday pizzaz, check out the Thanksgiving wallpapers at theholidayspot.com. You could spend most of the day there. But here's one of our favorites.

Thank you to all of you for connecting in with the DC Chi Alpha Blog! 

What are you thankful for this year? How do you keep a habit of gratitude throughout the year?

That's Really Awkward!

afp-5.jpg

The following post has been written by Blane Young and he claims it's his attempt at satire. He serves on staff with Chi Alpha at American University and really digs social media. 

I know, I know. Everyone has been to Awkward Family Photos online or spent the afternoon in Urban Outfitters reading the book while your friends shopped for thrifty threads at LA prices. Or, at least I've done both of those things. 

But I thought to myself earlier this week, "What could be better than awkward family photos at Christmas?". And I found the answer, awkward family photos at Thanksgiving. I don't know if it's true because this holiday is all about food (and being grateful for the animals we eat and those we eat with) or because it's a holiday that, for me at least, feels politically incorrect

But let's not go down either of those roads. What we do want you to do is take a look, have some laughs and share some of your awkward photos from Thanksgiving with us in the comments. Simply upload your photo to a free service (like Image Shack or Tiny Pic) and then post the URL link in the comments. You know it's going to be fun! 

Note: If you're asking why we're doing this, the only answer is that we (er, I) think it could generate laughter and most of us believe that's a great medicine! And a big thanks to GMA - Yahoo for inspiring this post and for the images! 

Intern Mondays // What it Means to be Missional

InternMondays.png

Have you met the interns yet? They're pretty amazing. The following post is from Becca Pugh, our happy-go-lucky intern from Pittsburgh.

For me, being missional has come to mean loving each person I encounter as if that person is a beloved child of God, whether or not they believe in Him. It means treating every moment as an opportunity to share the love and grace that God freely gives me each day with someone who desperately needs it (and there isn’t one person who doesn’t desperately need it). I’m definitely not always good at being missional, but this has been my perspective. The moments when I live out that idea are when I am most aware of God’s presence in my life and the potential for His presence in the lives of those I am reaching out to.

Being missional also means proclaiming where you are, and proclaiming to people around the world who may not have the chance to hear about the story of Jesus unless someone goes and tells them.

In high school, I only understood being missional in the context of short-term mission trips with my youth group. There is a lot of value in the short-term trips I went on, because they opened me up to the possibilities of life in God’s kingdom. It was only on these trips that I really saw how the word of God could come to life through my service and my interactions with people. The team and I weren’t just on a service trip, but we were being the hands and feet of Jesus. I felt so alive as I lived out God’s purposes on those trips. The only problem was that I wasn’t living out the word of God in my daily life back home. I didn’t understand how the experiences I had on that trip could translate to my daily life, in which I interacted with the same people every day- family, friends at school, classmates, and my track and field team.

My pattern of life at home was so different from the way I lived on those mission trips, so it was challenging for me to figure out how to not only share my experiences with the people I care about, but also live my life in such a way that I was loving and serving people with the same kind of passion.

Sometimes I think it’s difficult to translate what we view as “missions” to our everyday lives because the ways we are missional on a mission trip look different from how we might be missional in our typical everyday lives. Pastor Mark Batterson of National Community Church says that we should always do what we can with what we have where we are. So in being missional, we should do just that- wherever I am, how am I using what God has given me to reach out and invite others into community and the love of Christ? Am I doing all that I can and asking God to use it for His will and His glory?

Being missional is continually sharing your story, who Jesus is to you and what He has done in your life with those you are in relationship with and even complete strangers when God presents the opportunity. In order for God to use me, I have to be willing and I even have to be seeking those opportunities. 

When you hear the term "missional", what do you think about?  How have you learned to share your story with others? We'd love to hear about it in the Comments below. 

Free Resource Friday - Roundup

FRF - Header.002.jpg

Almost every week we search the web high and low to bring you quality resources at the wonderful cost of $0. Yeah, we try to be awesome.

We've made it easy for you to take a look through our past posts and resource. 

Free Resource Friday: Archives

If you could let us know what you're favorite one has been so far and what you'd like to see us feature, that'd be great! Just drop it in the comments, below! 

Intern Mondays // A Song That’s Encouraged Me

InternMondays.png

Have you met the interns yet? They're pretty amazing. The following post is from Kristin Caldwell. She's a graduate of Central Washington University and is becoming an expert at navigating public transportation in the city.

Over the past couple of months, a song that has continuously encouraged me is Oceans by Hillsong United. The lyrics of this song talk about how God calls us to walk with Him into the unknown, and that if we call upon His name and keep our eyes fixed on Him, He will lead us to do things we would never be able to do ourselves. My favorite line of the song is "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders/Let me walk upon the waters/Wherever you would call me." These simple phrases hold such power.

My first experience of hearing God calling me to do something was Him asking me to confess a sin to my mentor at the time that I had never shared with anyone before. It was probably the scariest thing I'd ever done up til that point, but it brought so much freedom and healing into my life as a result. I think hearing from God very much includes obeying Him in what He calls us to do. There is action required. My experience has been that the more that I obey, the easier it becomes to identify His voice because I learn what His voice sounds like. And the things He has called me to obey Him in have gradually become bigger and bigger.

A few years later, I was journaling in my room alone with God, when all of a sudden I randomly had the thought that I should share what I had written down during the Chi Alpha group meeting that night. Every week during the worship time at Chi Alpha, the worship leader invites students up to share if there's anything that God has put on their heart. I had never done it, and quite honestly, hoped I never would. Public speaking in any form has always terrified me. And yet when I got this impression from God to share, I knew that's what I had to do. I tried to make excuses, but I also knew that I would regret not obeying the nudging.

And so that night I went up to the front and took hold of the microphone. I read the scripture, shaky voice and all, and somehow managed to share everything I felt I needed to share without notes. I don't know whether or not my words made a difference in someone's life that night, but my biggest satisfaction was in knowing that I had been obedient to what God had called me to do at that time.

Since then, there has only been one other time that God has nudged me to share something at a weekly Chi Alpha meeting. But He has stretched me in trusting Him in more other ways than I can count. When I graduated from college, I struggled to find a job before I found a nanny job with long hours and low pay. When the kids were getting ready to go back to school, I struggled again to find consistent work. It was then that God provided me with a job at exactly the right time, and in the type of place that I had been hoping for. A few months later, I went to World Missions Summit, an event I had been looking forward to for nearly four years, ever since I had any idea what it even was. It was there that God called me to do the internship. Naturally, I assumed that I would be going back to Central Washington University. When I found out that, no, that's not where I would be headed, I was devastated. And yet that's what God used to bring me to DC. I'm still not sure how God convinced me to move across the country, but all I know is that He is the one who made it happen. I still have no idea how all that support came in as I struggled to raise such a high budget my first time going into ministry. Somehow He did. And now that I'm here, I'm amazed at how fast I have been able to adjust. There are definitely still things that frustrate me and confuse me about this campus and this type of ministry, but that's okay. God is showing me how much He loves these students and how desperately He desires for them to love Him too. And somehow, I trust that He is using me in the lives of others, even when I might not see it. All that I can really do is keep trusting Him, praying that He will give me a trust in Him that is without borders.