Essay on Apostolic church visit

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a religious uprising in York, England which started in late 1536 and finished in early 1537, where people lead by Yorkshire lawyer Robert Aske staged protests and demonstrations in opposition to King Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries and break from the Catholic Church. This rebellion was mostly aimed at Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry’s High Chancellor; and many of these marchers influenced Cromwell’s policies. The participants of the Pilgrimage of Grace had a goal to reinstate the Catholic Church, and a concern of the economic impacts caused by losing monasteries; those who opposed the movement had a goal to punish leaders and anyone associated with the movement and a political concern of losing power for

A pilgrimage is a good time in which someday could spend a lot of time

For my Religious Experience Paper I decided to visit a worship center. I decided to choose this as my project piece because I had already been contemplating out of curiosity how this particular worship center worships based on previous discussions and invitations from a friend of mine that always stemmed from conversations of each other’s religious practices or functions etc. So today I was accompanied by my friend Lenore to experience her church. Multiple times during conversation Lenore has invited me to visit her church, Bandera Road City Church otherwise known as BRCC. I will admit I have wondered what kind of experience goes on behind that door at BRCC each time I’ve passed by it. I grew up Catholic and still practice Catholicism despite my concerns for some of the ways of the church. I won’t get into the personal issues as it would take too long to discuss in this paper and is not the purpose of the paper but have mentioned it in a couple of my posts in our class discussions. The way parishioners treat my sister because she is Lesbian, the outlook the church has towards LGBT is hurtful rather than the loving way of Jesus. As well as the fact that my previous parish advised me that I could no longer teach religious education since I divorced my 1st husband. Therefore, there have been times in my life that I asked myself if I wanted to continue to practice Catholicism and continue to attend Catholic Church Mass. This assignment allowed me to finally accept

This sermon embodies a condescending approach to human nature and strikes a great amount of

In the past couple of decades the rise in non-denominational churches has been increasing greatly and are said to be the second largest group of Protestants (Moore, 2011). It is said that most that break off and become apart of this fast growing belief come from a protestant upbringing. The study shows that more people are determining on where to worship by how they like the nursery, if the worship music is good, is it close to home, rather than I am a Catholic I need to go to a Catholic Church. As of 2010, four percent of Americans fall into this non-denominational group (Thumma, 2010).

Attending Catholic school is very important to me especially because I have a lot of very good friends at Sacred Heart School. For example, my best friend Lucianna is attending Sacred Heart again next year and I look forward to her company. My teachers and the staff at Sacred Heart are kind, dedicated, and very nice and I really like our principal Mr. Coyle. Mr. Coyle teaches us that school can be holy, educational, and fun all at the same time. Everyone at my school teaches us about our Catholic faith, like the importance of following the ten commandments, our church history such as Peter becoming a martyr for his faith, and learning a lot prayers such as the Apostles Creed and the Prayer of Saint Francis. At my Catholic school we go to church every month and we have religion class every day. I like learning about my faith and that by having religion class on a daily basis, practice makes permanent. We have special faith activities like our entire school says rosaries together and we have stations of the cross. We get to wear a uniform, which I think is really pretty, and I do not have to

A.) The mission chapel is beautiful. The beauty of this chapel can compare to the Santa Barbara one. They both are bright in color. When in the chapels I get a warm feeling. Old artwork. Kind of built like an ancient style building. Candles light up the room.

On the Sunday, the 20th of September I went to St. George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church located in 4335 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20011. The church rents out the National Theater for service every Sunday. This church is a non-denominational church and it is not at all traditional. The Pastor is Brandon Samuel, a middle-aged man with a wife and kids. The service was from 10:00 am to about 12:00 pm. I am a Christian so this church experience was not new to me, but it was quite different from my church at home as the church I attend back home is a Pentecostal church.

To properly label a Christian an evangelical Protestant, one must ask four basic questions and receive an answer that as a whole, evangelical Protestants accept as “correct”. The questions are: “[W]hat must a person do to be saved?[, W]here does religious authority lie?[, W]hat is the church?[,] and [W]hat is the essence of Christian living?” (“Evangelicalism”, Dictionary of Christianity in America) Through answering and receiving the “correct” responses, one should be able to define an evangelical Protestant.

Seeker churches show how Christianity has been influenced by popular culture for a number of reasons. One of those reasons being the contemporary atmosphere in these churches. Often, the area from which the preacher delivers his message appears more like a rock stage than a traditional church. Additionally, these churches tend to play more contemporary music with Christian messages. This contemporary setting and the contemporary music cater to people who do not want the traditional church atmosphere, but still want to receive service and sermons. Additionally, many of these churches do not identify with a denomination of Christianity, and some do not even identify with Christianity at all. An example of this type of “seeker church” is the Crossroads church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Over the past years of my life I have seen many changes, some for the good and others not as good. Change can be demanding and also crucial. The early believers would encounter this. One can see that significant change happened, when reading through the gospels and the book of acts it is obvious to the reader that the believers who followed Jesus would never be the same again.

I was greeted by, and conversed with, different patrons on each of my visits. This is unusual for me because I typically am not approached by strangers, I am not complaining. I was also offered unconsecrated bread by different practitioners on each visit which was the best tasting bread I have had during a church service. The thing that impressed me most, however, was the church member’s commitment to their surrounding community. They welcome anyone to their services, to the coffee hour afterward, to their annual block party, which they host, and to their harvest Sundays, where they collect food from their patrons and feed the local homeless population. The connection with their surrounding neighborhood is strong, but what is truly unique is the connection the congregation has with one another. For example, on the first Sunday I attended after the service was completed I remained in the nave to photograph and watch the community. I talked to one man about his conversion to Orthodoxy as the priest was consoling a young man who seemed distraught. This seemed to change the church from its ritual space to a community space of self or group

I.1. Background: I serve as a pastoral intern at the Vineyard Christian church of Evanston. This marks my second year of internship at this church. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of becoming familiar with the culture of a non-denominational setting of the church. The Evanston Vineyard comprises of 57 nations of the world. The church is not only unique because of this particular diversity but also because of the Spanish speaking congregation that gathers together in the LaVina auditorium, every Sunday, in one of the auditoriums in the same building of this church.

The reality of full churches and choir stalls, lively Sunday schools, and overflowing basements is dead in today's Church. The unexpected has happened. Christ's followers, gripped by fear, are now scattered, or remain silent. Parishes, at worst, carry on blindly, or at best, look for comfortable compromises and expediency. They ignore cultural diversity in general. The rhetoric of denial continues to pour out of parish bulletins, newsletters, and diocesan and national journals. It is status quo.

Far too often, in this emerging new culture, we want to treat God as friend, and not as creator and sustainer. Humans are flawed fleshly beings, therefore whenever in the true presence of God a transformation from old to new should occur. We should feel so convicted about our transgressions until we have an earnest desire to change. The flesh dies and slowly loses control of our lives, leaving the Holy Spirit to freely dwell. Ironically enough the next topic he mentioned was praise. He talked about a song which was sung by the choir “Praise is what we do” and he couldn’t understand the relevance behind these words. Once again, I slowly raised my hand and injected that praise is what we do, worship transcends beyond these parameters as an act of honoring and revering God. Worship is the entire church experience. Before I could elaborate further, he quickly indicated it was time to close out and we didn’t have time for further discussion. This Sunday School experience demonstrated the necessity for us to educate those persons who uphold leadership positions in the Church. If the Sunday school teacher had simply taken the time to research the answers to his questions, he would have been properly equipped to lead the discussion. It saddened me to realize that in essence it was the blind leading the blind. In a situation such as this, it is imperative that