Christian Church Essay

One interesting concept that I learned was to stand the book straight up on the next available chair, instead of faced down or in any other position to accentuate the importance of the scriptures and prayers that the books consist of. The service started promptly at 9:00 pm in which the members of the Jewish Synagogue were already wearing a tallit, which is a prayer shawl that represents the six hundred and thirteen commandments, and silently prayer with a swaying motion incorporated. After asking the congregate that was aiding the observers throughout the service, he explained that Jews usually sway, rock, or shake because it is stated that the physical act is a way of connecting spiritually to God while praying along with other justifications within the Torah. My initial feelings regarding the acceptance of me as a visitor was kind of unsettling because I was the center of attention along with the two other observers. Some congregates would greet us warmly offering any help, while some others often discretely talked among their other fellow congregates about our attendance with some people staring for portions of the service. Besides, the interaction of the congregates to the clergy was very divided in the aspect of gender roles due to the fact that the table that two intricate cased Torahs were brought out on could only be seen by the men and recite by men only. As far as the division of roles, I found it interesting that some of the women explained to us that it was not a form of disrespect or act of degrading because they play their specialized role in the congregation, which is often misunderstood and in their perspective more liberating than most portray it to me. It was also explained to me that women are seen as separate but equal when stated throughput Jewish

3. Identify the type of worship you participated in according to the categories on “How to visit a church.” Then, list and describe the elements and order of the worship service. Note any points in the service where passages from the Bible were read and cite the specific passage at that point in your list.

John Swales defines a discourse community as a group of people that has an agreed set of common public goals, ways to communicate with its members, to provide information and feedback, genre(s) that the group may further communicate its goals, lexis, and a threshold level of members (220-2). The group I chose to study St. Luke Church of God in Christ, St. Luke COGIC, bears the qualifications to be a discourse community. Founded in 1925 by Millissis Shannon and her husband Charles with only twelve members, pastoring St. Luke COGIC is Elder E. A. Shannon with over eight hundred members (St. Luke Church of God in Christ). This church is a great church to attend and has several activities, groups, departments, and ministries for any person at any age. Some of them include Sunday School, music, men’s, women’s, youth, children’s, and Bible Study and they all help to reach the community and lead people to Christ. The church’s mission statement states that their purpose is, “to function as a Christian fellowship where the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached and the ordinances and doctrine of the church is taught and administered…” (St. Luke OB). My goal while observing and interviewing people was to figure out how people praise and worship the Lord at St. Luke COGIC on a Sunday.

The word “Christian” in Colorado Christian University is more than just a belief shared amongst the Faculty and Student Body. It is the foundation on which all aspects of the educational experience are built. Beginning with a strong Statement of Faith, which aligns with core beliefs of the National Association of Evangelicals, the University proclaims its belief “in the Bible as being the only authoritative Word of God, that God exists in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as belief in the salvation and resurrection that is only found in Christ Jesus” (Statement of Faith at Colorado Christian University, n.d.).

The service itself was very interesting, the priest would speak words that some I wouldn't understand, but some I could. He would say things like thank the lord for this beautiful day and this great opportunity for us all to be together here. He would ask the people to stand then sit and stand again and sit, then stand for a really long time that I actually got tired from standing it was funny, but I didn't sit down just to show signs of respect. As he would speak he would stop and everyone would respond to the priest at the exact same time saying the same words, it was really cool how everyone's words together sounded it created a very powerful voice amongst everyone. Then people would all do that one thing where they make a cross by putting their thumb, to their

I had only been to services at this location twice prior, but I was somewhat familiar with the pastor’s presentation style and had acquainted myself with several members of the congregation. In this situation, I found myself being more focused on content during the formal portion of the service, and completely people-oriented during the post-service gathering. Even though the pastor was speaking of very emotional and personal issues, I focused more of my listening on the information being relayed and the Bible verses to which he referred us. I also found myself mentally organizing the information into data categories; which I now feel was very inappropriate and may be indicative of the characteristics of an action-oriented listener.

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.

It is evident in the world today that there is a need for guidance and counseling. There are many statistics of issues the world faces that prove the need treatment. For example, 35% of persons who marry end up divorced. 40% of children live in a home where a father is not present. By age 18, 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused by someone they love and/or trust. Approximately every 20 minutes a person commits suicide within the United States (Clinton, 2005). This list goes on and is even found within the church. Professional counseling and lay Christian counseling have found a way to help individuals overcome these issues though certain techniques and methods. These techniques and methods are often adopted from secular psychologists such as Carl Rogers who founded Client-Centered Therapy. While both counseling groups have a goal to help individuals overcome their issues, should Christian counselors, specifically, accept secular professional counseling techniques?

     Another part of the service that I did not get to witness was the actual baptizing part. In the English service they do not have a pool to baptize people in. They only baptize people in the Spanish service so I was not able to see this happen. The rest of the service was all about the preacher preaching. His sermon was not right out of the bible. He talked about real life situations that are related to what the bible talks about so I found it better to relate to what is going on in your life. It got pretty boring though when he kept on talking for around thirty to forty-five minutes. The whole service was around an hour and forty-five minutes to two hours.

They would put the kneeling board down and do a prayer. Three girls, dressed in white, came out and lite some candles. The service didn’t begin until everyone was in their pews and then came silence before anything else happened. After a while of silence, we got up and sang a hymn. The priest, with the three girls in white, walked down the center aisle as we sang. He then prayed a prayer from a book and one of the students came up to the podium and said the first reading. The student told us what we had to recite back to him throughout the reading. There were about three different readings at different times also each one had a different phrase we had to recite back. The priest read from Luke 6:42 King James Version, which stated “Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.” The priest kissed the Bible at the end of the reading. We sang a few hymns and sat down. He stepped off the stage onto the ground and talked about a saint you saved many slaves lives by spreading the love of Jesus. He tried to connect the scripture to the story, but it was semi difficult to understand how they connect. We then kneeled and the priest read another prayer to us. Multiple times throughout the service we would sing a hymn, sit down and listened to readings or the priest, lastly we would kneel and pray. They prepared communion at the front on the stage. Everyone waited in line to get bread to eat in honor of Jesus death. To be able to take communion there were step to be taken also being a part of the catholic church. After communion was taken we sang a hymn and said the Lord’s prayer. It was hard

The Chinese Christian church in the United States often has ethnic characteristics, but different Chinese churches often have special concentration in the composition of the congregation, which reflects the tide of Chinese immigrants in different stages. For example, descendants of early immigrants from southern China usually have their fixed church. International students from the mainland of China have the church which they set up together. And other "informal immigrants" also formed Christian organizations. According to Aihui Lee, she divides American Chinese Christianity into four categories.

was owed a great sum of money by one of his servants. The king let the

Christianity is the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Most followers of Christianity, called Christians, are members of one of three major groups--Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox. These groups have different beliefs about Jesus and His teachings. But all consider Jesus central to their religion. Most Christians believe God sent Jesus into the world as the Savior. Christianity teaches that humanity can achieve salvation through Jesus.

Worship comes in different forms depending on how the church wants the service to proceed. For the Amazing Grace Church, the service began with the congregation singing a number of worship songs to the Lord that lasted for about an hour. Christian praise and worship by music, and in fact, music is a great tool for helping them feel closer to God. Music is an emotional language because it effectively affects their emotions and the lyrics can swell their hearts. There is nothing bigger and greater than the grace of God that is delivered to them from condemnation through the sacrifice of his own Son. Thus, Christian chooses to praise and worship Him by singing. While singing, the congregation stands on their feet and they seem to be affected by the songs in some way as they raise their hands as a sign of accepting the Lord into their hearts. The emotion that was thrown from the congregation was very distinctive to us as we could see that the songs are an important tool of expression. According to the pastor of the Amazing Grace Church, singing let the people focus on the worship, helps them respond to God’s grace and also guide them to reflect on God’s glory. In his opinion, singing mean nothing if people do not respond to what they have sang and related it to God and reflect it to make them better believers.

As a result of myths of white family life, there has been much confusion over the nature of black families. One of the myths of the nineteenth century entails the close- knit white family, which was parallel to that of the European family. Also, as a result of these myths, scholars often ignored the differences of American and European life. For example, women in frontier areas had a much stronger voice in family affairs than most scholars realized, simply because of the shortage of women. Therefore, women exercised a large percentage of authority in the family. In the cities where family was of little importance as an economic unit and the