Community And Church Context Paper

What is a Christian community? This is a question I didn't know the answer to until last summer. I was living a life of disobeying one of God's commands and had no idea. Even though I am a sinful person and I sin everyday and have struggles just like everyone else. I was very confused, but I am glad my eyes were open to what the community is and how important it is in daily life as a follower of Christ. My eyes were open when I went to a teen leadership conference at Summit University in Pennsylvania. My faith plays a big role in my life, but one thing specifically, I have been challenged in my faith is community. Learning about community opened my eye to something I haven't been doing, but know it has formed me into a stronger believer in

What are the national demographics of your community? Who lives here? What are their hurts? What are their dreams? Where do they spend their time? What is the mission to serve community? What steps is the church taking to fulfill its mission to serve the community? Who have you built relationship with who do you desire to build relationship with? Within the next 3, 5, 10 years where do you

evangelical churches have had the largest growth. There are a number of reasons for the growth of evangelical churches in the last two decades of the twentieth century. First, Catholics were often targets of government repression for their "subversive" involvement in base Christian communities, while evangelicals were safe from government repression. Second, the evangelical emphasis on personal conversion is considered apolitical. Finally, small evangelical churches provide their members with a strong sense of community and family. During my whole life, my family and religion are the only ones that have helped me the most. My family have always encourage me in all types of situations and also religious because only God could guide me when I

On March 20, Albuquerque Agape Community Church (P) held Sunday Service, where 6 people attended and Pastor Haiyan preached the word on John 20. The church rejoiced as one new person became a registered member.

For this first Experience Paper I went to a Mormon Church with one of my dance teachers and her family. I had never gone to a Mormon Church before so the experience was new to me.

Grace Chapel is a New Covenant Baptist church. Grace Chapel Baptist Church is located in Kingwood, West Virginia. The head pastor is Michael Argabrite, but the congregation calls him “Pastor Mike.” There are many whole church barbeques at the Pastors house that is just down the road. As all Baptists believe, they practice full emersion. They do not believe in infant baptism, only believers baptism. When the church was smaller, the Baptisms would take place at the Pastors house in the pool. Now they have a baptismal in the church. This individual church limits its song list to just hymnals. They also used to only have the piano playing. Now, the church allows a small drum box and they even have a choir now.

Holy Family Catholic School has helped me grow in my faith, knowledge, and service. I have participated in faith journeys, K4J skits, and sending Christmas presents to poor children around the world. Holy Family Catholic School is a great example and has helped me grow in my faith, knowledge, and service.

“Community, we are better together,” is something that is constantly being said at the church where I attend school, Lifepoint Church (Beliefs & Values). This is one of our main values because we firmly believe that God didn’t create us to do life alone. He created us to do life together, to encourage one another, to go through the struggles together, etc. For this reason we encourage those who attend our church to become part of a small group. By doing life with others through a small group you are able to create strong, lasting relationships with others, grow in your faith, and encourage others.

God has blessed me in allowing me to grow up in a Christian home, where my parents both have been proactive in my life by supporting and encouraging me to participate in unique activities that challenge me to grow as an individual and a Godly woman. Schooling was primarily at home, and by being homeschooled, I believe it taught me to have a persistent and disciplined work ethic. During my high school years my interpersonal relationships with my family lacked severely because of my choice to be alone. Today by God’s grace my relationship with my family has been restored. After high school, I participated in a gap year program at Camp Eagle in Texas. I struggled with interpersonal relationships as I chose to be apathetic and cynical towards other people. Moving forward from my experience I am summer staff at Sambica in Bellevue, Washington and growing with my interpersonal relationships. In the events that have occurred in my life up to this point I see that authority is placed for protection not pleasure, and should be obeyed regardless if you agree or disagree with someone in authority. Family discipline is important because if God disciplines us in love then it is necessary for growth and consequences when we sin. Family worship is important

The family-integrated church model (p. 182-183) is not easily compatible with the format of Christian Endeavor. The family-integrated model does not have age-specific ministries, but CE is set up in such a way to work with churches who have a separate children’s or youth program. While CE values and encourages intergenerational learning, this happens in age-segmented group. Age-segmented grouping can be helpful because it can supports children and youth to learn, grow, and serve in ways that are most appropriate developmentally and spiritually where they are, while still valuing intergenerational connectedness.

Today’s Gospel is a bit sobering. In his opening words, Jesus tells the disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” He continues talking about the baptism with which he would be baptized and the anguish he would experience in this process.

Now I want to recuperate what I was explaining concerning the church and back to what I had alleged to earlier as regards to foreshadowing. First after seeing what took place at my Apt, jobs and public places you can now estimate what transpired even at church. As I mentioned earlier the church is the one place in which I assumed that I would at all times be safe I have been going to this church for over 10 years and have been involved in many Sunday school classes, small groups, bible studies and service. Not to mention that I have known many of the members there for a numerous amount of time there are members whom I have known from the church I grew up in . So I was confident that I would be unharmed there. Nevertheless the ideology likewise spread in the church.

“Thou shalt not covet.” Not everyone is religious, but if the entirety of the Christian church abides by this rule, it is probably a good rule. Envy can lead people to do stupid things, like adultery or something more relatable to students like stealing; it can also totally take the happiness out of someone’s life to just sit and be jealous of someone else. Some people may say that it may help people strive harder to attain their goals, but that mindset could lead to a person never being happy with where they are in life and always running trying to get something they may never have.

Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Kindle.

Community is an essential part of being successful in modern society, regardless of an individual’s religious affiliation. The idea of community is especially prominent in modern Christianity in addition to the progressive movements that have been emerging within the spectrum of Christianity over the past few decades. This push for community building has resulted in the heightened acceptance of marginalized groups and individuals within various communities throughout the United States, specifically, but has also resulted in an evolving Christianity that is putting more focus on the individual or the ‘the self.’ This interesting transition owes a lot of it’s emergence to the Apostle Paul who instructed followers to “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way… fulfill the law of Christ,” (New International Version, Gala. 6.2-3). The importance of community is apparent within Christianity, but the components that have the potential of breaking and building community remain hidden in most cases. While there are thousands of different ideas that help define community, grief, empathy, and healing each remain relevant in regard to general human experience and are arguably three of the most related and important components of community in Christianity.