Experiential Learning Experience Paper

Shelly, J., & Miller, A. (2006). Called to care a Christian worldview for nursing (2nd ed.).

Traditions are powerful. Take for example the Catholic understanding of Saint Peter as the first pope. This tradition is established in the scriptural passage from Matthew 16:18, which states, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (ESV). Additionally, the tradition is further substantiated by his physical presence, as most scholars agree “that Peter did visit Rome, and that there is at least a very high probability that he died there.” In fact, Peter is considered the founder and bishop of the church in Rome because his authority was recognized among the early churches. The Catholic Church believes Peter’s authority was handed down to his successors. Consequently, Roman Catholics worldwide today are subject to Pope Francis’s authority. The Catholic Church’s stance on papal authority is debatable, however this does not negate his power

The Catholic Church is the oldest major religion in the Western world. Littered with peace, love, and humility, along with violence, turmoil, and controversy this institution has seen, heard, led, and had influence over the majority of everything and everybody that there was in the last two millennia. This has included ordinary people, Kings, Queens, Generals, Nobleman, Royalty, and everything in between, and has endured since the beginning of the modern era, Anno Domini. They great spiritual and monetary machine created a powerful reign over the entire world’s Catholics, and remains so to this day. For the purpose of background for my visit to a Catholic Church, being Presbyterian, I did historical research before I visited. I

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate my experiential learning of personal and social adjustments when confronted with life-changing events and the mechanisms utilized to effectively cope from traumatic experiences. The components supporting this piece include: confronting the problem, learning to adapt and cope, cultivating self-worth, the importance of a support system and over time change influencers. To support my understanding of personal and social adjustments, I will use the content of this paper to speak as evidence of my experiential learning derived from confronting a long-term spiritual abuse situation and process of unraveling and coping from its affects.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Health Ministries Association (HMA) have described Faith Community Nursing (FCN) as a form of a specialized nursing practice carried out by a nurse within a faith community (American Nurses Association & Health Ministries Association, 2012). The role played by the FCN is to protect, promote, and optimize health and abilities, prevent illness and injury, and respond to distress regarding the practice beliefs and the values of a faith community. The FCN emphases on the purposeful care of the spirit as well as the promotion of holistic health and prevention and the reduction of illness (ANA & HMA, 2012). Furthermore, the FCN plays a significant role in developing community partnerships required to

Growing up as a non-denominational Christian and still consider myself one. Over the past few years I have no attended church as often as I should. I am hoping to get back into applying my Christianity to everyday life and I’m hoping that CCU will help me with that. My mother attended this school to receive her Bachelors degree and only had great things to say about it. We were speaking a few weeks back how I have been striving to get back to my religion and have not had motivation to do so. She suggested attending CCU so that I can start learning to apply my religion to nursing. So here I am, ready to learn. As a nurse I have an opportunity to have a huge influence on many lives. Not only medically, emotionally, but spiritually. My patients

St. Luke Presbyterian Church was a relaxed church. Presbyterian churches abide by the sovereignty of God, the scriptures, and grace through faith. The Presbyterian Church members that attended the service were dressed from casual pants to dresses and suits. The church setting was considered to be a small, local church with roughly about 30 rows of pews. The choir included 15 women and a teenage boy. The members were very welcoming and seemed eager to get to know the guests that were new that Sunday morning. The preacher was an older man, in about his late 60’s or early 70’s. This was mainly a diverse family church with a few college students. At the beginning of the sermon they had children’s church, which is when they relate the word of God to the younger kids so they can understand what the

Although I could not understand what the Priest was saying, his voice was mesmerizing. Most of worship sounded a lot like singing. He would drag out his words and speak with a beautiful melody. There was a choir seated to the side of the altar and would sing with the priest at times. There was a lot of standing up and sitting back down all through-out the service. I took a pamphlet at the beginning and read about the service in English. It was then I found out that it was Greek Independence Day! The service was called “celebrating freedom” and spoke about the Greek ancestors gathering in a Monastery of Holy Lavra in 1821 to receive blessing and prayers of the Church and to celebrate freedom from tyranny and death. It continued to say that we must never forget that the freedom for which we fight is granted to us by God Himself, and it comes at a price: the willingness to allow all to be free. Freedom is a gift from God that has been granted to every human being, and when we celebrate our freedom we must also celebrate the gift of life. In honor of Greek Independence Day, St. Nicholas Church included a group of Greek military men to be a part of the ceremony. They entered the room and marched to the front of the altar. As the priest continued with the service, he directed the young altar boys to walk around the room holding candles and icons of Cherubim. They walked around the room three times which is called procession. Most everything is done in the Greek Orthodox church is done in threes, as it represents the Holy Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After the young boys, the Priest joined them with another man. The Priest held a tray of flowers and a single candle that represents the light of God. The gentleman in front of him rang bells from an incense burner in threes. Incense represents prayers of saints lifting into the heavens before God. The Priest and the gentleman walked around the room three

The American Nurses Association and Health Ministries Association (ANA & HMA) has described Faith Community Nursing (FCN) as a form of a specialized nursing practice carried out by a nurse within a faith community (ANA & HMA, 2012). The role played by the FCN is to protect, promote, and optimize health and abilities, prevent illness and injury, and respond to distress regarding the practice beliefs and the values of a faith community. The FCN focuses on the intentional care of the spirit as well as the promotion of holistic health and prevention and the reduction of illness (ANA & HMA, 2012). Furthermore, the FCN plays a significant role in developing community partnerships required to enhance health promotion (Breisch, Hurley & Moore, 2013). The ANA & HMA (2012) noted that an FCN offers services to faith community members and people in the neighborhood. The services provided range from case management, health education, patient advocacy, personal health counseling, coordination of volunteers, to acting as a liaison and referral agent between the people and health care sector. Therefore, an FCN acts as an advocate for patients and can teach the community on particular disease in order to improve their understanding and promote disease management.

This journal refers back to the class on 8/23/16. I had the pleasure to meet our gorgeous and knowledgeable professor and friendly classmates for first time. We were participating in an open discussion about the purpose of this elective course, our Faith Community Nursing class (FCN). We were able to meet the first competency of the course which is “The student will describe Faith Community Nursing/ Health Ministry.” We addressed this competency by firstly, differencing the meaning of faith community nursing, which is the licensed nurse that care for an individual as a whole including mind, body, and spirit and health ministry which is whatever a faith community do to promote the human’s well being as a participant of this community. Secondly,

The day I attended service was "All Saints Day" which celebrates all known saints and also unknowns saints such as friends or family members who have passed away. Within the Christian faith when someone passes away, they become saints. Pastor Abram, the pastor of the church, wore a white robe, which are worn on either Christmas or Christmastide (the time shortly before Christmas). Pastors Abram began the service with confession, then lead into the prayer of the day which said "Grant that we may always be clothed with the finest linen of Your righteousness, that we may follow Your blessed saints in the righteousness deeds of faith and come to the unspeakable joys of heaven." After was the first reading from Revelation 7:9-17, which signifies that with God you are saved -"... never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst." Next, we recited the Nicene Creed, which professes the Christian faith. Followed by the creed was the Hymn of the day- "For all the saint," then Pastor Abram gave his sermon. His sermon touch on the fact that it was "All Saints Day" and the

The projects in End of Life Care (Judaism paper and presentation), Concepts in Baccalaureate Nursing (Scientology paper/presentation), and Populations Based Nursing (vulnerable patient populations and alternate nursing roles-correctional nursing) allowed me to explore and learn about other cultures increasing my understanding and respect for other beliefs and

Music is and has always been a staple of Christian worship. The worship music at Christ the King was extremely traditional. All of the songs that were sung were traditional hymnals and the congregation seemed to know each hymn by heart. The lyrics were accompanied by an organ and each pew contained a worship book that contained the hymns as well as the gospel acclamations and creeds that accompanied them. The priest sang instead of speaking during the worship, reading of the holy scripture, and communion. In some instances the priest would sing something and the congregation

Experiential approach is based off of a humanistic movement where personal growth and the expression of meaning and feelings are vital (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015). Therapists use the experiential approach to share their personal feelings and use action oriented techniques to guide clients throughout the session (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015). The goal of experiential approach is to increase physical and emotional health, increase wholeness and balance, and bring awareness to personal responsibility (Wetchler & Hecker, 2015).

In the reading Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development by David Kolb (1984), he proposed that learning is a cycle process in which individuals learn through their own experiences in life. This notion of the learning cycle in which he was influenced by the ideas of three other theorists (Piaget, Dewey, and Lewinian) called it Experiential Learning Theory. Kolb’s theory was based on how people learned by imputing information and processing the information. Within this two abilities, there are four steps in which Kolb’s believe the learning process occurs. The first one he calls “concrete experience”, in which one actually does the learning right then and now. The second one is “reflective observation” when the learner thinks about what they did as a reflection of the experience. The next step is the “abstract conceptualization”, where the learner makes a generalization of the experience. The last step is “active experimentation”, where the learner puts to practice his/her understanding and adapts to it. The learner does this by taking all the first three steps of the learning cycle and seeing the results (pg. 30). Learning is a process in which individuals learn through trial and error. This process can then be reused with our prior experience to strengthen the outcome of our first experience. It is shaped as a cycle in the way we process information cognitively. This is how I understood of the reading on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory.