Personal Narrative: An Interview With Children's Pastor

rowing up as a little Christian girl. As a little girl I was ambitious, I was a leader and very outspoken. Growing up shelter is a good and a bad thing. This good Christian girl starting to encounter life experience. Being a teen mother at a such young aged. Not finishing my education. Just not being financially stable to care for a family. Having the fear of the unknown keep's you in those situations.

As two days ago, I join new office in kunduz one of my neighbors suddenly has seen me in office around and last evening he spread this in area that I am working with Christian people and this guy relatives have link with Taliban and others Group so I see my life in danger in future as regular office attendance ,

Just to give some background, I grew up not in a religious family at all. We went to the kids camps at church to mainly make friends, but when I left for the day that's where it stopped. I also as terrible as it is to admit, have not been to church in a very long time, which I would love to change. My family is Christian, I suppose if you had to put it in a category you would say non-denominational. My husband grew up from a Catholic turned Christian family. I have never experienced going to Catholic mass or any other variation of Christian church in my life. He is from Oklahoma, where chowboy churches are apparently a thing. Being from Indiana, I have personally never heard of this before in my life. So being a believer and wanting to try something new, I took it upon myself to find one we could both enjoy around our house. At first, I thought he was making this up completely, however after running into a few of these churches while driving, I was now interested. We found one called 3C Cowboy Fellowship, that prides itself on getting rid of judgement and just wanting to do what was intended and praise God. Being someone that has not gone to any type of church in awhile, I was skeptical, even though that was their saying that they did not judge. I swallowed my pride and attempted to

On February 28th, 2016 I decided to go to the immigrant assistance center that is located in the parish hall of Sacred Heart Church to complete my hours of community service. My class is a service learning class therefore I had to do a service to the community. My experience in the church was eye opening.

I grew up in a conservative Christian family. I was raised going to church every Sunday morning and with a set of core values and opinions, that I did not question, mostly because I was afraid to. Growing up and experiencing the world made me start to see everyone's different stances on different topics, including religion, and I started to wonder if all of my pre-decided beliefs and morals where what I actually believed in. Questioning everything I had ever known was the scariest thing I have ever done, but I am so thankful that I was brave enough to do it because I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't.

As a man, brought up in a Christian family, surrounded by most Hindu and Buddhist faith friends, I faced various attractions of diverse religious, and cultural practices. Growing up, Nepali Christians were obliged to leave customs and traditions however it was merely social activities in nature not spiritual or religious. One of them is Christian giving up a custom of utilizing red powder when honoring someone in accomplishment. We were restrained entirely by Christian pastors and preacher to involve in such exercises. Every year, when I got honored from school in academic achievement, I entirely complied with an instruction from the church pastor. Later during my school age, I did quite to believe such values as scriptural teaching and began

Why ? Why,why,Why !?! I always get caught up in things but this one really takes the cake. Ha... life has a funny way of giving you what you deserve. I was given a power, a chance to play god. That chance gave me so much regret, guilt, and most importantly loss.

I am a member of the Women’s Organization, Sunday School Teacher, a member of the Usher’s Board, liaison to the Children’s and Young Adult’s choirs. I am a member of the Homecoming Committee, Chair-person of the In-house Audit Committee and I assist the Pastor sometimes during our morning Worship Service. During the past thirty-three years I have taught generations of children about the Lord and the wonderful things that He is doing for us. The first thing taught is that, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that we might have a chance to the tree of life”. I have taught the Lord’s Prayer, the Twenty-Third Psalm, the Ten Commandments, and the catechism. My goal as a member of the congregation is to teach young children as much as possible and soon as possible about the Lord. I not only teaching our children but also oversee planning trips for them so that they will be exposed to other cultures and environments. I also plan programs for children and youth. We have our Easter Program, Children’s Day Program, Graduation Program, and our Christmas Program. It gives everyone great pleasure in listening and watching our children grow as they recite their speeches

I personally met Jesus Christ in the winter of 2000. However before then I knew of the man but not the person. My father was an associate pastor, so my brother and I were reared in the church our entire lives. As a matter of fact I was born and raised in the COGIC church for the totality of my life. Most of my thinking, behaviors and view of how church should be comes from a COGIC perspective. The church I grew up in was known for its community atmosphere. Every Sunday without fail someone would cook and invite the ministers of the church to come over. Fortunately, (or unfortunately depending on who was cooking) my dad was a minister so I was able to partake in the family style potlucks that took place.

Growing up in a religious community, I witnessed individuals who could not tolerate faith and notions dissimilar to their own. These individuals would instigate arguments that were often designed to render their victims uncomfortable. My first true eye opening experience to these hate driven conversations was when I was returning home from church. I was pulled aside from my family by a neighbor to question my religious affiliation. She attempted to make me feel ashamed of my religion and told me I should stop going to church. She then continued the insults by telling me my parents were raising me wrong and should join the “right religion.” Never before have I experienced such ferocious dislike, during this conversation, it was difficult to

Family Ministry is essential to family’s spiritual growth because it is more than activities or programs it is a lifestyle. I am excited to implement the lessons from this class in my church and throughout my personal ministry to individuals. Being that my church worships as one congregation, everyone is in the sanctuary and we try to practice Family Equipping Ministry, we have to begin to explore how we can engage members to connect beyond age groups. Conversations with parents are a starting point. Hopefully these conversations with parents will identify the comfort level that the parents have in the role of being their children’s spiritual counselor. My church’s role will continue to be the counsel parents need and the reminder that perfection in their spiritual life is not needed to assist their children in spiritual growth. Implementing the term intergenerational into our worship and events will also be a task that I will bring to my pastor. I will explain that we need to unify the congregation and connect our members. An ongoing focus that must not be lost is our church growing God’s kingdom and we will use our community resources to implement programs at our church in the future. I look forward to making the elders aware of the community programs that can be implemented in our church that will assist us in Family Ministry. The Family Ministry

I was "born in church", I tell them for the thousandth time. Not necessarily born in the church building, I was actually born at the New York Hospital in Manhattan. But that's how I find myself explaining it to everyone.

After speaking with Tarah, a Director of Children’s Ministry, I was able to glean a number of insightful critiques of today’s children’s ministry. Between the reading from class and our conversation three topics stood out; the watered down children’s gospel, the tendency to always tell children the story without letting them experience it, and the overall structure of children’s lessons and children’s Bibles.

Working in children’s ministry presents this very opportunity. The few people who are called to this ministry really work hard to make sure to today’s younger generation are ready spiritually for their lives ahead.

Little did I know, a year later, those kids would have me wrapped around their fingers. I taught most of the YU kids in our Sparks classroom, so I became familiar with them rather quickly. Throughout my time knowing about Youth Unlimited and working there, I have grown closer with all the children but one little girl in particular holds a special place in my heart. We will call her Madison, for confidentiality purposes. Madison is a six-year-old girl who is beautiful, energetic, sweet, and spontaneous who just wants to be loved! Not only does she want to be loved, but she also strives for that attention, and she does not care what kind of attention she receives. It was all we could do to get her to be quiet in Awana for five minutes so that her peers could learn. She was distracting, disrespectful, rude, and all around a problem child. That child is completely different now, of course she still has her moments when she misbehaves, but what kid does not? No matter how much she yells, throws things at me, hits me and calls me a “stupid idiot,” I will always tell her how much I love her and how much she means to me. In a way, working at Youth Unlimited has made me realize the kids are brought to church, but their parents did not care enough to take them. My parents have taught me that no matter what, if the doors are open, I will be there, serving Jesus. For this, I am incredibly lucky to go to Gospel Baptist Church.