Personal Narrative: Growing Up In A Religious Community

If I were to start my own Faith Community Practice I would first plan to sign up for EMU's online Faith Community Nursing Course in order to fully understand what an FCN is and how best to go about establishing my own practice. After completing the course, spend however much time I needed to figure out how exactly I want to run my practice. After figuring out a baseline plan, I would go about facing my other challenges. One challenge that I would most likely face is where to set up my practice. I would most likely want to start my practice in service to my home church at Lindale Mennonite Church. I don't believe we have an FCN practice there and I think it would an amazing opportunity to serve my home church in that manner if they allow. My

I am an atheist, but it wasn't always that way. My entire life there was a constant pressure on me to accept that there was a supreme being that created all. Even at a young age I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe this. I continued grasping for straws because, just like every other religious person, I was scared of the “consequences” that would come with not believing. My Non-Denominational Christian Church promoted telling this to everyone, even children.

For my religious center experience, I chose an Islamic mosque in Altoona, Wisconsin. I chose to visit an Islamic site because I have never been to a mosque before or spoken with a Muslim about their faith. I was fortunate to speak with Sadie, a member of their community, and much of my information comes from our conversation. This experience was similar to other religious visits in the sense that I have been to numerous Christian churches and spoken with other Christians about their faith. Sadie, like others I have previously met, was a wonderful person and was excited to share what she could. Likewise, Sadie was open to answering all of my questions and was clearly proud of her faith without being aggressive or focused on turning the conversation into a debate.

When it comes to my religious beliefs, I am Catholic and after taking this class Religious Imagination class with Professor Martin. I can say that I have gained new insight to the different religions that we have learned throughout the course of the class. This class really opened and broadened my perspective on different religions because never experience or even learned about these different religions before taking this class. The specific religions that I have gained insight on were Hinduism, Buddhism and Primal religion. Before taking this class I heard of these religions but I did not actually know what they were. Each Religion that we learned helped me is the amazing ways people believe in God. I found the Primal religion extremely interesting

31.50% of the world is Christian. 22.32% of the world is Islamic. 0.20% of the world is Judaic. 13.95% of the world is Hindu. 5.25% of the world is Buddhist. 15.35% of the world is secular, nonreligious, agnostic, or atheist. 10.58% of the world is made up of other religions. I am among the 15.35% of the world that is secular, nonreligious, agnostic, or atheist. However, I identify as a religion called LaVeyan Satanism, which sprung up into our world on Walpurgisnacht in 1966 and was birthed by Anton Szandor LaVey.

The name of my country is Felix.It is located near Austrailia.Many people in my country have been fighting over which country should be ours. As their leader I think we should be in Christianity religion because they read a book about God called the Holy Bible.They have over 2 million followers.They also have this big place where they worship called a church.

After writing the personal awareness paper I learned about who I actually am. I also learned more about Gods purpose for me and the path in which is in front of me.

Let me start by saying that this trip was great! when you take into account the strides that you would have seen in our kids it truly amazes you. Our youth here stepped up in an environment that they were uncomfortable in. They worked in a thrift store, the thrift store is a building that takes donations and sells the donated items back to the community for a low price to help the people out. Our kids here, along with a group with the Waxahachie congregation, each took a kid, sometimes multiple under their wings and showed them the love and compassion of Christ. All this work that we did was alongside the Compassion 21 group, an inner city ministry group. our last night in Alabama, we had a devotional period in which all of us were asked what we would walk away with.

Growing up in the Western Christian Church, I always thought that God was a He. A large, white, wrathful, powerful man dressed in white, scepter in hand, and ready to zap anyone who committed an evil deed. God was a man to be appeased. And then a shift came—my later adolescent years were ones where I began to view God as a Father. Kindhearted, open, loving. Ready to pick me up and carry me—His precious child—at any time. And then, this Father also became my King. I, His daughter, a princess whose daddy offered both a dwelling place of safety, but also the spectacular experience of the Divine. As my education continued, my horizons expanded, causing me to ask: God, what if you are a she? A mother—the picture of compassion, love, and nurturance—but

Growing up in a devout Christian family with a father who is an extreme right on the political scale was tough for me. I went to church 3 times a week and when I came home from my private Christian school I was to read the Bible for homework. I felt as if this life was being force upon me and I begged my mother for months if I could go to a public school. My wish was granted and in 8th grade I went to my local public middle school, and I was amazed, completely astounded at what school could be.

I was raised in a church that is considered to be relatively popular  and radical, and when I started to think for myself, I decided it wasn't for me. At first, I was terrified to challenge everything I was told to be truth.  Although rejecting the beliefs was painful for me, I don't regret doing so because the process has helped to shape who I am and what I believed in.

I'm so glad to hear about these opportunities. however, I would really love some help. I have done research into Bethel before and my two main things are Bethel being a private 4 year and a Christian college. I am in fact a Christian the only thing is I'm very antsy about religion based colleges. Don't get me wrong I'm willing to go anywhere that best fits what I'm interested in and Bethel has a lot of it, But I can't really say I know how it works exactly. Do Christian schools incorporate religion into teaching? Or is it just mainly Christian teachers? I have a lot of questions on that aspect.

Since my youth, I had been an active member of a religious tradition that emphasized salvation by works— I grew up in the Catholic Church, but I went only because mom said to. I had more of an agnostic view of God -- I believed in God, but I didn’t try to learn about Jesus. I didn’t know the truth about Him.

If we are certain about any one thing about religion, it is exactly what we make of it. That is to say that when Christians speak about God or the bible they speak only about what they find important and pertinent, whether to themselves alone or all of Christianity. Any new Christian speech seems to be paradoxical in both the fact that it threatens the validity of the religion by calling into question scripture or other church ideas, but also allows a breadth of new believers. I'd like to delve into when this question is portrayed as a completely new idea brought into Christianity and when it is used to shed a new light on a preexisting concept, How do humans reconcile new ways of speaking about God and what kind of problems that arise from

Losing my religion began when I questioned it for the first time. I did not have a devout upbringing and my family never practiced anything other than lighting the menorah or the Christmas tree. Faith wasn't apart of me; I relied on myself to get through my internal struggles and teenage angst; which, in hindsight, was probably not such a brilliant method of self-help. Even though I loved fiction and magical stories, science explained the workings of the world. Logic and reason didn’t fail me until my grandfather died. His death wasn’t a shock, he had two types of cancer and was struggling with his illnesses for years. But as painful as it was that he was no longer with us on Earth, what was most haunting was the fact that I had no explanation as to where he had gone. Science