Reflection Paper

My experience with Christianity began in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Helena’s in South Minneapolis. I grew up a die-hard; attending every week with my mother and sister. I never understood the concept of God, Jesus and the Holy

In recent days I had the opportunity to go back to North Carolina for a few short days. There, with a heavy heart from a loss in the family, I had nothing else to look towards. I’ve always heard of individuals finding peace, faith, blessings, and love of Christ from attending church. I’ve never been a person who put their faith into a higher power. As I was growing up my parents never wanted to force me into any religion without me knowing everything about it and choosing which route to take on my own. As the years treaded on, I never bothered myself to learn about the many different religions and what each stands for. So I used this opportunity as mine to attend church for the very first time. I attended the Roman Catholic services held

I was blessed to be able to go through such a good school system. Some people complained about going to a private, Christian school, but I really enjoyed it. I do wonder sometimes though what it would have been like to go through public schooling and if that would have changed how I am today. I think the strong morals and values I hold today were largely created by my upbringing. But, I do think I used to simply claim to be a Christian because of my family. If my parents are Christian that must mean I’m a Christian, right? Going to college made me realize that my faith is something that I have to make my own. My faith is not necessarily my parents’ faith. I have to make a decision on what I believe and what I stand for, separate from my family. I remember that around the age of 14 I started to feel distant from God and was not very strong in my faith. Throughout high school I think I had different points of feeling “spiritual highs,” but felt like my faith was lukewarm. Today, I think I am starting to separate my parent’s faith from my own, and starting to make it mine. I feel like this is something everyone has to do at some point in their life. In the past year, and in the past couple months especially, I have had a stronger relationship with God. I definitely don’t feel “strong” in my faith, but I feel like I am growing spiritually. I think being here and the

Born and raised in Marion, Iowa and into an evangelical church, my parents “Baby Dedicated” my life to christ. At age 5 my family moved to New Covenant Bible Church. When I was young I didn't think much of church, it was just something you did and was merely going through the motions. But when I hit middle school my parents made me go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. Key phrase, made me. At this point in my life I didn't like church, at all. As I grew older, I wanted to be at church less and less. And I dreaded going every time Sunday morning rolled around. I had the mindset that the world had more to offer me than Christ did. And so I made excuses and put up fights and soon I rarely went to church. My family went but I stayed

Ever since I was a young boy, my family would pile into our old 15-passenger van and drive to church each and every Sunday, without fail. I didn't really understand it at first, it was just something I had to do. When I was around 6 years old, my mother encouraged me to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. I hardly understood what it meant, but I went through with it, much to my mother’s excitement. Years passed, and my understanding grew. Up until I was around 13 years old, my faith had no correlation to my actions. I could recite bible verses for hours, yet I couldn't say what any of them meant. That all changed one year at Camp Selah, a Then, in the year 2014, my faith took a turn for the worst. I’d had a testing first year of high

When I was a kid, I was taken to church on a weekly basis. My foundation in God was learned as a child. I loved to read the bible and there was this one particular Bible story book that I had, which I read cover to cover. My favorite story to read was the book of David. I was very intrigued with him and all that he had gone through prior to becoming a king. I loved the fact that David liked to dance. Once I grew up, I continued to go to church, but it was more out of ritual. I was not learning because the pastors would talk above my understanding most of the time. The only thing that I did understand was that when it was almost time to dismiss there would began to be a lot of whooping hollering and spitting. I would be at the club getting my bounce on Saturdays and I went to church on Sundays sometimes just hours after coming home from the club. I knew that I should have been living a more Godly life than i was, but I continued to have my fun

Growing up in a Christian Orthodox religion I went to church every sunday and attended sunday school as well as all church related festivals. Going to college and working became an excuse on why I stopped attending church regularly. When college came along I absolutely hated the idea of taking a religion class as a required course. I was so close minded and complained relentlessly about taking this course. As time went on in class I told myself, “there is no way this professor is going to turn me into a Lutheran.” Little did I know my professor was trying to open the doors of knowledge and expand my views in both science and religion. I came into theology one hundred and one believing I knew everything there was to be known about God. I was arrogant and foolish. My perspectives were so narrow, like my mind. I did not allow my professor to enlighten me with his knowledge. I believed that since I passed my tenth grade Sunday School exam there was no more to learn, or no mind great

In my youth, I believed in God, prayed to Him, and appreciated His apparent love for me, but there was no substance to my faith because I had a considerably vague understanding of my sins. I did not comprehend my need for forgiveness, nor was I told that I need to confess my sins to Christ and acknowledge Him as my Lord and Savior to have a personal relationship with Him. As I entered the fifth-grade, I was presented with and accepted the gospel in our high school gymnasium. I still had a rather vague understanding of my need for a Savior. Over time, however, I began to grow in recognition of my transgression and experienced a gradual increase in the size of the cross. I began to see God as a friend who loved me and overlooked my sins past, present, and future through the penalty paid by Christ’s death on the cross. While this explanation of the gospel is true, it was incomplete and lead to compromise in my

However, over the years, my faith began to wane. I don’t know If I always doubted my religion, but slowly over the years I began to slowly slip away from my religious upbringing. This all culminated in a youth camp my church held when I was around thirteen years old. During this youth camp, we were scheduled to do all sorts of service work and spiritual experiences. I had been told for years that this camp was where people finally “experienced” God, and where people finally saw God’s impact in their lives. While I appreciated the service work I got to do for others, I never had any spiritual experiences, and this moment really impacted me, and caused me to doubt the existence of a higher

Growing up, my parents never talked about God, or church, or Christianity. I did not know who God was, nor did I know anything about Christianity. I did know, that all of my friends believed in this so called ‘God” and would go to church every Sunday, and identified themselves as Christian. I did not know what any of this meant, but at first I acted like I did, so that I wouldn’t be seen as different.

From my distant childhood memories, I believe that our family went to church regularly. However, after Hurricane Katrina, our family didn’t attend church because we were so occupied with rebuilding our lives. Yet, I was still able to have exposure to Christ from my God-fearing parents and my Catholic school. Eventually, due to the conviction in my parents’ hearts, we found a church home. From there on, I could receive the Word in a church setting regularly. As time went on, I matured in my faith and became fond of the things of God. I wanted to discover him and understand why I believed in Him. In my early high school years, I talked about Him with my friends for I had a passion for Him. However, it was becoming increasingly aware to me that I was being a lukewarm

I’ve always known about God, growing up in a christian home God was at the center of our family. I went to church every Sunday, read my bible every day, but I always had my doubts I would always say to myself, I believe in God but I don't really need him. I thought to myself I can decide whats right and wrong, why do I need God to do that for me, I know what’s best. But I would soon come to realize just how wrong I was and just how much I needed God.

Baptized in the Lutheran Church as a baby, religion was always something I had known. Growing up, my family and I went to church weekly. From the time of being born, to my last year of elementary school, a semi-contemporary, Lutheran Church was my home. My first year of middle school, my family decided to switched to a more traditional church. Filled with the smell of senior citizens and old hymnals, church was no longer enjoyable. My Dad decided to not attend to church anymore (besides occasional holidays), as my siblings and I were older and he felt as if he did not need to pretend to advocate church anymore. On the other hand, my other three family members and I continued. Twelve-year-old Me believed in a God. Though felt like a chore going to church and forcefully reading my Bible. God was a one-day, Sunday morning routine on my behalf. The idea of God was something I had stored into a box and opened as needed. My prayer life consisted of my Confirmation class teacher praying and when I really wanted something. I know now that God does not work that way. My middle school years as a Christian was everything less than desired. Going to a Christian school, I did not mind God but I did not want to put in the effort of having a relationship with Him. Christianity was just a bunch of impossible rules to follow and I was just a rebellious pre-teen. Getting into bad habits of disobeying my parents, cursing, bullying, negativity and living selfish had caught up to me. It took

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.

Growing up I always lived in a religious household. We always prayed before we ate, prayed before we went to bed, and always went to church on Sunday and Wednesday night. While I never questioned these actions and never tried to rebel against them, I still didn’t understand the importance of them either. I was merely walking in my parents footsteps, doing what my parents told me, singing along to the children’s songs in Sunday school, gave a tithing of my allowance every Sunday, but my life was void of the real meanings of my actions. This went on for years. Because I had not yet read through the Bible to understand why these actions had any meaning, they were just things I did all the time and I thought that was normal and that was what it meant to be a Christian.