Personal Narrative: Working With A Christian Church

Church, temple, sanctuary, or the Lords’s house, these are just a few names that your average person might call the place you come to worship God, I have always called it home. The Church I have been attending, Memorial Baptist Church, which is also where I attend high school, I have been attending since I was the age of three years old. Moving to the area that my family lives in now, I do not believe is any accident. At the age of two years old, my father was stationed in Tennessee for the military. After passing away from brain cancer, my Mother moved my two older sisters and me to Killeen Texas, to be closer to her family. Memorial Baptist Church was the only church we have ever been members of since moving to Texas, it has always felt like

I attend Gospel Light Freewill Independent Baptist Church in Thomasville, NC. It’s a relatively small church, with about 50-70 people on a Sunday morning. My grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle attend this church as well. I consider myself to be a child of God and a true “born again” Christian. Being “born again” means that one has accepted God into their heart and has been changed on the inside. I accepted him into my heart on October 9th, 2012. Growing up strictly in an independent Baptist church, I didn’t know that other churches were different, at least not until I visited my boyfriend’s church which is Southern Baptist. My pastor preaches heavily on hell-fire and brimstone. He walks up and down the altar, yelling and jumping. There are

I have work experience with Heaven’s Gate Ministries in Newark, DE from January 2012 and currently as the Pastor’s Personal Assistant. Interviews conducted with the parishioners involved highly personal, sensitive and confidentiality involving topics with housing, drugs, pregnancy, finances, crime, and other social issues. These interviews assist with locating the services and resources needed to help the parishioners and community in need of services. Other duties encompass making personal pastoral appointments with community and governmental leaders. Reviewing and contacting applicants to obtain required information for application completeness.

I have volunteered 2 times over the years, once at Hope mission and once with the Victory Christian Centre. At hope missions I helped cut different veggies for the meal later in the day, plated food, served trays to people, swept and cleaned tables and trays after the meal was finished, and had small conversations with different people. During my time there I learned sorting skills, working under pressure, time management, and overcoming problems.

In addition, going to the baptist church made me realize that no matter what your culture is, humans all want the same things. People want a sense of meaning and purpose, and to feel inspired, hopeful, unconditionally loved, accepted, and uplifted. People want to have an understanding of who they are, and what that entails. When people are feeling scared and insecure about the present and future, they demand explanations for the unknown, or the difficult elements of their life. Furthermore, people need order, structure, and security in their lives by being told what they should think/believe, how they should behave. People also seek a sense of belonging and community. Overall,it doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, Christian, Caucasian, or African American, at the end of the day, humans generally all want the same thing, but just have different ways of showing it or expressing it.

The Christian Community Service Center is an aspiring non-profit organization whose mission statement is to, “serve the poor, hungry, disabled, and otherwise needy while respecting their religious, ethnic or cultural differences”.

I spent a year of college trying to be African. Afrobeats vibrated through the walls of Beets-Veenstra’s first floor dorm. My Christian college had an open-door policy. Walking past the ninth door on the left gave visitors an eyeful of my black hips swaying in circles as if an invisible hula-hoop entangled my waist. I had to get the moves I learned at the parties right. The beats were different from the hip hop music I regularly danced to. They were smooth tempos, but faster than reggae and bodies rocked with more control. My roommate complained about the hours I spent dancing in front of the mirror. We were not flat mates the next the year.

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

Every Friday, when I go to the Catholic Worker, I witness "people motivated by the teachings of Jesus" by their energy and joy in their service. Before the people in need come inside the volunteers form a circle and pray (Cornell 1). When we form the circle, I feel the Holy Spirit lighting a fire in my soul because others are willing to imitate Christ and pour out their love to whoever they come in contact with. Beginning our day with prayer acknowledges that Christ and his teachings are needed in this mission and that all the good work we are able to do is done through Christ. Cornell speaks of the Catholic Worker movement as a "new society within the shell of the old" because it embraces the law and teachings that God has already given us,

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.

Holding these positions required me to attend and coordinate meetings with people from other states and local church. I was leading committees, create flyers, conducting meetings, planning events, services, and come up with a budget plan for the conferences. The budget plans include hotel accommodations, breakfast lunch and dinner expenses, and conference hall rentals. The budget plan could be anywhere from $500.00-$30,000 for the conference. We also planned other activities to keep the youth and young adults active while away from home attending the conferences. Monitoring the youth at night during the day making sure they are in the right place and following the guidelines for youth and young adults at a Christian conference.

=For the past year, I have been attending a Lutheran Church back in a town I used to attend college in. As a person, I do not truly identify as Lutheran but, I do enjoy the service. In a Lutheran church the key features of the service is the creeds and the views of certain topics in scripture. The church I attend is Christ Lutheran, when service starts candles are lit, we sing a couple of hymns, the pastor teaches his sermon, we greet each other, we confess, we have the Lord's supper, have a couple of creeds, announcements, and one last hymn. Lutherans are very structured when it comes to service. The Lord's Supper is done every week and as a church we confess our sins through a creed. This past two week, I started attending a different church,

Humans from my own point of view are God's creation, because the bible makes me understand that humans were created in God's image, and during the creation of man, God blew the breath of life into man to make him come alive. I assume the reason humans are so unique is that they were created like God. The reason why humans are the best of all creation is that they can think, invent new things, and have dominion of all other creatures on earth. Humans are the only living creation that is conscious of their own existence, because they have advanced knowledge and skills to do things, for example, humans can clothe themselves, cook their foods, and even invent numerous technologies. Humans have a well-regulated sense that is able to

Never in my life did I think God would lead me to become a pastor. However, around the end of 2012, I really felt God calling me toward vocational ministry. I wasn’t really sure what that would look like in my life, and I struggled with God for a long time about the idea of giving up a “sure thing” with the army, for the unknown of serving in ministry. I just kept thinking, “Is this really what God is calling me to do?” This went on for quite a while. One night, in May 2014, God made it abundantly clear to me. My wife and I were attending the wedding of some close friends of ours. The pastor who was performing the ceremony was the pastor of the church my wife and I attended before I joined the military in 2010. After the ceremony, I was talking with him and mentioned that I was feeling like God was calling me into pastoral ministry.

My journey with God started in February of 1993, when I went to a ladies’ conference in Columbus, Texas. It was while the speaker was explaining that she knew there were some of us out in the audience, who felt guilty about something they had done in their past, and they did not feel that God could forgive them for it. But then she quoted from God’s word; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NASB) The speaker continued on to say that all we need to do is