7eventh Time Down sings the song, God is on the Move. The words of the refrain, “God is on the move, on the move, Hallelujah. God is on the move, in many mighty ways” accurately reflects my life. God is definitely on the move and has been preparing me for this journey in the MOL program. Thinking about events in my life that contributed to my growth as a leader, several events come to mind.…
You went with your youth group as you were preparing for your confirmation. RJ Bagus, one of the leaders closest to you, took the time to write in your journal, saying “ You are very diligent and agile in your faith. You know the plan God has for us is complex and grand but some people can take it, I know you can because you are strong in your faith” (Bagus, 2015). At the time, you were really deep into the Catholic religion. You went to pro life marches, and grounded yourself in the Holy Catholic Bible.…
However, when a friend took me to a Lutheran church, where they had fellowship hour before the worship the smell of the coffee and the chocolate chips cookies hooked me to go week after week and finally fell in love with everyone and everything. The pastor reached out to me. Gave me an opportunity to tell my story of faith. The church family became my faith family.…
Around here you can’t drive five miles without seeing a church. My earliest memory is accepting Jesus into my heart. I was three. I’ve grown up in a Southern Baptist church, where I’ve learned all of the right things to say. Which is sometimes worse than just screwing up.…
Neglecting Religion Family trips, vacations and roadtrips are always a fun thing to do with family. Even if it’s just going out of town for the day, going camping for the weekend or even leaving the State or Country for a few days or weeks. When going on these trips, you usually expect the best of it and don’t seem to think of the negatives, like something terrible happening. I myself have been on family vacation and roadtrips many times before. My family and I always have a great time when going on these trips and never expect or try to think of anything bad happening.…
My catholic education has been a very important part of my life. There are so many things that attending to a catholic school has taught me. It has made my faith such a big part of my life and influenced me to be more involved in my church. I have been given so many great opportunities not only to further my faith but my education with teachers that work with students to do and be their very best.…
Once a week, I meet up with my friend Michael to talk about some of the bigger ideas that seem to consume the great majority of my thoughts. Our bonfire chats generally last until 9 or 10 PM, just in time for me to catch some of the George Noory show on my way home. How can you not love a talk radio show devoted to aliens and conspiracies? The other night, however, 1290 AM was not coming in too great, so I scanned the dial and stumbled upon a voice that could only be that of a Christian preacher.…
One day, my mother noticed something was wrong with me. Usually, my mother and I don’t have a close relationship. She never tried to talk to me about what I was going through because I would shut her out. But, on this particular day, she told me “I don’t know what’s happening with you, but God is always here for you”. It was then that I realized I do have an alternative escape: religion.…
There were times where it was hard to show respect to someone’s religion when they don’t show respect back. I always look back on how I was raised and it helped me through those difficult times also being Catholic made me open minded to all the different religion and traditions that are around me. Also I have realized that are many other countries who have people practicing Christianity like in the middle east, north africa etc. This makes me realize that this world is changing for the good and people are accepting others for who they are and what they believe in. There is something that really bothers me about the Catholic church because I am a very open minded person and I like to find out new things about life.…
From darkness into His marvelous light – (My conversion experience) I am the first born in a strong Buddhist family in Sri Lanka. My grandfather was a Buddhist Priest and I thought Buddhism was the best religion in the world. From very young age of my life I wanted to become a medical doctor, and I prayed every day in front of Buddha’s statue asking him to make me a doctor. I also studied very hard to achieve this goal.…
Everyone has to believe in something. Even if you say I don’t believe in anything that is a belief. I believe in something that is widely accepted and unacceptable internationally. A topic that is debated around the world is the topic of a higher being of the spiritual world. Each superior being has different names for each culture.…
I became the senior youth member that only came to the “fun” things. Soon after leaving my church, I had a fall out with my faith. Depression, sadness, and anger were the only feelings I could muster out of my system. A few months into my senior year, my mom finally realized that I was going down a dark path. Together we figured out my depression, sadness, and anger all started when I left the church and turned my back on God.…
My parents turned away from religion when I was six years old. My mother and I went to several churches before joining the Church without Walls when I was in middle school, my father never was interested in religion again. After graduating high school, I decided not to be a part of any type of religion also, maybe because of the research my father shared with me that helped me with this decision. I am not a spiritual person; nevertheless, I am really interested in why some people are strong in their faith in regards to their religion.…
I used to be a ball of clay. I was twisted, sculpted, and made into what those around me wanted me to become. I was morphed into a doubter of faith and stretched into a wavering believer. I was convinced by non-believing teachers and badly chosen friends alike that the Christian religion was not worth my time, and I was not worth Jesus’. The most detrimental part of this was that I believed them.…
It took me many services at our church to realize what I was doing there. I started to remember why I even started going to church in the first place. I only went to church and became baptized because my parents wanted me to. It was rare that I ever voluntarily wanted to go to church. Every time that I was told to pray to God, I tried to picture sending my words up to heaven, but it never felt right when I was done.…