Catholic Church Observation Paper

My family and I have always been a part of the same Roman Catholic Church, Santa Rosa de Lima Catholic Church. A predominantly Spanish speaking Church with multiple services throughout the week, on Sunday alone they have 9 different mass services. Yet on Sunday March 6th at 10:30 am I attended a Methodist church that’s also under the Christian denomination, The First United Methodist Church of San Fernando which is a few blocks away from my home. During the only morning service available on Sunday, I observed for the first time a non-Catholic church in a sociological perspective. Although there were quite a few cultural and social difference from both congregations, I prepared myself to openly accept the learning experience that this observation

I didn’t want to be disruptive with anything like a camera because a church is generally deemed a place of respect. I originally planned on going unnoticed during the Methodist service but I ended up having a participant observation, mainly because the Methodist church had very little people in attendance and they knew straight away that I wasn’t a member of their church. In the entire church I counted only about 30 people in attendance, which is much less compared to my regular church which has about more than a hundred people in attendance. So many members of the church introduced themselves and had conversations with me. Through my many conversations with the various members I was given a church program which helped immensely during my observation because it informed me on what to expect of a regular Sunday service for a religion that I was unfamiliar with. The program also had addition information on the Church’s groups outside of their Sunday Services, giving me a broader sense of what Methodist hold valuable. Yet, I’m glad that I participated and mainly used my memory for the observation because I was able to fully focus on absorbing all aspects of the church, the members, and the