My Faith Development Through this Semester This semester was indeed eventful, as a class we rarely stated within our classroom and did typical and ordinary studies or note-taking. Getting involved in our school and community was our main focus as a group. As we were busy planning events from liturgies, mingles, running monthly masses, and even the first leadership conference sleepover at Madonna we were exposed to our Catholic-centered faith in an extremely different light. Personally, I was able to start connected the messages of the Bible to my daily life and to the events that are the norms of our society. Before grade 12 Catholic leadership, I had lost the strong connections that I used to have to my faith and my church. Even praying …show more content…
With everything we did as a class and as individuals there will stories left behind (a legacy) of our hard work to improve our school community. Personally, I would like to believe that I had Impacted the lives of people around me. Whether it was the student of the grade 11 leadership class, the participants of Camp Smile, or even the people that I can not recall their names but did help them in a way or another. I lived the past semesters showing my true colours and personally, some say that I feel like a family and that exactly what I was hoping to get across to people. I may be loud, annoying, extremely confident in myself, and even reckless sometimes about my words and actions. Nonetheless, I am a person who truly cares about the wellbeing of everyone around me. Whether it is my best friend or a person I had barely spoken to, everyone is of an equal importance to me and every situation I had faced within this semester impacted my way of thinking and acting …show more content…
At first, this course made me explore my faith in more details and understand the expectations that my faith/church has of me to fulfill. I was taught that the most important things in life are for free and that we should live our lives in service, and in sharing our talents and gifts with others. I came to the realization that I was able to live my faith by doing small actions filled with love and compassion. Mother Teresa says it best "Every Time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing." Secondly, through this semester I worked on the expectation of being an Effective Communicator, every project, liturgy and prayer that I worked at this semester was sincere and honest. I never forced myself into accepting unguilty, as I hoped to see the greatest in everyone around me and shared my thoughts and feelings as they were (maybe that was not the best option for me). Nonetheless, I am proud of myself for speaking up to what I believe was critical to the teachings of the gospel. Finally, through designing my locker I was able to promote peace that made me a Responsible Citizen (my theme was based on peace) which came from the equality and respect for people of all ages, races, and
I must say that I learned a lot from this class both through the readings and through class discussion. I really, honestly do not have anything that I starkly disagreed with in either. I found it all to be very valuable information for me and this class was extremely helpful in assisting me to better understand the current paradigm shift the church is going through. There are three take-a-ways in particular that helped me to better understand the post modern shift in the church and my role as a minister in this changing paradigm. The first take-a-way is the understanding that there is a shift occurring towards focusing more on the congregational life of the church with more attention on the laity and its formation. Second, is how to plan, as a church and as pastors, to adjust to this shift towards congregational life and how to be better prepared as a postmodern church to be relevant in this changing time. Lastly, I received a better way of explaining the meaning of what truth is in this post modern time.
Fifth grade will go down in history as my worst year in school, but definitely the most beneficial. From sixth grade on, I receive nearly all A’s in my course. The occasional high B haunted me on rare occasions, but for the most part I worked to the best of my ability to achieve my goals. Throughout the years after middle school I began to realize that school was not what defined me. I had leaned so heavily on the praise I received from getting A’s that I began to think it was my doing and not the Lord’s. As a follower of Christ, I find that I cannot succeed in what God wants me to without utilizing the strength He has given me. When I do decide to walk a different path, I am constantly reminded of the incredibly weak and depressing sinner I am without Christ. While Mrs. Sera is the one who pushed me to want to reach my full academic potential, Christ is the One I utilize in achieving this. Of course there are days where I am tired, busy, and just plain lazy, but my God is stronger, more attentive, and more active than I will ever be. With a passion to become a fully-devoted Spirit-empowered Christ follower, I know that Christ can and will achieve the academic success He desires for
This course has opened my eyes to faults that I did not know that I was making when it involved evangelism. This has delivered a conviction that has incited my soul and desire to do and be a better witness for my God. When I was
... worldview, just simpler beliefs. This course has increased my knowledge about certain beliefs that I already had.
refugees, and the second generation who were born here in the states. Finally, I feel now that I have the vision to work on myself to know more about my attitude, my future therapeutic values in the field practices. At the same time, I am planning to work more with my personal therapist on the values, beliefs, and emotions and I will be happy to know about myself more.
...teachers in the SMU community has increased my confidence. My self-assurance is so much stronger now that maybe people will start to look to me as a source of confidence. Maybe, just maybe, people will finally see me as somebody they can lean on too.
We have had a very busy schedule for theology this semester. We started this year off with introductions so we could become acquainted with each other. Then you taught us your 10 Rules, the Circle of Meaning, Marg Barbra, and 4H Religion. After that, we learned how to write Mark's gospel. Writing Mark's gospel gave us the opportunity to study the Bible in a different way. We memorized Philippians 2: 5-11, which addresses the incarnation of Jesus. We also learned to write Hebrew, which helped us gain perspective on what Jesus was like a human. You taught us about Jesus from a low theology point of view. Then the Humpty Dumpty PowerPoint showed that we should not add things in the Bible that are not there. Towards the end
Greathouse. Session1.Journal My testimony starts the same as most, I grew up with God as a common name in my house but there was no foundation no real relationship, we sinned all week and then confessed our sins on Sunday. Yes you already know I grew up in the Catholic Church. There were man made rules and practices that I did not understand and there was no explanation to what or why we were doing these things.
If I were to leave a remarkable legacy, I would have definitely made a tremendous difference in people's lives. My family and teachers will be proud of all of the passing grades and good feedback from all of my teachers. However, I want to be remembered as a role model from all of my teachers and classmates. I want to be recognized as the student who was always hard working and brings sunshine into the classroom. This is a very big goal to accomplish but I will stride to the best of my ability this year. I want to leave honorable reputation
This course has challenged me beyond any of my expectations; more so spiritually than academically. Several of the questions that were asked required us to reflect on our beliefs and place ourselves on a scale caused me to doubt the lessons I learned from my church. I realized what we are taught at church is presented as the only option mainly because no other perspective is provided. For example, there is a range of beliefs on the inerrancy of the Bible, but it seems that children growing up in the church do not realize there is a range. More importantly, in terms of this debate, people need to realize the view the “the Bible comes from God,” fits both infallibility and inerrancy and so they need to further examine their beliefs to see where
I began this course thinking my worldview was that of a Christian Theist, as I had come to discover, as the course progressed, my worldview was a mixed bag of beliefs outside the elementary belief of Christian Theism. I was not disheartened by this finding, but surprised. The realization then set in that I was uneducated or did not know God like I thought. In fact my beliefs appeared to be more influenced by society than the deity of God. Fortunately, this is a learning experience intended to bring me closer to the truths of Christianity and an understanding of the beliefs of others.
For sure,for sure. I don’t know that I could ever see the Bible the same after this course! But it does indeed open me up to new approaches in my own analysis and study, as well as how I talk about the Bible moving forward. Best of all, My Faith has Survived!, and was even a bit enhanced.
It is Sunday morning, I head to my front porch to greet the birds that are chirping beautiful tunes and to feel the small breeze hit my face with delicacy. It is the perfect weather for a long walk on the beach which I can spot at the end of the horizon. This was not an option since I had to rush back to my room and get ready for church. Today is Palm Sunday, one of the most important feasts for the Coptic Church. It is 7:20 am, I am in the car sitting beside my sister that is half asleep while listening to my parents proposing plans for tonight.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a service that I got to attend that was different from my own religious tradition. I decided to go with my chosen topic because to be honest I had never experienced or thought to experience a different type of church service other than the one I grew up in. I grew up in a Christian home and attended a non-denominational Christian church on a regular basis. I just never felt the need to experience something that was different. So I decided to attend a mass at a Catholic church. I had been to weddings in a Catholic church and even funerals with a Catholic involvement but not an actual mass.
Starting classes at Vanguard was a terrifying experience for me, I didn’t really know anyone and I had been homeschooled most of my life, as soon as I walked into New Testament Survey I felt at peace. If there was any class that I was going to really enjoy and take things from and apply them to my every day life I knew it would be this one. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the bible, and gaining more and more insight each time I went to class. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:30 I was excited to be going to class. Each week when I did the reading for the quizzes I learned more and more and each day I developed a stronger knowledge of why I believe exactly what I believe.