"It's not a Religion, its a relationship." ~My Mom
Lately, me and TIbs have been discussing religion for some odd reason. I thought I'd blog about my church, since it seems to be so different from the LDS church.
Every Sunday my family travels half an hour down to SLC with our dogs; we drop off Eowyn and Caden at my grandma's house and proceed to church, which is at 10:30. We start service by standing and singing lots of different songs.Once we sang nothing but 'Jesus' for about 20 minutes. I've noticed one of the main points of difference between our churches is that we don't sing hymns. We stand and dance and clap our hands, and lots of people cry out in tongues. It's really amazing when someone else stands and translates, but I'll get into that later.
Oh goodness- I almost forgot. The church I go to is Salt Lake Christian Center, and I am Assembly of God. (If that doesn't mean anything to you, I'm a Christian that believes in the Bible and nothing more. I believe the Bible is whole and complete as is.)
Anyway, we then go around and hug people we know, and introduce ourselves to new-comers. Another thing I've noticed that's different from LDS churches is that we are so diverse. If you look around you will see Navajo people, Indians(from India :D), Samoans, Philipianos, and many others. You also don't have to dress up. I believe that God accepts you as you are, and many people who go to our church cannot afford fancy clothes. We have 'hobos' at our church, black guys with low jeans and dreadlocks, white guys with tattoos up their arms, and little old people with bad attitudes. Diversity is the spice of life.
After that we have a weekly update video, which usually features some kind of odd humor. (On Pastor's birthday, they gave him a handicap sign to put in his car.) And then a message from our beloved pastor, who often interrupts with a, "Tell your neighbor to wake up! I'm preaching some good stuff up here." And we end with more worship, which often includes people praying and dancing down at the altar; lots of people give their hearts to God. Kids church is also going on at this time, and me and my brother usually help out with the other teenagers, but my mom wants me to go to service since I'll be missing a lot for work over the summer. We have a store up at KidsCity (which is what kid's church is called) and we give out Bible-Bucks to those who behave and include others, and for those who bring their Bible, which they spend on stuffed animals, toys, and other odd items. We have a service up there that usually includes puppets, and we once celebrated Hanukkah, dreidels and all. We usually have a certain group of teenagers that helps with KidsCity, including my Philipiano friend Danica and her family, my Brazilian friend Larissa, and my white friend Thomas. Usually I don't dwell on ethnicity, but I feel it's good to mention culture because it gives background.
Today there happened to be a five dollar lunch special, which featured left over food from a funeral. (Gotta love funeral potatoes!) Me and my siblings helped Marjean out with serving it up, then grabbed our own portions. I got to sit with all my friends and chat about unrelated stuff, which I definitely liked. And so ended the first half of my day. I will skip to when we went back to church at 5:00 for Mpact, for the sake of space.
Mpact is kind of our equivelent of Girl Scouts. Except we don't have vests or anything, and we are a lot smaller. My class usually only has three or four girls, including me. Marjean is also our leader for Mpact, and my 'group' is called Girls Only. (Kind of an odd name, since all the other groups are also only for girls, except Rainbows.) The groups are decided on grades, and we have six groups, from preschool until you graduate High School. Then you can become a leader, if you so desire. The six groups are: Rainbows, Prims, Daisies, Stars, Friends, and Girls Only. I'm in Girls Only, and you get into that group when you are in 9th grade.
What I really wanted to talk about is the Gathering. Every other Friday youth gathers together in the gym at our church, and we worship like no other. We also play volleyball and basketball, eat nachos and pizza bites, and witness using dance and skits. When we worship we dance and sing, and the instruments on stage include drums, bass, and an electric keyboard. We give it our all, and although it's rare, we sometimes speak in tongues. As it says in the Bible (Acts 2:4):
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Speaking in tongues is a wonderful thing, where you let the Holy Spirit into your heart and you cry out in tongues of many nations. When I first spoke in tongues, I found out later that I was speaking Philipiano, and I was completely awestruck. Then we have preformances from our fine arts group, and we also watch YouTube videos, such as this one:
Watch it! It's amazing...makes me feel loved :D. Anyway, that's all I have for today. Peace out!
Lately, me and TIbs have been discussing religion for some odd reason. I thought I'd blog about my church, since it seems to be so different from the LDS church.
Every Sunday my family travels half an hour down to SLC with our dogs; we drop off Eowyn and Caden at my grandma's house and proceed to church, which is at 10:30. We start service by standing and singing lots of different songs.Once we sang nothing but 'Jesus' for about 20 minutes. I've noticed one of the main points of difference between our churches is that we don't sing hymns. We stand and dance and clap our hands, and lots of people cry out in tongues. It's really amazing when someone else stands and translates, but I'll get into that later.
Oh goodness- I almost forgot. The church I go to is Salt Lake Christian Center, and I am Assembly of God. (If that doesn't mean anything to you, I'm a Christian that believes in the Bible and nothing more. I believe the Bible is whole and complete as is.)
Anyway, we then go around and hug people we know, and introduce ourselves to new-comers. Another thing I've noticed that's different from LDS churches is that we are so diverse. If you look around you will see Navajo people, Indians(from India :D), Samoans, Philipianos, and many others. You also don't have to dress up. I believe that God accepts you as you are, and many people who go to our church cannot afford fancy clothes. We have 'hobos' at our church, black guys with low jeans and dreadlocks, white guys with tattoos up their arms, and little old people with bad attitudes. Diversity is the spice of life.
After that we have a weekly update video, which usually features some kind of odd humor. (On Pastor's birthday, they gave him a handicap sign to put in his car.) And then a message from our beloved pastor, who often interrupts with a, "Tell your neighbor to wake up! I'm preaching some good stuff up here." And we end with more worship, which often includes people praying and dancing down at the altar; lots of people give their hearts to God. Kids church is also going on at this time, and me and my brother usually help out with the other teenagers, but my mom wants me to go to service since I'll be missing a lot for work over the summer. We have a store up at KidsCity (which is what kid's church is called) and we give out Bible-Bucks to those who behave and include others, and for those who bring their Bible, which they spend on stuffed animals, toys, and other odd items. We have a service up there that usually includes puppets, and we once celebrated Hanukkah, dreidels and all. We usually have a certain group of teenagers that helps with KidsCity, including my Philipiano friend Danica and her family, my Brazilian friend Larissa, and my white friend Thomas. Usually I don't dwell on ethnicity, but I feel it's good to mention culture because it gives background.
Today there happened to be a five dollar lunch special, which featured left over food from a funeral. (Gotta love funeral potatoes!) Me and my siblings helped Marjean out with serving it up, then grabbed our own portions. I got to sit with all my friends and chat about unrelated stuff, which I definitely liked. And so ended the first half of my day. I will skip to when we went back to church at 5:00 for Mpact, for the sake of space.
Mpact is kind of our equivelent of Girl Scouts. Except we don't have vests or anything, and we are a lot smaller. My class usually only has three or four girls, including me. Marjean is also our leader for Mpact, and my 'group' is called Girls Only. (Kind of an odd name, since all the other groups are also only for girls, except Rainbows.) The groups are decided on grades, and we have six groups, from preschool until you graduate High School. Then you can become a leader, if you so desire. The six groups are: Rainbows, Prims, Daisies, Stars, Friends, and Girls Only. I'm in Girls Only, and you get into that group when you are in 9th grade.
What I really wanted to talk about is the Gathering. Every other Friday youth gathers together in the gym at our church, and we worship like no other. We also play volleyball and basketball, eat nachos and pizza bites, and witness using dance and skits. When we worship we dance and sing, and the instruments on stage include drums, bass, and an electric keyboard. We give it our all, and although it's rare, we sometimes speak in tongues. As it says in the Bible (Acts 2:4):
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Speaking in tongues is a wonderful thing, where you let the Holy Spirit into your heart and you cry out in tongues of many nations. When I first spoke in tongues, I found out later that I was speaking Philipiano, and I was completely awestruck. Then we have preformances from our fine arts group, and we also watch YouTube videos, such as this one:
Watch it! It's amazing...makes me feel loved :D. Anyway, that's all I have for today. Peace out!
It was quite interesting to read this. I hear so much stuff about the LDS church, and even when I belong to it, it's very enlightening to hear the testimony of someone that isn't from the same religion. It shows that although we have different beliefs, we can all agree on base things such as God and love. (Which, in my opinion, are two of the things I think matter the most in the end.)
ReplyDeleteWhen you started talking about ethnicity, I kinda laughed. I don't know how many LDS chapels you've walked through, but I swear, EVERYONE is white. I can think of very few exceptions. It's kinda weird. Maybe that's just a result from massing everyone within three blocks to one ward. (Seriously, the girl that lives one block away isn't in my ward!)
Your Church actually sounds fun and very positive. I'd probably go to it if my parents did. (They're agnostics and they mentioned that they might want to attend some sort of church.
So again, thanks for sharing this!
You're welcome! God and love are the most important things in my book as well. And the diversity is one of my favorite things about my church :D
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