religion
5 years ago I was in the process of deciding if I wanted to stay with the catholic church since I had just been confermed there and wasn't really sure what my faith was. growing up i had a religious experience that not many people have. my mom was catholic and therefore when she married a non catholic she pretty much had to promise to raise any offspring in the church. well she did that and upon my brothers birth they had us baptized catholic. when we were old enough to understand that mommy and daddy went to seperate churches we were given the chance to attend what we would like at either church. i started attending youth group at the methodist church that my dad went to in southport in middle school. i had gone to bible school and whatnot there when i was younger and been involved with some other things there. about 2 1/2 months into my junior year in high school some things happened at the catholic church youth group that made me not want to be a part of it and started attending the youth group at the methodist church completely and not swapping back and forth on a weekly basis. i still went to mass on occasion for the next 6 monthes or so. then around the time tyler and i dated that year i realized that i just did not feel like i should even be going to mass because it did not seem my beliefs were near what most catholics believe. my whole senior year i went to service and sunday school at the methodist church in southport. i felt in place there, i had larry there. at the catholic church there weren't any guys that i was really close to and i think that was part of what got me aggervated because in high school i might have been a dance but i loved being one of the guys. summer after i graduated i wasn't able to go to church that much because of where i was working i worked most sunday mornings and there wasn't really anything i could do to get out of doing that. going into college i thought i knew what my beliefs were and oh how they have changed. i have discovered that i have a problem with institutionalized religion, yes big religious study major term right there. yes i know this seems odd because i am part of a methodist campus ministry and for the past two summers i have staff methodist youth events. i'm not saying i lost my faith or anything like that but i have come to believe that you do not need a church to have faith. yes it is good to have friends and be around people who share your same religious beliefs but it does not have to be in a church. i have come to realize that i am to liberal for many churches at this point in time. churches are slowing accepting homosexuals to attend their church and be a part of the church but this is what is written and it isn't always practiced which really pisses me off. but the churches and the state will not allow homosexuals to get married. sorry but no matter who you are and who you love you should be able to marry that person and no one should be able to stop you. i have a good number of friends who are of this lifestlye and i'm not going to lie and say i never feel uncomfortable when i am hanging out with two guys who show their affection for eachother because sometimes i do feel uncomfortable because of the worldi grew up in. churches tell you that the behavior is wrong and some even try and say that the bible says all this stuff about homosexuality but someone please show me where jesus says anything about it...oh wait dont bother trying you aren't going to find it.
tonight i was leading an interest group at acs, and i will be doing the same tomorrow night, where high schoolers get to ask some of us college kids questions about college. and this one girl that was in there was so worried about keeping her faith when she got to college and finding a church or ministry to be a part of and i just wanted to say you don't have have to a church or campus ministry to keep your faith in college. situations arise and you are going to be the minority. so what if one of the greatest friends you make in college doesn't have the same religious beliefs that you have. you can come to discover in college that the faith you were raised in isn't the one for you anymore. why do you want to try and keep what you have now. if you try to keep yourself the same person you are right now when you get to college you are going to hate it because you will not mature like most people do when they go off to college. why be worried about being at a school where weed is very popular at, it is at every college in this country and you cannot aviod it. the people you least expect will have either tried it a few times or use it on a regular basis. there is a lot more to college then finding a church or religious people to socialize with. i really think some of these people wanted to just find those people and be around just those type of people and if you do that you are going to hate it becaue you are going to only be around people who are like you. that is what high school was for to an extent. yes i know this seems odd for me to be saying b/c i do go to a campus ministry and i am around people who have similar beliefs to mine on a regular basis but in my group of friends there are people who i have had conversations with that have gone from going to church every sunday to being agnostic where they know there is a higher power but they dont know what beliefs are them.
yes some of my opinion has come from my major because of what my focus is on. really we were not there just to get asked questions about church in college because that is not what college is about. colege is about finding out who you really are, and that might include a change or no change in your faith, and becoming an intellect. i never thought 3 years ago i would be using the terms new religious movements and institutionalized religion, and mainstream christianity because then in my mind if you didn't go to a protestant or catholic church you weren't christian. but i have learned that there are people who have some of the most interesting beliefs and get their ideas from the same text that my faith comes from. 3 years ago i would have called these nrms "cults" because that is how we grew up hearing them on the news.
ok i am really going on a rant now because i am fustrated with people and this is what i do when that happens and i'm tired. so i am sorry if this doesn't make sense to you because i'm so tired when i am writing this but if you comment LEAVE your name if you do not have lj because if you dont this will be the last time i ever allow people to leave comments period.