I was born into a Christian family; my father was a non-practicing Catholic and my mother was a protestant. I was raised to belief in God. The Social and cultural effect of my spiritual development and religious experience. As an adult my spirituality has grown and changed throughout my life; these changes effected the many events, decisions and circumstances; in my life which have effect my spiritual development and my religious experience. I have substantively have brought an important, meaningful quality, meaning and solidity to my life. Through these experiences, I have gained a understanding in of God, my faith and my church. paragraph one The social forces that have influenced me are my family, my friends and my church have. I was baptised as a baby into the United Church. I …show more content…
We were a middle class working family who owned a business in a farming community. The community I was raised in could be describe as red neck Alberta. Culturally the community normal dress was rodeo style and rodeo culture; and hockey as a major social influence. Both major activities were male dominated. This was not an issue at the time for me. I continued to do what I wanted to do. Against social forces, I attended college for the Interior Design program. From this program I chose to work in the engineering fields as a draftsperson. The social and cultural forces have shaped me as an independent woman not wanting to follow the crowd. This influence stays with me today. paragraph two spiritual development and religious expression As a child to adult my spiritual development has gone through a spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood This process, started as a child where my spiritual development was by dictated by my family to go to church. My earlies religious expression took bible camp 10 years. I had a desire to know God, and understand scripture, but it was not until I became an adult did I fulfill these desires. At
Similar to everyone else in the world, many sociological forces have greatly impacted my life and shaped the person that I am today. Throughout Sociology 110, learning what elements in the population’s lives affect the way they live their lives allowed me to consider what has personally affected my own. The person I am today can attribute the sociological forces such my gender, my not-so close knit family, my family’s low socioeconomic status, and sexism in the family. There are plenty of other sociological factors that have considerably rendered my person, however, I believe that the ones I mentioned are the most important factors that manipulated not only how I live my life, but me as a person as well, into my current self.
Faith plays a pivotal role in our construction of religion. The work of Dr. Sharon Parks analyzes faith development throughout one’s life span but pays special attention to emerging adulthood. Dr. Parks has an extensive academic career which incorporates her attendance of Princeton University’s theological seminary. As well as her attendance of Harvard University’s divinity school where she obtained her doctorate. Through her extensive research in areas such as “developmental psychology, religion, theology, leadership and ethics” (Service Resources, 2014) Parks is able to focus her work on faith development. Her work is influenced by theorists such as Erickson, Piaget, Perry and Levinson but primarily it is based off of Fowlers work in faith development. Her background in teaching and counseling has allowed her close access to seeing students during this important portion of their lives.
The Christian faith has been a major legacy left by my great-grandfather. My great-grandfather started a Spanish church in Blue Island, Illinois, and raised his family in the ways of the Lord. He taught his children the importance of having a strong foundation in the Word and the importance of coming to church. His legacy is evident in the lives of his children and grandchildren. Even when at times different family members have walked away from the Lord, their strong foundation as children has often times brought them back to God. My grandma and my mom both had similar experiences, and if it had not been for the strong foundation in the Word of God, God only knows where they would be today and if I would even exist. I grew up in church, and have a personal relationship with God, that will enable me to be apart of the Christian culture at Southeastern
My life is governed by the beliefs of the Christian faith. The teaching of Christianity is the driving force that gives me confidence, hope and self-acceptance through God’s unconditional love. God’s love enables me in faith
Spiritual direction is defined as “help that is given to another to enable him to become himself in his faith” (Davis, 266). It is an adolescent religious education model that encourages an ongoing relationship between the mentor and adolescent; involving one-on-one meetings where discussion centers on issues which are affecting the adolescent’s life in hopes to see how God may be present and working in them. Spiritual direction addresses the major concerns in each individual adolescent's life. Through this educational model, adolescents wrestle with relevant spiritual questions which may lead him or her to discern presence of God in his or her life (Davis, 268). Because adolescence is a time in which one desires to find a deeper meaning to one’s life, spiritual direction from the Church and parents is both beneficial and necessary. Adolescents develop the capability to reason and question, thus understanding the Truth in a new spiritual way. It is important for spiritual leaders to walk alongside adolescents to direct them towards the Truth. This development stage opens individuals to new capabilities for addressing a spiritual hunger, making it the prime time for conversion (Davis, 270). With spiritual direction from parents and mentors in the Church, adolescents can discover and create individual identities before God.
I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. My mother was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States to continue her education when she was in her mid- twenties. My father is from Fort Walton Beach, Florida. My parents have different cultures, and as a result they have completely different backgrounds. When I was growing up, I had a hard time reconciling these different cultures. It was difficult for me and my sister to know what to do in many social situations because our primary schema (our parents) would act completely different in similar social situations. When I would ask my parents for advice, they would give me contrasting suggestions. As I grew older, I started to realize that both my parents were right, even if they acted like opposites.
People may think I had no choice in becoming a Christian since I born and raised in a Christian family. It is true that I accepted the fact that I was sent to this world as His beloved daughter and as a disciple without doubt as I acknowledged myself as a daughter of my physical parents. Having parents that serve God as other missionaries would do and living in spiritually healthy environment made everything too easy for me to become a Christian. However, there have been special leads of the Lord and my unshakable obedient to those callings to truly become a committed Christian as right now.
Religion and faith have been a part of my life since the day I was born. My grandfather has been a pastor at Selma Church of God for 39 years and my mom, along with my grandmother and aunts, run our churches worship team. One could only assume, I have spent much of my life in the church. From years of children 's church and Sunday school, I learned of God 's unconditional love for me and His constant willingness to forgive me of my sins. My family and teachers explained the crucifixion and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. As a child, I knew all these things, these wonderful things about my God and my religion, but it was not until my early teens that I began to thirst for more.
Spiritual formation is a process that morphs as we grow and change. There is no one singular correct path this type of journey takes because each journey is as individual as the person who is experiencing it. Most obvious, the journey will be different from those who identify as religious and those who do not and will diversify with in each category. For example, the spiritual journey a Buddhist takes will be different from that of a believer in Judaism or Christianity. In fact, the journey will continue to diversify between Christians, male and female, age groups, even by demographic location. Consequently, the spiritual formation process is as diverse as it is intricate and we may never be able to discover all the journey options. Although individuals may not actively recognize they are experiencing spiritual formation it is a process that affects all. Because it is in human nature to question, learn, grow, and act, everyone to a certain extent is exposed to a unique spiritual formation journey.
Every Sunday. Stares and disappointment. I sat with my grandmother at this big church. People would stare when they realized I didn't know the prayers or songs. I was trying to learn more about religion why did I feel so scared? Am I going to find where I belong? Will I have enough time? These are questions I sometimes have to ask myself. When I was little I explored many religions but now that i'm older I am frightened about faith.
In my life, I am defined as a Catholic through and through. Unfortunately, being a Catholic has an incredibly negative reputation in the U.S. making it rather difficult to identify as such. Frequent persecution, questioning, dirty looks, a never ending torrent of 'did you knows,' but I take it in stride. Like many of those around me, I questioned the Church from a young age so I began to seek out why exactly people believed these crazy ideas. Much to my surprise, there was more than enough information and resources to answer even my most critical questions. Hungrily, I would search prayers, saints, laws, sins, every little bit of information I could get my hands on and, unlike many would expect, I became a more accepting, more loving person
In addition to being influenced by church and religion, I have also been influenced by my family. My parents have always been there for me and supported me in all I do. They encourage me in my schoolwork as well as my extra-curricular activities. They attend all my concerts and things I participate in including church activities. My grandparents have also influenced me in what I am today. My grandfather is a minister and has always encouraged me to do well and have high morals. They have always done special things such as taking me on trips to show me how much they love me. My sister has also helped me be the person I am today. She has been a role model to me in many things. She has encouraged me to do well in school because she excelled and was valedictorian of her class. She also has an outgoing personality and has been a role model socially.
It is obvious that most parents around the globe like their children to be educated. In today’s world, education means higher living standards due to the globalization of industry and competence. My parents are an example for such ambition of pushing children into the intimacy of studying to guarantee a sustainable future. Even thought my family lives in one of the highly educated districts in Baghdad, most parents in this district believe that education is a subjective matter. Therefore, the only goal of students in my district is to attain a minimum passing grade because nobody asks them more than that, even their teachers. In other words, students consider school as a community to have fun instead of earning knowledge. The main reason for such behavior is due to the political situation of Iraq before 2003. At that time, even though a person may hold a degree in engineering, he would work for the government with little salary that is not enough for living. Therefore, educated people at that time have no value for education; they simply know that college education is not enough to build a successful carrier. They feel
No matter who you are I believe that everyone will go through stages in their life that will get them to where they are on today. I am a person who has a very interesting story; this is the first time it will be told in full. We were asked to use Erik Erikson’s theory of development as a guideline to telling the story of our lives. At first I was very nervous; however, I soon realized that this would be a fun task. Erik Erikson has eight stages of Development (Zastrow and Kirst-Ashman). I will be walking you though my life using each one of his stages drawing out the map of my life. Within my life I have had some very interesting encounters. I have been through foster care, abuse, rape, molestation, starvation, adoption, depression, and success. Although my life may not be perfect, I believe that I have overcome these battles and become the person that I am on today. I will be talking about a few crises, milestones, and some of the people that were set in place to help me and or hurt me.
I became a deacon at my church, and soon after I started to build a community culture with the people in my church who shared my beliefs and values. While not every person can agree on everything, having people with similar cultures get together to not only discuss religious beliefs, but discuss family and life is very helpful in growing as a person. They were there for me, and I learned so much from the people I created meaningful relationships and connections with. This made me so much stronger in my faith than I was before, and I felt that I could put my faith in a higher position in my life. During this time I had a son, and not long after another came along; thus, shifting the culture of my family a great deal. Raising my sons proved to be a different experience altogether than raising my daughter. While I still put my faith in God first and taught that to my children, my culture shifted to include more things for them, especially as they got older and became more involved. My life was no longer about me and my priorities, but my faith and my children above everything else. My personal culture was no longer important. It was all about my family culture and what pieces of my own culture I could incorporate to raise my children in the best way possible. The biggest part of my culture that I incorporated was my faith, as I said before. Another important aspect was my family values. I am a very family oriented