It is amazing how one week in your life can completely change it. Just one week out of the thousands that we live through can completely turn our life around. Mind racing, imagination chugging down the tracks like a train, this is what I thought about when I was on my way to a camp in the middle of nowhere. Green trees surrounded this place, the bright flashing water rushing from all around you, the smell of the flowers and streams fills your lungs. This place is called Falls Creek in Davis Oklahoma, this is a place where people go to get closer to christ. I was never a really good christian and I was forced by my girlfriend to go because she begged me to saying, “It is a life changing experience!” I did not believe her lies but now I realize after the fact that I was …show more content…
There was tons and tons of people and it was boiling. Sweating, all the time, that is how everyone felt. It was like a huge blanket was being draped over the entirety of the camp and we were just baking like potatoes in an oven. There were hills surrounding us so there was little to no breeze. It was just a hot, busy, crowded desert. But that is not important, the important thing is when it came time for Tabernacle every evening. Tabernacle is when all 7000 of us go into this huge auditorium and listen to a brave speaker preach the lord’s word. Boring is what I thought it was, at first. Boring is definitely not the right word for it. I have never been saved before and I have never really believed in him. But when I was sitting there, with all of my friends from Verdigris I felt at home. I did not feel intimidated by the huge crowd, or being in a place or position I have never experienced before, I felt comfortable and happy for once in a long time. There I felt happy, then I realized that this is what it is like to be with the lord. I felt filled with joy and filled with a good feeling of happiness. I felt complete with
Overall, I enjoyed the experience of learning more about a new culture and participating in their cultural events. My original fear of being an intruder went away when people would be friendly and introduce themselves to me. I was surprised to enter the prayer room and see that people were sitting on the floor because I am used to people having a chair to sit on. I was also nervous about sitting on the floor for a long period of time because my body is not used to it and I am not as youthful as I once was. After about thirty minutes, I started to get really uncomfortable, but I continued to sit because I did not want to be offensive by standing. I was surprised to see volunteers cooking meals for the guest because that is not something that I am used to seeing at a
in the life of a Jewish person. It is a place of study, discussion and
After making the difficult decision of moving out from a school I called home and attended since Kindergarten, my freshman year in a new environment made for a rocky start. I fell into the wrong crowd, tried getting out, but kept making bad decisions, which eventually led to a deep depression. My dreams I had as a child were fading before my eyes, and negative thoughts consumed my mind. I started to believe that I had no purpose and could never amount to anything, but the four days at Camp Barnabas in Missouri changed the course of my entire life. This experience was important to me and helped sculpt me into the person I am today.
After seeing though the eyes of my pastor I’ve come to realize the importance of faith and committing to one’s beliefs. Returning to church after two massive losses has helped my mother in many ways and it has also taught me as a young man how small things that I could do would turn to have a big impact on someone’s life the same way my pastor impacted my life and the life of my siblings.
...as nothing to do but swim, sight see, and watch TV. It was all worth it on the morning of the fourth day when I came down it to the lobby and saw our bus, triumphantly pulling into the parking lot with the morning sun gleaming off the shiny metal, driven by none other than, our youth pastor. Completely forgetting about breakfast I ran outside and waved to him as he pulled it around back to park. As soon as he came to a stop I ran up to the door, he opened it, and I climbed up in and with a satisfied sigh I inhaled deeply taking in the smell I had grown to miss over the last three days. It was at this moment that I realized something, instead of complaining to myself the morning we left, I should have been grateful that we had a bus at all. And with that thought I smiled, and turned around and me and my youth pastor walked inside to get some breakfast.
This is always true of Camp Friends. Camp Friends is arguably the best thing that has happened to me in 2016. Growing up at camp, I loved the idea of not only coming to FC, but had big hopes of being able to be a Camp Friend for the college. I was able to travel all over the country this summer to places that I have never been thanks to the oppotuntiy that Camp Friends brought me. When I was standing in FC’s courtyard on January 20th with all the other camp friends I was so excited to know that I was going to be able to go on the road but had no idea who I would be sharing the experience with. When I first found out that I was going to the mid-east to states that I did not even know where to find them on a map with four other people that I had never seen before was a little disappointing. But God is so good. He knows what is best for me even when I have little faith. I have created such deep relationships with Mark, Zack, Elizabeth and Virginia that I would not trade them for the world. Spending 11 weeks with people and the only place to escape is the other side of the van, will definitely bond people. As I was traveling to places and cities that I had never been before, we were only staying in people’s homes. I now have so many connections with people in the places that I stayed that I could travel and not have to stay in a hotel. When my dad and I were driving to FC from Colorado we did not have to stay at a hotel once. We were able to stay with the people that I had met. This is one of the many reasons I am so thankful for camp friends. My camp friends group turned into a family away from home. Which being so far away from home makes me even more grateful for
The literal definition of tabernacle means “a place of dwelling”; however, in the Bible, The Tabernacle was a place where God had chosen to meet his people. During this time period, the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years under the leadership of Moses’. On the other hand, The Tabernacle did not only represent a place of worship, but it also represented a lesson of unquestionable authority.
On Friday, October 6, I attended a temple service, organized by Hevreh of Southern Berkshire County, for the first time. The temple had polished tan wood walls, one wall of windows, a ring of lights overhead, and then about 200 wooden chairs set up facing the Rabbi. In the service, I was one of about 150 other people inside the quite spacious temple. The interior arrangement was divided into three different sections, with ailes in between each section. Similar to the outfield stands of a baseball field, the seats were all positioned to put the center of attention,
Perhaps the greatest distinction between a Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper and other Christian approaches revolves around the nature of the elements and whether Christ is actually present int eh bread and wine. The Catholic church has long held to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which states that the substance of the bread and wine are actually transformed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. The accidents of the elements, though, the atoms of bread and wine, do not change. If one were to examine the elements under a microscope, they would appear to be bread and wine in every way. There is no way to discern the bread and wine has become the body and blood of Christ.
Similarly during the baseball game I went to, the emotions felt were mixed. Per instance when the team I follow scored a run, I and the other fans felt enjoyment, when the team was losing, anger, anticipation, and fear dominated our senses. Both stadium and religious service we try to forget the rest of our life and decide to just focus on that particular moment and event. Furthermore, as social individuals we try to share those experience with someone else. If we are alone the feelings and emotions when we are praising God or watching a baseball game on TV has its similarities and differences.
This semester of K’tonton, we are focusing on a few main topics: Hebrew, Holidays and Parsha (weekly Torah portions). We begin our morning with some coloring, and then have Moring Meeting. In Morning Meeting, we sing some songs and introduce the what we are doing each day. The first part of class is Hebrew. We are making our way through the Aleph –Bet, learning a new letter every week, which is the letter of the day. For each letter, we learn what the letter looks like, what its sound it makes, and a few words that begin with that letter. The letters are our gateway into the Hebrew language. The goal is to introduce the students to Hebrew. Every week the students have music with Cantor Postman, where they learn the Shabbot Tefilot (prayers),
During my seventh grade year, my church went to a youth rally at a local church on weekend. Because of this rally and the message it sent, I realized and wanted to give my life to Jesus through baptism. It was awesome, I got home as a young teenager and actually talked to my mom about what it really means to be a Christian and to pick up your cross and follow him. So that very next weekend, my dad baptized me in front of the whole church on Sunday morning. It was an awesome feeling knowing that because of Jesus’ grace and mercy, I will be with him one day and spend eternity with him. Although I was on top of the world at this point, I still didn’t know fully what I had gotten into. So the next few years, I live the typical Christian life. I was trying to be the perfect person by doing the right stuff, I would try not to cuss, I would try to wear as many WWJD bracelets as I could so that I wouldn’t have to talk to them about Christ and they could just see it on my wrist, I would not join in on conversations with my friends that I knew were not right, I was just living life on cruise control.
On March 25th, 2016 I attended a service at Temple Emanuel, a Reform Jewish Temple, in my hometown of Andover Massachusetts. As an outsider, from the beginning I was extremely paranoid about my behavior. I had some prior knowledge from attending a Bat Mitzvah at a young age, but all that did for me was let me know that as a male, I needed to wear a yamaka. Luckily for me, the temple had spares I was allowed to use. As soon as I walked into the room where the service was taking place, part of me was reminded of church.
Many years ago when I was a freshman in high school, an event happened to me that changed my life for the better. My friend invited me to go hiking with him and his sister. He was going to go hiking in Yosemite. The following day I prepared myself mentally and physically in order to accomplish this hike.
For my immersion experience I decided to attend the “Tour of Worship Places” which was part of the Celebrate Nashville week. Celebrate Nashville is an annual celebration of the diversity that we have Nashville and because this year they were celebrating their 20th year anniversary they decided to do a week-long celebration with different events each day of the week. The tour of worship places was the start of the week-long celebration. I decided to participate in this event because it was a unique experience in which I understood I would be pushed out of my comfort zone and learn many things that otherwise I would never get the opportunity to do so. As, I’m writing my reflection on this experience I will be touching on various aspects that happened through the course of this event.