Date: Sunday 01/18/2009
Church: Santa Barbara Community
Service: 10:00 a.m.
After arriving roughly five minutes past ten, I was surprised to see that there was not much seating left in the building. The church itself had elevated ceilings and was decent size maybe fitting about three hundred. Since I was late, I opted to sit in the back corner where I saw a few open seats. I later learned the reasoning for this particular section being the most vacant which I will later explain.
Music is a very important factor to me, therefore this is something I look forward to hearing and could even be a big factor in choosing the right church for me. Unfortunately the music selection at SBCC was short, slow and overall not too great. Regardless, I quickly put that aside and was eager to listen to the sermon. Once the music ended, they had the opening statements and then of course the greetings. I met a man named Jim and his wife. While his wife was talking to someone else, I chatted with Jim and told him it was my first time at SBCC. He looked about 35-40 and was very friendly and welcoming.
This week’s sermon topic was about abortion. One of the main pastor’s was doing the worship and he opened it up with a five minute clip of the life of a baby beginning with conception to actual birth.
(Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2l1-kvKomg)
This is a very applicable topic to my life, because I have always been somewhat torn between pro-choice or pro-life. I realize that abortion is wrong and reprehensible, but I also think that in certain circumstances in which a pregnancy conceived through rape, it should be the woman’s choice whether to go through with having that person’s child. Through the sermon, I made to disregard any biased opinions I had toward abortion and just listened to his lecture as if it was the first time hearing about the topic.
“We must love, what god loves.”
He offered seven reasons why abortion is evil:
1. Our genetic makeup
2. Physical makeup
3. Legal consistency (some states it is legal, others it is not)
4. Personal sovereignty
5. Viability (how many weeks after conception)
6. Irrelevance of size/age
7. Irrelevance of cognition
“God values life and so should we.”
Two goals to achieve in relation to abortion:
1. convince the unconvinced
2. wakeup the untroubled
Here are some additional things we can do:
1. Understand the times in which we life, stay informed.
2. Pray to god to awake the conscience of our nation.
3. Talk about these issues with people. Speak about the unborn as people.
This concluded the sermon. I found out throughout the sermon that I must have seated myself in the new born section. Little babies were crying consistently throughout the service which I found a little distracting. Overall, interesting topic and pastor did an efficient job captivating my attention through videos, pictures and slides. I also learned that SBCC partakes in communion every single week. I did not participate. The follow up music was again slow, soft and dull.
After the service ended I stuck around a while and picked up a photo directory. I looked up the college leader’s name and searched around church to talk with him. I patiently waited as he talked to some people, but he seemed to be in high demand because many people were talking to him. As I was waiting, I man about 40 years old came up and chatted with me for a bit. I was telling him a little about myself and told him I was waiting to meet Mike. He then introduced me to Mike the college leader and I talked with him for a bit. I let him know I would be showing up at his house on Thursday night and he indicated he was glad that I took the initiative to come church all by myself.
Final thoughts on Week 1:
Everything went pretty well considering the different factors. The pastor did a good job on a very important topic in our time. I can not fully say my opinions on abortion completely changed, but the sermon definitely had an impact on me. As I left church, I felt good and proud that I actually went out and did it and felt quite welcomed.
Pros:
-Nicely designed church
-Friendly and welcoming people
-Good sermon w/ good speaker
Cons:
-Slow, dull music
-Babies crying were a little distracting
Passage of the week:
Ephesians 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Week 0
Up until this point, I never quite understood church. It just seemed like a bunch of over-zealous people gathering on Sunday and rambling on and on about a new part of the bible. I was never able to fully be involved with the youth group at FCS, only because I felt as though I was an outcast. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life so I am starting to realize that maybe it’s me just being stubborn and not giving people an opportunity to know me.
The truth is, Christianity has been something I always overlooked because I saw it phony and as if everyone was just too happy. I did not like the fact that there were rules, such as being “allowed” to eat the crackers and drink the wine. This may sound foolish and ignorant and the only reason I had this preconception is for numerous reasons. I always remember being bitter watching my whole family and just about everyone in church (including little children) partaking in communion, while I was not allowed to. To this day, I still do not understand why I cannot partake in this ritual, but I hope to one day figure that out.
Another reason I did not care much for going to church was because it was early in the morning and I felt forced to be there, when I really did not want to be. Truthfully thinking back on it, I cannot even recall a single time, in which I attentively listened to a single sermon. At church, I would always daydream and think about anything just to pass time. I didn’t really want to be there and I thought most of the things were over my head.
Once I moved away from home, I remember telling myself…know I can go out and find my own church. After getting settled in at my new town of Santa Barbara I thought about finding a church, but whenever these thoughts came to mind, I would say “next week.” When the time came around, it had already been out of my mind because I was having too much fun and life was good so why would I need god. This is a misconception many people have in this world, including myself. People only turn to god when they need something, when they are in trouble or are feeling down. I say this, because I am that person.
When life is going good, there are no problems and you are getting everything you have ever wanted what good what God do for you? Because I pray so infrequently, I always have a sense of guilt whenever I do pray. This is because the only times I find myself praying are when I need something, want something or am feeling down. Even more shameful, is the fact that when I pray often will make a promise that I will go to church if he answers my prayer. It embarrasses me to even think or write this information down, but I am disclosing this confidential matter to be honest with myself. I feel as though I am not alone. I think there are a lot of people like myself who only pray to god in hopes of something. This can often times be disappointing because that wish or request may not come true, which can make these people believe that god must not exist.
In December of 2008 I accomplished one of my lifetime goals- graduating from a UC. It wasn’t UCLA which I had long dreamt about, but I feel as though UCSB was a better choice anyway. Unfortunately I graduated in the probably the worst time to graduate college since 1929. My parents were so gracious to help me out by offering me a proposal. They were going to give me an incentive if I was active in the church community. So I thought to myself, go to church and get paid? Sounds like a good deal to me. But I really did want to take this idea into consideration and really think about if I WANTED to actually do that. At my initial thought to this idea, I said to myself “ok so I can just spare two hours every Sunday and just rough it out and get some extra cash to pay rent.” But after really thinking about it in depth, I realistically would never have the will power to use my parents’ hard earned money without fulfilling their end of the bargain. I know how important god is in my parent’s lives and I could not accept this offer unless I was going repay them with what they had asked for. Growing up, I had always seen how much god affected them in their daily life. During my adolescent I had gone through phases of their different techniques and incentives in hopes of getting me more involved with god. When I was younger, it was a breakfast incentive. Either we would go out for a nice breakfast or we would have a breakfast in our warm bathroom before school while having a bible study. After coming back to home, shortly after the New Year (2009) I realized this was another one of their incentives. Now that I am older and more self efficient I contemplated this offer and many thoughts came to mind. The fact that my parents would graciously offer me money to attend church shed light on new possibilities for me. It was at this time that I realized maybe this church stuff is for real. I realized my parents were willing to do anything to see me at least just give this religion stuff a chance.
This was a unique experience for me. For the first time in my life, I was ready to open the doors to new possibilities and to give religion a chance for once. My whole life, I had put church on the back burner and said to myself ill go next week. I was ready to be proactive for once and excited to choose MY own church. I came to realize that maybe I was being stubborn with god. I have felt like I could not click with roommates, church mates or even groups of different friends. Maybe god was just another person I felt like I had nothing in common with. As I sit and write my church history down, I am highly anticipating finding MY own church, meeting new friends and ultimately hoping to develop a new everlasting bond and relationship with the lord Jesus.
Finding a Church
http://www.westmont.edu/_offices/campus_pastor/churches.html
Here on this list, includes just about every church listed in the SB County and gives pretty detailed information, including the college group option that I was inquiring about. As I was browsing through the lists, I found my self quite confused as to what church I wanted to pursue. I noticed eventually that they were categorized by denominations. I was shocked as too how many different types of churches there were, but remembered that we generally attended non-denominational churches. After browsing through the various churches’ websites, I decided to go with Santa Barbara Community Church. This church seemed like it had potential and it was even offering a free guitar class for beginners on Tuesday. (ended up being full! ) I decided it would be best to try this one out for a month, if I don’t like it, move on to another one.
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