Do You Attend Church Services?

I have never been a church going person, although as a child, at times my mom made me attend Sunday School. My dad as an adult, did not attend, but he deeply believed in God. He was in battle during WWII and told me that only his faith in God got him home alive. I am the same way; I do not doubt Gods existence and I pray frequently. It is the hypocrisy of the church that I avoid. My wife is the same.

We do go to church on special occasions and to attend weddings, baptisms and funerals. My wife was baptized as a baby, I have not been baptized.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I am Muslim, so I don't attend church services unless it's for a wedding or funeral for family members and friends (or their family members).
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A multi-purpose location.
Mosque - Wikipedia

Churches also are for prayers, funerals and weddings. So the essential difference between church and mosques is?

Percentage of Muslims who attend mosque at least once a week, 2009–2012[59]
Countries
Percentage

99%Liberia Liberia

94%Ethiopia Ethiopia

93%Uganda Uganda

93%Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau

92%Mozambique Mozambique

92%Kenya Kenya

91%Niger Niger

88%Nigeria Nigeria

87%Democratic Republic of the Congo Democratic Republic of the Congo

85%Cameroon Cameroon

84%Djibouti Djibouti

84%Tanzania Tanzania

82%Chad Chad

81%Mali Mali

79%Indonesia Indonesia
 
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Repondering said:
Yes, a Presbyterian church. I like our pastor and trust him and admire his wisdom. Most of the members mean well and participating in the church community is a significant part of my basically meager social life.
However there are some Calvinist, Presbyterian theological convictions that I just don't buy into. I don't make a high profile, vocal issue of it though. I try and follow a Buddhist philosophy of life. I admire Stoic philosophy too. I've lived through a few mystical experiences as well and expect that my consciousness will continue on its journey when my body dies.
None of that constitutes any friction or conflict with the church.....on my part anyway.
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I belonged to a book club at a local Presbyterian seminary. What a nice bunch of people. Smart, too. I gave it up when I stopped driving at night.
 
The sad thing about this, is the loss of churches. The church used to be the heart of a community, and even if you are not religious, you can surely appreciate the beauty it has inspired. Now churches are being demolished because they are neglected and falling into ruin.
 
About 5 years ago they demolished a pretty church to build a new shopping area. At one point I drove by and the steeple with its cross was toppled on its side in a pile of rubble. That seemed like a comment on the current status of churches in the area.
 
Radrook said:
A multi-purpose location.
Mosque - Wikipedia

Churches also are for prayers, funerals and weddings. So the essential difference between church and mosques is?
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1a. Worshippers are expected to be covered modestly when entering the masjids (mosques) and everyone's shoe's are removed before entering the areas of worship. When we first enter the worship areas which are always either carpeted or have area rugs covering most of the floors' surfaces, we say two rakas of salat (prayer) before settling in our seats or on the floor, if one is able to sit on the floor. Many worshippers are able to sit directly on the floor.
b. Some churches have allowed people to dress, in cases, a bit too casually and some women wear clothing that exposes too much of their bosoms, which I think is disrespectful in God's house. It is not necessary to remove shoes in churches and the congregations sit in pews.

2a. There is no music played or performed in mosques, except for when the Adhan is called (for prayer). Some callers do so in melodious voices.
b. Music is performed in churches and if yo go to a Black Baptist or progressive Methodist church, you will have not only a choir singing and an organist or pianist playing, but there will be drums and maybe even a guitar. That music will have you feeling like you want to dance (or like some congregants...be up on your feet shouting). :LOL:

3a. Islamic funerals are very different than Christian funerals. Bodies are usually not viewed by the attendees (but may be viewed privately by certain family members before the Janaza (funeral). There is no wake. Certain rituals take place, including certain prayers during the funerals. and they may not be as long as they tend to be in churches.
b. Christians usually have wakes before the funerals where bodies can be viewed or a picture of the decease is displayed and attendees give their condolences to the families. There is usually music during funerals.

And just so you know, I was born and raised a Christian (Methodist) and was Christian for more than half my life. I accepted Islam in my late 40's.
 
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Lavinia said:
The sad thing about this, is the loss of churches. The church used to be the heart of a community, and even if you are not religious, you can surely appreciate the beauty it has inspired. Now churches are being demolished because they are neglected and falling into ruin.
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I agree that you can appreciate the beauty of churches even if you are not religious. But I know a man (now in his 80s) who refused to visit St Mark's Basilica at Venice, because he disliked the Roman Catholic Church. I don't understand this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Basilica
 
Radrook said:
As a child, I was taken to Pentecostal services for a while and baptized by them. Then when I was approx. 12 years old, my aunt Felicita's threatening and terrifying behavior caused me to stay away. The other two, Catholicism and Quakerism, constituted just a few visits. So most of my time was spent trying to do things exactly as Jehovah's Witnesses taught.

However, I don't consider myself as ever being officially in that organization since hey did not inform me about their shunning or disfellowshipping polices prior to baptism and in that way deprived me of informed consent. Had I known, I seriously doubt I would have gotten baptized since I considered my baptism to be between me and God and not subject to constant harassing, fanatical human vigilance.

Here is what happened with my aunt Felicita in reference Pentecostalism. ​

At age twelve, we visited my father's sister, aunt Felicita in Puerto Rico. Well, the first thing I noticed about her was that she would suddenly slam the palm of her right hand against a wall, the dinner table, or any other available flat surface, and yell out “Barkay!” right in the middle of an otherwise normal conversation.

She would also occasionally utter totally unintelligible sounds while invariably claiming to be our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, although I was a child, I remained unconvinced. You see, I was familiar with Jesus Christ and had great difficulty imagining him making such garbled sounds while depriving people of their free will. In short, her mental stability began to concern me. She was also very evangelistic.

“Why don’t we all attend church tonight!?” she kept enthusiastically insisting very often out of the proverbial clear blue.

“Some other time,” my father kept calmly responding.

“You are all going to burn in the lake of fire forever if you don’t!” she kept warning.

Well, since that threat didn’t seem to motivate my parents into complying, I figured that it couldn’t really be that serious. However, the more they didn’t comply with her demand, the more erratic her behavior seemed to become. Soon, she began claiming that she had visions of demons invading her house and describing how holy angels would suddenly arrive from heaven to forcefully evict them.

For some reason, she went to great lengths in meticulously describing the gruesome physical appearances of the demons with great relish, but never that of the holy angels. On and on she went, until I really began wishing to get back home to Newark NJ where I wouldn’t have to listen to all her horrifying drivel.

Well, the time to leave was approaching, and that’s when it happened. One moment, my father was criticizing me as usual, I responded in frustration, aunt Felicita suddenly yelled “Barkay!" dropped to the bedroom floor, and began frenetically rolling back and forth as if propelled by some supernatural force.

Then, to my horror, she rose up slowly, as pale as a ghost, her black, limp, hair drenched in perspiration, showing only the white of her eyes, contorting her body in voodoo-like ways.

Then, to my horror, she extended her skinny arms towards me, while making clutching motions with her boney hands, and began to slowly approach me in that semi dark room. My mother hugged me to her chest protectively, but relentlessly, on she came, until she was kneeling right in front of where we were sitting.

“Do you know who I am? I am the Lord Jesus Christ,” she proclaimed calmly, in this deep, threatening, manlike voice I had thought her incapable of producing.

“Why are you disrespecting your father? Ehhhh?” she suddenly said in a threatening tone.

That's when I decided that staying near her wasn’t such a good idea, and that my parents weren’t going to do me any good against this supernatural force. So I cut loose and bolted out of the house into the darkness outside. Now, I didn’t have any particular destination. I just wanted to put some distance between us. I turned left onto the dark, narrow dirt path in front of the house while imagining Aunt Felicita hot on my heels. Then, after running approx. 200 feet, I saw it and came to a full stop. There was what seemed to be a silhouette of a male figure slowly limping in the semi-darkness towards me.

Then , as I squinted to get a better look, I noticed something rather unusual about the shape of its head, as if three large, long, curved horns were protruding from it. So I decided to take my chances with my aunt and bolted back up the dirt path imagining this hideous creature, whatever it might have been, hot on my heels.

Well, to my surprise, I found Aunt Felicita sitting smugly in the living room with my parents as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened. I was shaking and crying from the sheer terror.

“What happened?” my hitherto recently-demonic-looking aunt asked calmly.

After I described what I thought I had seen, and after my father had gone out to investigate and had found absolutely nothing unusual, she said:

“Do you know why that just happened to you? Eh? Do you know?"

"Because I talked back to my father and don’t go to church!” I responded in order to prevent her from coming at me with another terrifying voodoo-like performance.

“That is right! That happened to you because you were naughty with your father and because you don’t go to church. Do you want to go to church now? Are you two going to take him to church now?” she also asked my parents:

“Yes! Yes! I’ll go to church! I’ll go to church!” I fearfully responded before my parents could react. Of course, my parents finally agreed to attend as well after that compelling demonstration.

The next day, late in the evening, we were present at church as promised. Initially, everything looked normal, and I felt that I was under the protection of Almighty God. I listened calmly as a fervent sermon was given and fiery testimonies were provided expressing faith and describing miracles. Listened to the songs were sung enthusiastically accompanied by piano and the palm-slaps on tambourines. Then finally, there was the fervent call for converts to approach the stage to give themselves over to Christ.

Now, I was still observing all this calmly and with great interest, when suddenly, some women on the other side of the church began dropping to the floor and rolling down the aisle exactly as my aunt had done the night before. Then, to make maters even worse, the man standing next to me, began uttering strange unintelligible sounds with a quavering voice followed by many others who began behaving similar to the way my aunt had behaved that unforgettable terrifying night before.

Suddenly, instead of feeling that I was in a church, I felt that my aunt had cunningly led me into a devious trap so she could finish the gruesome ritual she had performed the night before albeit with their help. I panicked and for a brief moment, I considered bolting for the nearest exit.

But then I imagined that they would either intercept me on the way there, or else follow me outside and converge on me in the darkness, you know, hunt me down like in the film The Body Snatchers. So, trembling fearfully for my life, I just stood horrified and endured the situation as best as I could.

Results? After finally arriving back home in Newark NJ, I simply wasn’t the same. I had become a very nervous kid who morbidly feared the darkness, being alone in the apartment, and who flinched fearfully at shadows. I also found that I could no longer sleep with my bedroom lights off, and had developed a fear of this huge crucifix with a glowing green Christ on it which my parents had placed prominently on my bedroom wall. Finally, I had to have it removed in order to sleep in peace.

Naturally, I promised myself never to be exposed to that kind of experience again by avoiding any religion related to it. Now, I’m sure that back at her home, my Aunt Felicita felt she had done an excellent job in evangelizing.

Instead, she had made me a nonreligious, nervous wreck and convinced me that her particular version of what she had chosen to consider Christianity was definitely not for me.
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My goodness that is the most awful experience, enough to put anyone off being a Christian. I find such behaviour from attention-seeking people utterly inexcusable.

To me God is love and peace. Church a good place to worship quietly with other believers. Nobody should ever threaten or frighten anyone, certainly not children, into believing. Each of us has our own choice.
 
Rose65 said:
My goodness that is the most awful experience, enough to put anyone off being a Christian. I find such behaviour from attention-seeking people utterly inexcusable.

To me God is love and peace. Church a good place to worship quietly with other believers. Nobody should ever threaten or frighten anyone, certainly not children, into believing. Each of us has our own choice.
Click to expand...
True! That is definitely not the way we are supposed to behave as Christians.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
1a. Worshippers are expected to be covered modestly when entering the masjids (mosques) and everyone's shoe's are removed before entering the areas of worship. When we first enter the worship areas which are always either carpeted or have area rugs covering most of the floors' surfaces, we say two rakas of salat (prayer) before settling in our seats or on the floor, if one is able to sit on the floor. Many worshippers are able to sit directly on the floor.
b. Some churches have allowed people to dress, in cases, a bit too casually and some women have wear clothing that exposes too much of their bosoms, which I think is disrespectful in God's house. It is not necessary to remove shoes in churches an the congregations sit in pews.

2a. There is no music played or performed in mosques, except for when the Adhan is called (for prayer). Some callers do so in melodious voices.
b. Music is performed in churches and if yo go to a Baptist or progressive Methodist church, you will have not only a choir singing and an organist or pianist playing, but there will be drums and maybe even a guitar. That music will have you feeling like you want to dance (or like some congregants...be shouting). :LOL:

3a. Islamic funerals are very different than Christian funerals. Bodies are usually not viewed by the attendees (but may be viewed privately by certain family members before the Janaza (funeral). There is no wake. Certain rituals take place, including certain prayers during the funerals. and they may not be as long as they tend to be in churches.
b. Christians usually have wakes before the funerals where bodies can be viewed or a picture of the decease is displayed and attendees give their condolences to the families. There is usually music during funerals.

And just so you know, I was born and raised a Christian (Methodist) and was Christian for more than half my life. I accepted Islam in my late 40's.
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Thanks for the explanation.
 
Radrook said:
As a child, I was taken to Pentecostal services for a while and baptized by them. Then when I was approx. 12 years old, my aunt Felicita's threatening and terrifying behavior caused me to stay away. The other two, Catholicism and Quakerism, constituted just a few visits. So most of my time was spent trying to do things exactly as Jehovah's Witnesses taught.

However, I don't consider myself as ever being officially in that organization since hey did not inform me about their shunning or disfellowshipping polices prior to baptism and in that way deprived me of informed consent. Had I known, I seriously doubt I would have gotten baptized since I considered my baptism to be between me and God and not subject to constant harassing, fanatical human vigilance.

Here is what happened with my aunt Felicita in reference Pentecostalism. ​

At age twelve, we visited my father's sister, aunt Felicita in Puerto Rico. Well, the first thing I noticed about her was that she would suddenly slam the palm of her right hand against a wall, the dinner table, or any other available flat surface, and yell out “Barkay!” right in the middle of an otherwise normal conversation.

She would also occasionally utter totally unintelligible sounds while invariably claiming to be our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, although I was a child, I remained unconvinced. You see, I was familiar with Jesus Christ and had great difficulty imagining him making such garbled sounds while depriving people of their free will. In short, her mental stability began to concern me. She was also very evangelistic.

“Why don’t we all attend church tonight!?” she kept enthusiastically insisting very often out of the proverbial clear blue.

“Some other time,” my father kept calmly responding.

“You are all going to burn in the lake of fire forever if you don’t!” she kept warning.

Well, since that threat didn’t seem to motivate my parents into complying, I figured that it couldn’t really be that serious. However, the more they didn’t comply with her demand, the more erratic her behavior seemed to become. Soon, she began claiming that she had visions of demons invading her house and describing how holy angels would suddenly arrive from heaven to forcefully evict them.

For some reason, she went to great lengths in meticulously describing the gruesome physical appearances of the demons with great relish, but never that of the holy angels. On and on she went, until I really began wishing to get back home to Newark NJ where I wouldn’t have to listen to all her horrifying drivel.

Well, the time to leave was approaching, and that’s when it happened. One moment, my father was criticizing me as usual, I responded in frustration, aunt Felicita suddenly yelled “Barkay!" dropped to the bedroom floor, and began frenetically rolling back and forth as if propelled by some supernatural force.

Then, to my horror, she rose up slowly, as pale as a ghost, her black, limp, hair drenched in perspiration, showing only the white of her eyes, contorting her body in voodoo-like ways.

Then, to my horror, she extended her skinny arms towards me, while making clutching motions with her boney hands, and began to slowly approach me in that semi dark room. My mother hugged me to her chest protectively, but relentlessly, on she came, until she was kneeling right in front of where we were sitting.

“Do you know who I am? I am the Lord Jesus Christ,” she proclaimed calmly, in this deep, threatening, manlike voice I had thought her incapable of producing.

“Why are you disrespecting your father? Ehhhh?” she suddenly said in a threatening tone.

That's when I decided that staying near her wasn’t such a good idea, and that my parents weren’t going to do me any good against this supernatural force. So I cut loose and bolted out of the house into the darkness outside. Now, I didn’t have any particular destination. I just wanted to put some distance between us. I turned left onto the dark, narrow dirt path in front of the house while imagining Aunt Felicita hot on my heels. Then, after running approx. 200 feet, I saw it and came to a full stop. There was what seemed to be a silhouette of a male figure slowly limping in the semi-darkness towards me.

Then , as I squinted to get a better look, I noticed something rather unusual about the shape of its head, as if three large, long, curved horns were protruding from it. So I decided to take my chances with my aunt and bolted back up the dirt path imagining this hideous creature, whatever it might have been, hot on my heels.

Well, to my surprise, I found Aunt Felicita sitting smugly in the living room with my parents as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened. I was shaking and crying from the sheer terror.

“What happened?” my hitherto recently-demonic-looking aunt asked calmly.

After I described what I thought I had seen, and after my father had gone out to investigate and had found absolutely nothing unusual, she said:

“Do you know why that just happened to you? Eh? Do you know?"

"Because I talked back to my father and don’t go to church!” I responded in order to prevent her from coming at me with another terrifying voodoo-like performance.

“That is right! That happened to you because you were naughty with your father and because you don’t go to church. Do you want to go to church now? Are you two going to take him to church now?” she also asked my parents:

“Yes! Yes! I’ll go to church! I’ll go to church!” I fearfully responded before my parents could react. Of course, my parents finally agreed to attend as well after that compelling demonstration.

The next day, late in the evening, we were present at church as promised. Initially, everything looked normal, and I felt that I was under the protection of Almighty God. I listened calmly as a fervent sermon was given and fiery testimonies were provided expressing faith and describing miracles. Listened to the songs were sung enthusiastically accompanied by piano and the palm-slaps on tambourines. Then finally, there was the fervent call for converts to approach the stage to give themselves over to Christ.

Now, I was still observing all this calmly and with great interest, when suddenly, some women on the other side of the church began dropping to the floor and rolling down the aisle exactly as my aunt had done the night before. Then, to make maters even worse, the man standing next to me, began uttering strange unintelligible sounds with a quavering voice followed by many others who began behaving similar to the way my aunt had behaved that unforgettable terrifying night before.

Suddenly, instead of feeling that I was in a church, I felt that my aunt had cunningly led me into a devious trap so she could finish the gruesome ritual she had performed the night before albeit with their help. I panicked and for a brief moment, I considered bolting for the nearest exit.

But then I imagined that they would either intercept me on the way there, or else follow me outside and converge on me in the darkness, you know, hunt me down like in the film The Body Snatchers. So, trembling fearfully for my life, I just stood horrified and endured the situation as best as I could.

Results? After finally arriving back home in Newark NJ, I simply wasn’t the same. I had become a very nervous kid who morbidly feared the darkness, being alone in the apartment, and who flinched fearfully at shadows. I also found that I could no longer sleep with my bedroom lights off, and had developed a fear of this huge crucifix with a glowing green Christ on it which my parents had placed prominently on my bedroom wall. Finally, I had to have it removed in order to sleep in peace.

Naturally, I promised myself never to be exposed to that kind of experience again by avoiding any religion related to it. Now, I’m sure that back at her home, my Aunt Felicita felt she had done an excellent job in evangelizing.

Instead, she had made me a nonreligious, nervous wreck and convinced me that her particular version of what she had chosen to consider Christianity was definitely not for me.
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I am appalled by this story of your horrific experience as a child. It is one reason why I volunteered to teach Sunday School at my church - to make sure the children were never exposed to any sort of religious craziness.

Right now, I want to hold your inner child in my arms and quiet the demons that she planted in your young mind. 🤗
 
Warrigal said:
I am appalled by this story of your horrific experience as a child. It is one reason why I volunteered to teach Sunday School at my church - to make sure the children were never exposed to any sort of religious craziness.

Right now, I want to hold your inner child in my arms and quiet the demons that she planted in your young mind. 🤗
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Thanks for the compassionate reply. Very true, children should never be subjected to that kind of emotional trauma. Especially not by someone who is claiming to be Christ Jesus himself as she was doing.
 
There's news headline news today about a priest being paid off and things being hushed up. I don't want to know the details. Such goings on are enough to put anyone off church and worship. It's just unacceptable.

I hope people keep in mind these kinds of things, crimes, are done by people, not God.
 
Rose65 said:
There's news headline news today about a priest being paid off and things being hushed up. I don't want to know the details. Such goings on are enough to put anyone off church and worship. It's just unacceptable.

I hope people keep in mind these kinds of things, crimes, are done by people, not God.
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Absolutely! Humans are in the very bad habit of accusing God of being involved in their sinning. For example, they claimed that God approved of burning people alive in public squares after having subjected them to torture. One poignant example is how Servetus, a Christian, was arrested and roasted alive by people claiming to be Christians.
 
Rose65 said:
My goodness that is the most awful experience, enough to put anyone off being a Christian. I find such behaviour from attention-seeking people utterly inexcusable.
To me God is love and peace. Church a good place to worship quietly with other believers. Nobody should ever threaten or frighten anyone, certainly not children, into believing. Each of us has our own choice.
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There is good and evil everywhere, every hour, everyday...including in churches. If the evil is interfering in your relationship with God then, like Rose said, use your God given ability to choose...choose to pray for God to heal that church, or choose to go and find a good church, or choose to start your own group, or choose a quiet place to be with God as He leads you.
 
Radrook said:
Absolutely! Humans are in the very bad habit of accusing God of being involved in their sinning. For example, they claimed that God approved of burning people alive in public squares after having subjected them to torture. One poignant example is how Servetus, a Christian, was arrested and roasted alive by people claiming to be Christians.
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Horrendous. It is humans who do these things. Unimaginable things done by the mad or misguided.
 
Lara said:
There is good and evil everywhere, every hour, everyday...including in churches. If the evil is interfering in your relationship with God then, like Rose said, use your God given ability to choose...choose to pray for God to heal that church, or choose to go and find a good church, or choose to start your own group, or choose a quiet place to be with God as He leads you.
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So nicely said and expressed @ Lara
 
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