Zach Kipling
Dr. Bob Zellmann
World Religions
2-28-13
Religious Experience Church is attended my millions every Sunday around the world, and also throughout the week. Unfortunately, I have never been a part of a service until recently when I sat through a Methodists gathering two Sundays ago. I believe in god because there is really no reason not to believe in something that has not been proven wrong. The service was held inside a nice two-story building with the nicest windows you could imagine. It all started at 9 o’clock sharp that Sunday. The power you feel after entering a church is almost overwhelming, you can literally feel the powers held within the walls. When I first walked into the front doors on the church I was met by two elderly ladies giving out free small bibles, they pointed me to the basement and said everyone is downstairs. I took their advice and headed to the basement of the church where I was greeted by a old high school friend it made it a lot easier for me to be here with someone other than myself to talk to. They served breakfast to everyone that showed up to church early, they had endless amounts of food and almost any kind of breakfast you wanted they had ready to put on your plate. It was like an endless buffet this really set the right mood for me. I literally ate two full plates worth of food that morning. With out much time left before nine everyone started heading back upstairs to get their seats to start the service. After the pastor had everyone seated we started saying prayers and reading from the bible. It was very interesting speaking all together in sequence to sound as one as we repeated after the pastor. It was like one deep unified voice it was like we all came together as one that day. During the first five minutes younger boys probably ten years of age walked down the isles with what looked to be lit torches and they marches in sequence to the front of the room and lit candles around the pastor as we repeated after him. It was very intense and seemed way too real it was almost as if everything was dawning on me, honestly I didn’t know what to think about everything that was going on. As we proceeded on through the service we only listened to the pastor preach and occasionally answer or repeat what was being said. During this time I saw the pastor hand out three different baskets, one to each of the different sections. It was passed around and eventually got to the very back row where I was sitting along with about ten other people. The woven wooden basket was filled with money, I did a small good deed and put in all the spare change I had with me that day and then I passed it down the line. I sat there and thought about all the different reasons as to why the church would send around little baskets taking donations from the people that attend, and I could not think of one good reason as to why this had happened. It really didn’t make sense why they would take the money from the people that are attending the church. I remember thinking if churches need money why don’t they do little food drives or get donations other way besides taking money from the people that actually want to be there. I know that five dollars is not much to adults but for someone that work for low wages it can be hard to put any money at all in the basket as it is passed down the line. I feel as if you get judged if you do not put any money in the basket as it passes you. I guess these are the questions everyone would have that have never attended a service before. Towards the end of the service we only listened to the pastor preach to us about many different things. The same young boys that walked the isles before with the torches are headed to the front again with the same utensils just without the flame and extinguished the flames of the candles they had lit before. Shortly after the candles were put out the pastor dismissed us and we walked out the same front doors like a herd of animals heading to the same place it toke a little while to get completely out the doors of the church because there was so many people. During the service and breakfast I would say there was at least 100 people present the Sunday I was there. It was completely full in all three sections, we sat in the rows like packed sardines sitting shoulder to shoulder with people on both sides of you. It was very uncomfortable and I found it annoying that I could not move around even a little during the times I needed to without hitting or bumping into the people around me. I’m not sure if every service is like the one I attended but I definitely have considered going back to that church it seems like the right church for me if I decided I wanted tot start doing something like that on my day off every Sunday. It really was all about the windows for me this is what had me the most interested during the time I spent in the church. Every window was a little different from the next and a few had portraits of Jesus’ body and face in them, which I found very neat. There was not a window that you could see out of besides the ones on the doors of the church because the colors in the windows where very deep in color not allowing much light in or out. The only object I noticed that was used throughout the mass was that the pastor held a different colored book then the rest of us. We had standard blue bibles, while his looked to be a yellowish/gold color. Obviously it was not a different book it was just bound differently because all the pages numbers he read from matched ours. I am not sure if he has it like this to show power, or to just show the difference between himself and us. There were many meaningful symbols hanging in the church that I noticed during the time I was there. In the basement in almost every room I looked inside of with my friend had a huge portrait of the face of Jesus. It was enlightening to see just how far the church had gone to spread the word of Jesus. Even in the play room for the little kids there hung another portrait. This room was for the kids to stay while their parents went upstairs to listen to the pastor so that there isn’t any interruptions or babies crying during the mass. I found this to be a very helpful step, because I can only imagine a baby crying the entire time we are all in their paying our dues and being able to hear what is being said over the noises of the baby. I didn’t understand many things during my time in the church, for instance the money basket being sent around and the eating breakfast before the actually church started and also why you could not see out of any windows unless you were leaving the church. These all were questions I tried to find answers to but there was nothing obvious that stood out to me as to why they did this. I do believe this was the most normal service anybody could ask for, but I do not know what a normal service is like since this was my first attendance to one. I was not pressured to do anything while I as there, I actually saw many people not put money in the basket as I came around but I felt obligated to donate. Also, about half the crowd did not follow along during the songs we sang or repeating after the pastor. What the pastor said during the service all made sense to me and I could understand everything that was said. No foreign tongue was used at all during the service. The songs we sang were very short and talked about Jesus’ good doings on earth and why we praise him over anyone else. This service seemed to be earthly, but like I mentioned earlier while I was in the church it almost felt as if I was experiencing a power much greater than I had ever had before. I am not really sure how to describe the feeling but I felt like I was in the right place to ask for any kind of forgiveness. Women were not really involved with much of the service. The only women that helped where the ladies in the kitchen of the basement making food for all the people that came early and the babysitter in the basement watching after the kids as the service was going. Other than that the pastor was a man, and women along with men sat in the pews and listened. The message being passed to us was that Jesus is our ultimate savior and in his salvations we must praise him and be as much like him as possible to lead the best and most fruitful life that we can. The lesson being lectured was to clean your sins and don’t repeat the past only live for the future and never look back. During the service the pastor would ask questions to any of us in the crowd about what was going on while he would preach. The service was serious but was not taken that way people could talk back and forth and the pastor would get all of us involved with his readings. There was no right or wrong way to go about this service. Lastly, I learned many things from coming to a service for the first time ever. I got to see how people viewed god while being in church rather than shearing judging them from an outside standpoint. It really is not fair to judge religions strictly off of what you believe because everyone is different, and we ultimately have no scientific proof that this supernatural being ever existed.