Online worship experiences

My site visit paper was primarily focused on the use of technology in worship services. From there, my research led me to a number of interesting topics including online worship. Today, I discovered an article that also divulged into this new phenomenon, and I figured it was time to post about it.

Christianity has expanded to a new realm, the internet. It's worship that still allows for a fully interactive experience. There are sermon videos, live messaging lobbies, and Bible Study. There are even functions to allow for online baptism, and communion.

With all these pieces of a real service, one must ask the question, is it truly a participation in worship?

Maybe. It depends on what it means to worship. We're living in a world now completely dependent on technology, so whether or not it is a proper form of worship, we better start believing it is. It may be the future...

In my opinion, it just can't compare to the experience of hearing a choir echo in the sanctuary, actually taking the bread and wine for communion, or sitting in an aisle with other Christians, all showing up together at the same time to worship. It's a beautiful thing, and in my honest opinion, much of the beauty is lost when you move it to the internet. 

That's just my thoughts though. Check out the article to learn more!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/internet-believers-pastor_n_342479.html

Jesus' Brothers

Today, somewhat randomly, I had a sudden question come to mind, "Did Jesus have brothers?" And so I started doing some research...

Turns out that answer is harder to find than one may think. The New Testament describes James, Joseph, Joses, Judas, and Simon as "brothers"of Jesus Christ. "brothers". Those quotation marks complicate things. It's not explicitly stated that they were blood relatives, but many scholars claim that the "brothers" were in fact biological children of Mary and Joseph. And for believers in Jesus' immaculate conception, many people would also claim that by nature, Jesus could not have had blood siblings. Despite all these different claims a common middle-ground is that these "brothers" were closely associated with the family and may have been cousins, but were not direct children of Joseph and Mary.

That's basically an overview, but there is a wikipedia page on the brothers of Jesus that includes the sources that these claims originated from, and even some diagrams of a family pedigree. Take a look!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_of_Jesus

Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow. The media loves him. It's a different story for the fans though. People either love him or hate him. But why? Sure, you've go the Florida State fans who hated his success at UF, and you've got NFL fans who despise his ability to win football games in the NFL despite his stats. But there're more people out there who don't like Tim Tebow. 

A large part of that is because he wears his faith on his sleeve. Tebow says that his motivation to be successful and well-known in the NFL is because it serves as a platform to bring attention to God. Essentially t's for evangelism. That has brought him a lot of love and support from other Christians out there, but it's attracted more negative feedback than he would've liked. 

Tim Tebow is a wonderful person. I've read his biography and he just encompasses so much that we value in society. He's humble, kind, respectful, driven, hard-working, a good leader, a role model, and a humanitarian.Unfortunately, because he chooses to talk about his religion and make that a focus of his life, he's faced some struggles. 

It seems that people just aren't interested in hearing about religion from. Are they scared? Are they just fed up with it? I don't know what it is, but in my personal opinion, I love Tim Tebow and it's a shame that we seem to treat people with such disdain when they try to reach out in the name of God and in the name of love.

Brite Divinity School

So I flew back home this weekend. Back to Fort Worth, Texas. Among the many great things about my hometown is the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. Their main focus is captured in this sentence,

"Brite Divinity School educates women and men of diverse backgrounds for the ministry and witness of Jesus Christ in the church and world. Theological education occurs through scholarship, research and reflection, balanced by community service and practical ministry experience."

That was taken straight from their website. I think one of the most important components of that statement is the "research and reflection" piece. It encompasses the idea that understanding Christianity is all about being knowledgable in the history and progression of the religion. That relates to a lot of what we're learning about in this class. Anyway, I thought it was kind of a neat parallel and if y'all want to learn a little more about Brite, check out their website! http://brite.edu/

Heaven

I recently started reading a book that was sent to me by a friend. It all started a few weeks ago when we got onto a talk about theology, as we usually do. This particular conversation was focused the idea of heaven. And after a while of discussion, he referred me to a book he read called, The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. In his book he basically depicts his idea of heaven and hell, and uses these metaphors to explain what his idea of heaven means. This blog post isn't about C.S. Lewis' views, although there will be a post on that coming soon...

This post is focused on what different religions and people think of heaven. For instance, many Christians think heaven is the Kingdom of God we enter once pass away. Buddhists on the other hand believe in different heavens depending on the life one has lived, based on their career. In Hinduism, heaven is essentially a paradise of pleasure. There are so many different, fascinating views of the idea of afterlife. And the wikipedia page of heaven actually provides a really thorough and expansive collection of several different ideas of heaven. Check it out! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven

The Great Schism

We talked a little bit about the Great Schism today in class and I thought I'd read more into what made this event perhaps the most significant split in history.

This Great Schism was also known as the East-West Schism and was primarily the split that became the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Something that was new to me, was that before the Great Schism, the religion is known as Chalcedonian Christianity. I guess almost one thousand years later, that word doesn't come up anymore...

The more I look into the reasons for this split, the more I think how petty the whole thing was. In the long run, clearly the differences were matters of identity. And as a whole, these were fundamental reasons that defined the sect, yet when I read about it, it almost seems silly to me that there were arguments about such silly things. Is it worth splitting the church over unleavened bread? Maybe not by itself, but when seen as one dividing characteristic among many, it makes more sense that two different churches would emerge. Because in the same way, the idea of universal jurisdiction was a topic that couldn't be agreed upon. And the authority of the Pope is definitely a pretty big topic that would be a possible reason to split.

Anyway, it's an interesting and comprehensive topic. It's fun learning about it, and all the complications that accompany the history of Christianity.

St. Aidan's Episcopal Church

This upcoming Sunday I plan to visit St. Aidan's Episcopal Church, the location I selected as the topic of my site visit paper.  I honestly just have no idea what to expect from it. I grew up in a very large Disciples of Christ church in Texas, so that is almost entirely what I'll be comparing my visit to. I'm going to focus on identifying the practices and traditions that are a part of their weekly worship, and how they relate to those that I'm more familiar with. In addition, I'll be very attentive as to distinguish what their beliefs are as a denomination. I'm always fascinated with the details that identify each religion, and especially each denomination of Christianity. It should be a good time, and I'm looking forward to an educational and insightful visit!

If you want to check it out for yourself, be sure to take a look at their website!

http://www.saintaidans.org/