All faiths- share your story

[XB3LI3V3RX]

I was told this thread would be a good place to share my story, so here it is. (This happened about a week ago and I'm just reposting it)
"I had an amazing time at youth camp this week. I thought I would share some of the things I witnessed or heard while I was there. The most amazing thing to me was that 115 people were physically healed by God last night. My girlfriend has had trouble with her wisdom teeth and she said the pain disappeared last night. Another girl sprained her ankle and had to walk with a boot, but when we prayed for her she took that boot off and was able to jump around and worship God. Yet another boy was COMPLETELY healed of cerebral palsy. Many others were healed of migraines, joint aches, hurting muscles, infections, diseases, and many other things. God really worked in His house last night. We worshiped God for hours at a time at night, and prayer for others just as long. There were many people called to be missionaries to places like Russia, Egypt, Haiti, Canada, and many others that I haven't even heard of before, but God called them to go there. I thought it was interesting some of the occupations that God called people to be to like a comic book artist, a movie director, a lawyer, and others that I know God will reach others through. People were giving their testimonies and I just thought it was so amazing hearing how some people have gone through such terrible things, but stayed faithful to God through it all and were rewarded for being so strong. I myself rededicated my life to God and plan to follow God through all times. I've been thinking of playing guitar for the worship team at my church too when God put that on my heart. God is so good, and I hope people can have their faith lifted from reading my experience at this awesome week of camp."

 

[ContraMundum]

Thanks again!

 

[TG123]

I was told this thread would be a good place to share my story, so here it is. (This happened about a week ago and I'm just reposting it)
"I had an amazing time at youth camp this week. I thought I would share some of the things I witnessed or heard while I was there. The most amazing thing to me was that 115 people were physically healed by God last night. My girlfriend has had trouble with her wisdom teeth and she said the pain disappeared last night. Another girl sprained her ankle and had to walk with a boot, but when we prayed for her she took that boot off and was able to jump around and worship God. Yet another boy was COMPLETELY healed of cerebral palsy. Many others were healed of migraines, joint aches, hurting muscles, infections, diseases, and many other things. God really worked in His house last night. We worshiped God for hours at a time at night, and prayer for others just as long. There were many people called to be missionaries to places like Russia, Egypt, Haiti, Canada, and many others that I haven't even heard of before, but God called them to go there. I thought it was interesting some of the occupations that God called people to be to like a comic book artist, a movie director, a lawyer, and others that I know God will reach others through. People were giving their testimonies and I just thought it was so amazing hearing how some people have gone through such terrible things, but stayed faithful to God through it all and were rewarded for being so strong. I myself rededicated my life to God and plan to follow God through all times. I've been thinking of playing guitar for the worship team at my church too when God put that on my heart. God is so good, and I hope people can have their faith lifted from reading my experience at this awesome week of camp."

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

 

[lupusFati]

Here we go again...

 

[ContraMundum]

Here we go again...

It's not a roller coaster you need to ride over and over you know. You can opt out. This is not a thread for debating and re-hashing tired old arguments against people's faith.

 

[Supreme]

It's not a roller coaster you need to ride over and over you know. You can opt out. This is not a thread for debating and re-hashing tired old arguments against people's faith.

Agreed.

 

[Zoness]

I feel the need to mention I'm having a bit of deist streak lately. All I know is that if there is a god, I view them as impersonal and nonintervening. However I am quite attached to my pagan faith.

Lots of seeking!

 

[morningstar2651]

I was told this thread would be a good place to share my story, so here it is. (This happened about a week ago and I'm just reposting it)
"I had an amazing time at youth camp this week. I thought I would share some of the things I witnessed or heard while I was there. The most amazing thing to me was that 115 people were physically healed by God last night. My girlfriend has had trouble with her wisdom teeth and she said the pain disappeared last night. Another girl sprained her ankle and had to walk with a boot, but when we prayed for her she took that boot off and was able to jump around and worship God. Yet another boy was COMPLETELY healed of cerebral palsy. Many others were healed of migraines, joint aches, hurting muscles, infections, diseases, and many other things. God really worked in His house last night. We worshiped God for hours at a time at night, and prayer for others just as long. There were many people called to be missionaries to places like Russia, Egypt, Haiti, Canada, and many others that I haven't even heard of before, but God called them to go there. I thought it was interesting some of the occupations that God called people to be to like a comic book artist, a movie director, a lawyer, and others that I know God will reach others through. People were giving their testimonies and I just thought it was so amazing hearing how some people have gone through such terrible things, but stayed faithful to God through it all and were rewarded for being so strong. I myself rededicated my life to God and plan to follow God through all times. I've been thinking of playing guitar for the worship team at my church too when God put that on my heart. God is so good, and I hope people can have their faith lifted from reading my experience at this awesome week of camp."

I ask anyone who has doubts about the claims of healing in this story to pose those questions elsewhere as the purpose of this thread is fellowship - not debate.

 

[elephunky]

I feel the need to mention I'm having a bit of deist streak lately. All I know is that if there is a god, I view them as impersonal and nonintervening. However I am quite attached to my pagan faith.

Lots of seeking!

 

[lupusFati]

I ask anyone who has doubts about the claims of healing in this story to pose those questions elsewhere as the purpose of this thread is fellowship - not debate.

I suppose that works.

 

[ContraMundum]

I ask anyone who has doubts about the claims of healing in this story to pose those questions elsewhere as the purpose of this thread is fellowship - not debate.

Thank you for that!

 

[ContraMundum]

I feel the need to mention I'm having a bit of deist streak lately. All I know is that if there is a god, I view them as impersonal and nonintervening. However I am quite attached to my pagan faith.

Lots of seeking!

An interesting journey you have!

 

[kaknelson]

I was Greek Orthodox for most of my life and now I am a Hellenic polytheist .Did the typical going to church every Sunday, one day I began to read ancient works such as Ovid and Hesiod and Homer and began to study philosophy. I started to question the priest and because he could not answer my questions I stopped going. I tried a Baptist church, a Catholic church but they seemed phony and did not like it when I asked questions.

One day I just poured a libation and said a prayer to each of the 12 Gods and ever since I have been at peace. I went to the Delphic Oracle in a visit to Greece shortly after and I felt the divine like I have never felt it before.

 

[lupusFati]

I was Greek Orthodox for most of my life and now I am a Hellenic polytheist .Did the typical going to church every Sunday, one day I began to read ancient works such as Ovid and Hesiod and Homer and began to study philosophy. I started to question the priest and because he could not answer my questions I stopped going. I tried a Baptist church, a Catholic church but they seemed phony and did not like it when I asked questions.

One day I just poured a libation and said a prayer to each of the 12 Gods and ever since I have been at peace. I went to the Delphic Oracle in a visit to Greece shortly after and I felt the divine like I have never felt it before.

Is it weird that when I read "Hellenic" I thought "Well, that's all Greek to me". Ba-dum tsh.

 

[elephunky]

Is it weird that when I read "Hellenic" I thought "Well, that's all Greek to me". Ba-dum tsh.

LOL

 

[Zoness]

I was Greek Orthodox for most of my life and now I am a Hellenic polytheist .Did the typical going to church every Sunday, one day I began to read ancient works such as Ovid and Hesiod and Homer and began to study philosophy. I started to question the priest and because he could not answer my questions I stopped going. I tried a Baptist church, a Catholic church but they seemed phony and did not like it when I asked questions.

One day I just poured a libation and said a prayer to each of the 12 Gods and ever since I have been at peace. I went to the Delphic Oracle in a visit to Greece shortly after and I felt the divine like I have never felt it before.

Neat story, and welcome!

 

[ContraMundum]

I was Greek Orthodox for most of my life and now I am a Hellenic polytheist .Did the typical going to church every Sunday, one day I began to read ancient works such as Ovid and Hesiod and Homer and began to study philosophy. I started to question the priest and because he could not answer my questions I stopped going. I tried a Baptist church, a Catholic church but they seemed phony and did not like it when I asked questions.

One day I just poured a libation and said a prayer to each of the 12 Gods and ever since I have been at peace. I went to the Delphic Oracle in a visit to Greece shortly after and I felt the divine like I have never felt it before.

Wow....returning to your roots? I hate to ask, but to you, are those ancient gods actual beings or metephors or something?

 

[kaknelson]

Is it weird that when I read "Hellenic" I thought "Well, that's all Greek to me". Ba-dum tsh.

lol

 

[kaknelson]

Wow....returning to your roots? I hate to ask, but to you, are those ancient gods actual beings or metephors or something?

The Gods are conscious personable entities who uphold the laws of the cosmos and each have a distinct personality. There are non-personable entities such as justice, peace etc which we worship noneless.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Let's see if I can do this without being long-winded. But that's probably not gonna happen.

I was born into and grew up in a Christian household. My dad grew up Presbyterian in South Dakota, but I don't know that it really stuck to him; by the time I was born he had been a member of my mom's childhood church for about a decade. It was a non-denominational, Evangelical/Fundamentalist church, in fact the name was Independent Bible Church (or IBC as everyone in town knew it).

One of my earliest, or perhaps my very earliest, memory was shortly before my 4th birthday. My maternal grandfather had had a stroke and was in the hospital and we weren't sure if he'd make it (he survived). My parents felt this was the appropriate time to try and explain the concept of death to me, and in the process they eventually led me through "the Sinner's Prayer" and I "asked Jesus into my heart", though it was because I misunderstood and thought it was the only way I could avoid dying. I didn't want to die, so when my parents realized I'd misunderstood and told me I would still die someday, my immediate response was to try and "shoo" Jesus out of my heart immediately afterward.

I actually had my first "crisis" if faith when I was eight years old. I can't remember why exactly but I was really worried that I wasn't "really saved", my father asked me why and I told him it was because I wasn't sure if I had really "meant it" when I was younger. So he led me through the Sinner's Prayer again, and asked me if I meant it that time, and I told him I still didn't know. I wasn't sure how to know that I knew if I meant it as I wasn't sure what that really meant.

Not long after that my family became embroiled in a scandal/controversy in the church, fabricated by one of the church elders who had been cheating on his wife (who was a close friend of my mom's). In order to get a divorce without losing respect in the church he accused his wife and my mom of being in a lesbian relationship. My mother was brought before the council of elders and basically went through an inquisition, her guilt was presumed from the start and they threatened that if she did not repent our entire family would be cut off. So in order to protect the rest of us, she "repented", but was informed that wasn't good enough, she had to make a formal apology before the entire congregation (about 2,000-3,000 people). She refused to be publicly humiliated, and so told the elders they could go ahead and you-know-what themselves.

I was also attending a small private K-12 school maintained by a very conservative Baptist church.

We eventually found a church that welcomed us. The local Foursquare church at the time met in a room at the local YMCA, and we eventually settled in and my mom began the slow process of healing--as not only did she leave the church she had been part of since she was little, virtually everyone she had grown up with and had been friends with in high school turned against her.

When I was 12 years old my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through chemo, radiation therapy, and had a mastectomy. Our prayers were answered, we thought, as her cancer went into remission, and life more-or-less returned to normal.

However, when I was 15 we discovered the cancer had returned and had spread throughout her spine. The doctors gave her three months. But we fought hard with her.

During high school I was an active member of not only my church's youth group, but also of my friends' youth group--which was difficult at first as the youth group was at the church which had betrayed my family. Each summer between my years in high school I participated in a mission trip through my church's youth group. Twice we went to inner city San Francisco and worked with the homeless and inner city children, and once worked with Habitat for Humanity in Portland, OR. It was during my first trip to San Francisco, shortly after my 16th birthday, that I really began to take my faith with any real seriousness, though it was after my 17th birthday that I was introduced to small bits and pieces of Church History, and quickly became a passion of mine in learning about.

A couple months after my 18th birthday, three years after the doctors had given my mother three months, my mom finally passed away.

I had already, at the time of my mom's passing, been questioning some of the things I had come to accept without question in my church, and after my mom was gone, and I was living with my maternal grandparents while my dad was preparing a place for us in the Portland area, I slowly stopped going to church. I would occasionally go with friends, but I effectively stopped having a church to call my own.

But I used my time and energy a lot having religious discussions online, and researching and reading as much as I could. As I digested more, learned more about the history of Christianity and the historic faith, the more I was drawn toward the more historic expressions of Christianity. What continued to pull me the strongest was Lutheranism, the Lutheran doctrine on Justification, grace, the Sacraments, the Gospel (etc) exploded away a great deal of what I often had found a stifling, confusing mess in my Evangelical upbringing.

It was years before I finally stepped foot in a Lutheran church though, I found the whole notion of Liturgy intimidating. Eventually I tried a local LCMS church, but it didn't really take. Finally, maybe back in late 2009, I tried a local ELCA church, Beautiful Savior, and for the first time in almost a decade I felt home again. I've been going since, though I've yet to become active in the community, I haven't even gone through Confirmation yet.

My troubling doubts with the idea of "salvation", my fears of an angry God counter-weighted by the Doctrine of Grace and the God I encountered intimately in the person of Jesus in the Gospels, the loss of my mother, and my continued quest of faith and challenging myself has all played a crucial role in who I am and how I got to be where I am. My experiences with a toxic church environment has radically shaped how I view what church should be, and what it means to be a Christian (or more specifically, they serve for me an iconic example of what it doesn't mean to be Christian).

My mother's strength and pride has shaped my view of the value and dignity of women, my father's gentleness, vulnerability, and always serving and loving others has shaped my view of what it means to be a man, my experiences with rejection, being ostracized, and loss have been a massive influence on how I want to be a person dedicated toward others. I see in Jesus the God who suffers, who shares in loss, who stands in solidarity with the least and the unloved. In a lot of ways I'm a Christian in spite of the Christianity I often experienced and witness in others, but I'm a Christian because of the Christianity I see in the saints, martyrs of history, the saints I've seen in my parents, and most especially because of the Jesus I see in the New Testament.

So, yes, I've always been a Christian. But it still seems like it's been a long journey.

-CryptoLutheran