Member Questions

i dont consider myself religious but rather spiritual and that if you do good things...good things will happen to you. bad things happen to good people too but having the mindset that you can do things to improve will give you the power and strength to get through things.

Nope not at all.

Oh and if you want you can copy/paste Florinda's second paragraph right here. I completely agree with what she said with the exception that I haven't ever been a regular churchgoer (or a churchgoer at all) and don't imagine I ever will be.

Well, this is a bit complicated for me, but I'll try to explain.

I was not raised in a church-going or religious family as a child but, I always knew about Christ and attended diff't denominations of churches with friends and family. This gave me exposure to God in many diff't places. This influenced me to study the sociology of religion in college. It was very fascinating to learn the origin of God and the church. I also took Critical Thinking classes so I could understand the complexities of the proliferation of different doctrines and how religion packages itself to appeal to different people.

Personally, I had alot of challenges in my life growing up which called for the seeking of a "higher power" to deal with it all once I knew I couldn't handle it all by myself. That's when my own search for "God" began. I opened myself up to God and asked Him to reveal who he truly was to me. He led me to the passage in Matthew 5:6 that says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." That changed my life forever.

My mother was more spiritual than religious as I grew up and taught me about Christ as she was raised in the Methodist Church. She distanced herself from church life b/c she didn't care for the hypocrisy of how some Christians lived their lives contrary to what was preached, so she didn't demand a relligious lifestyle for me and my sister. Instead she introduced us to her spiritual beliefs that helped us to appreciate God in everything around us. I also read alot of books about spirituality and agreed with alot of its concepts as I'm currently reading Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth" and follow Oprah's weekly online classes. But it leaves me with more questions when I try to incorporate it with my religious beliefs.

When I was fifteen I decided to "get saved" and then I rededicated my life to Christ when I was 33yrs old and was also baptized in a wonderful Baptist church after having a "religious-spiritual awakening" during a very difficult time in my life. God has done amazing things in my life like curing my daughter of a rare immune disease, and answering my prayers for marriage that makes it hard for me to deny his sovereign power and the teachings of the bible. Let's just say...God on His own has made me a believer! But, the jury is still out for me whether I believe I'm "religious" b/c that word means something different to diff't people. A more stricter way of approaching life - which works for some, and not others.

For me, I follow the tenets of my church and the biblical teaching for Christian life. My children also went to a private Christian school for over 4 years and I took them out b/c people didn't always practiced what they preached. They also attended Awana and have been baptized. My husband is a devout Catholic and we share faiths with our children. So we're all over the place, but I feel it's all in the true name of Jesus that we worship - so it has to be all good, right? :)

God is the center of our lives, not ritualistic doctrine, totems, or inflexible theology. We pray together as a family everyday and my husband and I pray together. I can attest to some absolutely wonderful things God has done for us as a family so I guess you can say a mix of religious worship and spiritual principles is what works for us. Overall, it's what you're comfortable with as long as you know you are following along with God's biblical law and asking him for purpose and direction for your life.

I believe in this, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37.4) So, a mix of spirituality and religion works for us. I keep my focus on the Lord and try to live a loving life. It brings me great peace even in the midst of great challenges.

I feel I'm more spiritual than anything. I grew up Catholic (like Florinda) but have grown as a spiritual being in the past five years or so. We're very outdoorsy and art-driven (music and visual arts) and I tend to see God in nature and creativity and intellegence and people. I am a bit fascinated by the Virgin Mary and have kind of built my own petois faith inside my head, a little of this, a little of that. We've attended Unitarian services but found they were more political gatherings, so we don't really attend anything now, besides the hiking trail and the mountains near our house...and what better place to introduce spirituality and a Higher Power to our son and ourselves than out in nature? Whoops! I've rambled.

Yes, I consider myself religious. I attend church regularly and get involved in several different mission projects. Outside of church, I live my life according to my religious beliefs and try to be an example of a good Christian. One of the things that I really like about my church is that we have "Christian Living" classes. While based on the Bible, it's more about incorporating the meaning of the Bible into our daily lives rather than simply studying scripture.