Post 18 (12/2)

After the final class, I was curious to see what happens next: as in, what happened to the leaders of the Azusa Street Revival leaders? Apparently, by the end if 1906--so within eight months--most leaders from Azusa Street had spun off to form other congregations, such as the 51st Street Apostolic Faith Mission, the Spanish AFM, and the Italian Pentecostal Mission. Thus began the Pentecostal movement. These new congregations were mostly comprised of immigrant or ethnic groups, and some of the larger ones took place in the Southeast United States, since "Seymour's approach gave a useful explanation for charismatic spiritual climate that had already been taking root in those areas."

Post 17 (11/30)

I thought it was interesting that nationalism was prevalent early on as a myth that America was the chosen nation. You see a lot of that in many slogans you see around America, such as from the song "God Bless America" which has replaced the "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at baseball games. I thought this was a relatively new thing, but apparently this attitude was seen early on as well with the Puritans, who saw what we now call the United States as the promised land.

Post 16 (11/23)

Talking about both Luther and Calvin today, I was curious to see more of how their views align and differ. It turns out, they are pretty similar--not to say that Calvin was Luther v2.0 or something, but they were pretty closely aligned with the exception of the Lord's Supper. Luther taught consubstantiation, while Calvin wrote in a letter about Luther, "How foolishly he erred when he stated that the bread is the body itself." Meanwhile, Calvin believed in the presence of the living Christ in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper by the action of the Holy Spirit. Calvin believed God was there in the sacraments in a spiritual sense; Luther believed it to be a physical sense.

Post 15 (11/18)

The first half of class we watched a video of a Shane Claiborne interview. I had never heard him speak before, but had heard he had some good things to say. A lot of what he does reminds me of what the early first century church practiced: being intentional about living in community. Along with that, he says, comes all the good and bad things about a person: people bring gifts and baggage. He said it’s a choice to live deeper in community which makes you laugh hard with each other, cry hard with each other, hurt each other more, and be vulnerable with a group of people. He asks how can we worship a homeless man Sunday, ignore one Monday. He adds, we need to stop complaining about the church we’ve experienced, become church we dream of. He is looking for that more perfect church--and he believes it's by living with the poor and the outcasts of society.

Post 14 (11/16)

After class today, I went and looked up more facts about Catholicism around the world and found these facts in addition to some tidbits Dr. Bolger shared in class today. I found that according to David Barrett, by 2025 1/6 of the world's Catholics will be in Africa (230 million). Also, the world's largest seminary is in Nigeria (not, apparently, in Pasadena, California). According to Dr. Bolger, some countries (like Angola) are now over 50% Catholic. Now there is some hope that one of the next Pope's will be from Africa now that it is such a huge percentage of Catholics. In fact, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been one of the leading voices in this movement.

Post 13 (11/12)

Okay, I'll be honest, the story Bishop Graham Cray told about the surf churches in England got me excited. That's so awesome that they set up this church that people can literally walk right off the beach in their surf stuff to attend; that is so different than your traditional church. That they still have some members (about 40, according to the bishop), but he said that during the peak surf seasons it is crowded. That's such a cool and unique way to spread the Word, and perhaps something that could lead a lot of people to Christ.

Post 12 (11/9)

In preparation for Bishop Graham Cray, a prominent leader in the missional church movement in the United Kingdom, Dr. Bolger went over some background figures and notes so that we could be better prepared for his lecture Wednesday. One thing that hit me was the sense of a Consumer Society--a society that becomes so personalized, everything is tailored for one person. Your shopping, your health care, your faith, and more will all be personalized. Cray says the U.K. will be personalized in all ways be 2020. With this, you feel a lack of community, and it allows individuals to be just that--they can become disengaged from any long-term commitment to a society.

Post 11 (11/4)

I found it interesting when the first video we watched mentioned that the Pope and Emperor had a sort of alliance. Though the movie called it an "uneasy alliance" between Charlemagne and Pope Leo, the church and state acted together. In theory that is different than today in the United States, but really it might not be all that different than say James Dobson and the religious right's relationship with George W. Bush. Though Dobson and other influential leaders are probably not on a pedestal as high as the Pope's, they are still influential to a lot of people who follow them, and provide many votes for politicians who see eye-to-eye with them.

Post 10 (11/2)

Well, I'm going to get a little sidetracked. Today we talked about the spread of Orthodoxy throughout the world, so I just wanted to share a few notes from my experience at an Eastern Orthodox church a few Sundays ago:
-It was very liturgical; much more than most churches I've been to
-2/3 of the service was in Greek; perhaps that's why a lot of people showed up 1/2 way through the service, which is interesting because they had a "Church Etiquette" brochure which stressed the importance of showing up on time
-After about an hour of Greek singing, prayers and rituals, all of a sudden the priest gave about a 10 minute sermon in English and then the service was basically over after a few announcements
-I noticed that they really had a place for children in the service--as Acolytes, in communion, etc.

Post 9 (10/28)

Augustine was the person who first had the idea of the visible and invisible church around the fourth century. The visible church is describing the members of a local church. The invisible church are God's elect and true believers. Augustine believed there was a mix of the visible and invisible church--in other words, there will be no perfect church: some people don't have the right motives. They were there to be seen. Ultimately, I don't think that we have to worry about that--it's up to God. He knows our hearts better than we do, so we should probably be more worried about ourselves than wondering what your neighbors motives for going to church are.

Post 8 (10/26)

In class, we talked about how churches started to become more organized as the leadership positions in the church began to become more defined. The bishops were the leaders in the church, forgiving sins, administering communion, etc. The deacons were the assistants to the bishops, while the presbyters and the elders were the leaders who governed the church. The schism between these church leaders and the rest of the church--the laity--became larger. Then in the third century, the bishops started to meet and from that came what Dr. Bolger called "super-bishops," to oversee larger areas than just the small communities that the individual bishops oversaw.

Post 7 (10/21)

In the movie, they talk about the impact Jesus being down on earth with human with his hand one their head. Jesus is not shown as a transcendental being, instead He’s down there with the broken with His hand on their head. This reminded me of how the other day, I made the connection of how Jesus was born in a manger surrounded by sheep in Bethlehem, then was crucified in Jerusalem. Much like the sheep he was surrounded by, who were raised in Bethlehem to be the sacrifices in Jerusalem, Jesus was the sacrificial lamb.

Post 6 (10/19)

What really strikes me about comparing our lives and church experiences to those of the early churches is centered around one word: community. While they spent probably hours upon hours together worshiping, studying and becoming one unit, we today (myself included) look at church at putting in our time with God. Once that hour is up, then it's back home for a nice day of watching football from my couch. Maybe that's why it was so much easier for them to be such a tight-knit community that they would literally sell their possessions if someone was in need. It would be tough for me to part ways with my iPod, XBox, computer, etc. I could say I would, but it's easier said than done. That is what makes their community, in the real sense of the word, so much more admirable.

Post 5 (10/14)

One of the interesting things I'm learning here, not only from this class but in others as well, is what household worship looked like and how much of a role it played in early Christianity. I never really took a Church History class in undergrad, so learning things such as what we did on Wednesday like structure of household services is really interesting to me. What is also interesting to learn is how small most of these household churches were--some were really tiny; yet they continued to worship Christ. Often times we get caught up in the numbers game at church--I have myself leading a youth group for the last two years. But it's not about the numbers as much as it is what you do with your group. God can work just fine with a small group of people--something I'm reminded of when we look at these small community churches.

Post 4 (10/12)

A point from talking about Jesus' Kingdom and Church that really stuck out to me on Monday was under the category of Mission/Witness. The point was how Jesus tried to change the focus from overthrowing Rome to loving their enemies. It seems to me that our culture today could use a dose of this mentality. So often in our politics and everyday life we think of (name group here) as our enemy, how they're so different than us and how we're so right and they're so wrong. In reality--and this is easier said than done--it's our responsibility to love them for who they are. This the the challenge Jesus gave to us, and it's sad to see us--myself included--failing at this opportunity to love one another.

Post 3 (10/7)

I was struck by the idea of different societies being modeled after Jesus' example in the last class. I'm curious to learn more about specific societies throughout history that use His ideas versus the ones who do not. How are they different? How do they treat the outcasts of society? Perhaps that one specifically since that is something I'm really interested in. Jesus was there with the lowest of the low in society, hanging around them, something nobody expected from the Messiah. The fact that he was around the poor, the prostitutes, the beggars is something we should take a closer look at and see how we as a society treat them. But not only as a society, but how we as individuals contribute to that as well.

Post 2 (9/30)

Today we ended by splitting up into small groups of four to discuss our church backgrounds based on a few categories: nature of the church, liturgy & sacraments, community & service, mission & witness, and organization & leadership. I grew up in a PC(USA) church, then worked at a United Methodist church for the past two years. I certainly noticed some differences between them, but have never really considered in a in-depth way why each of those churches are run the way they are. I only thought, at a basic level, of the contrasts. Hopefully in this class I will learn more about why things are done as they are in the church traditions I have been part of.

Post 1 (9/28)

The thing that stood out to me most about the first class were some of the statistics: In the United Kingdom, only one percent of 18-35 year old range attend church. More shockingly, some churches are forecasting church death dates. Domestically, 90 percent of churches are either stagnant or declining. After spending time as a youth intern in one those stagnant/declining churches, I'm questioning what can be done to regain those people who are leaving the church? According to Donald McGavran, the barrier for most people to the gospel is social not theological. What, as Christians, can we do to present a better, more loving atmosphere? What turns people off to Christianity or, maybe more specifically, Christian churches?