| sapphi_snake said: It's quite interesting that you have such activities. I guess they probably increase attendence. Have these social activities always existed, or are they a recent practice? I can ask the same way about the different services you guys have. Have people of your religion always made special religious services for younger people? This whole ideea seems devised by a PR team to be honest. The difference between those two types od services is striking. You did mention that you only have those metal/rock praises once a month though, right? WOW, your town is really small. How can people even manage to get drugs over there? You'd think that it would be impossible to deal drugs without everybody finding out. If you guys don't get paid, then how do your survive exactly? Do you have other jobs? And feeding the poor can be viewed as a corrupting activity, in the sense of 'look, they're feeding poor and taking advantage of their desperation to get them to convert'. I was talking more about the youth activities though ('look, these cultists are luring our children with sports activites and rock music, trying to corrupt their impressionable minds and get them to worship the devil' - and I'm not kidding, peopel actually believe this). |
Having fun at church is (as far as I know) a recent practice. I don't believe youth groups always existed. Youth services have probably existed a little bit longer, as some churches have had them to promote the youths' talents and abilities at a church to get them involved. It used to be that the youth in the church pretty much sat around and did nothing until they were older, but now many churches have young people doing ministry activities and developing their talents.
Currently, we do the youth services once a month, but some churches do them more often. We do them once a month primarily due to resources and number of youth. Eventually if the group gets larger, we'll do them once a month.
I think you'd be surprised about drugs in small town America. Where do they get the drugs? Well, we have meth lab fires every few weeks, and my town is a major drug corridor in Ohio (I believe you could google 'I-23 Pipeline').
I guess I could see someone with a warped view thinking that what we do is corrupting, but the reality is that there are few government services that hold a candle to what we do in regards to helping the comminuty. As for the youth activities, it'd be crazy for someone to think that having clean fun and playing music that kids already listen to is a bad thing. In the protestant view, Christianity is a lifestyle that encompasses everything you do. Providing activities that are clean helps encourage kids to understand that you can enjoy life without vices. Having heavy metal, rock or any type of worship shows that your worship with God is your own - it doesn't matter what style of music is played, but that we must worship God wholeheartedly.
I have a normal job. The senior pastor at the church is retired from his regular job (worked at the city water purification plant).
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
