jamie y. watkins

Tag: community

  • Seeking Community: Roman Catholic

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    jywatkins
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    As far as churches with websites go, this was the last church visit for us in our town. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were home churches or smaller church meetings happening in our area that we don’t know about, but the Catholic Church was the last one on our list of the eight mainline…

  • Seeking Community: Church of the Nazarene

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    jywatkins
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    You’re four minutes late! As we walked to the church entrance, this shout came from somewhere behind us, and I thought, wow, it’s just four minutes! You don’t expect to be called out at church for being four minutes late.  It’s not the friendliest of welcomes for your first-time visitors. But when I turned to…

  • Seeking Community: Presbyterian Church

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    jywatkins
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    Last Sunday, Chad and I went to the Presbyterian Church in our town. It is in our town, but it’s on the other side of the state highway, so I always forget that that part of town is still actually in our town. Anyway. This was a cute church. The little sanctuary was small and…

  • Seeking Community: Evangelical Free Church

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    jywatkins
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    Just over a year ago, Chad and I, and the rest of our community, lost our church. It was a satellite location of a larger evangelical church that I had attended for several years. We set up our small satellite community in an elementary school every Sunday morning, held a worship service, children’s church, and…

  • Seeking Community: Episcopal Church

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    jywatkins
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    A couple weeks ago, Chad and I continued our church visits by attending the local Episcopal church. I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about some evangelical Christians who have been attending Episcopal churches, drawn in by the liturgy and tradition. Rachel Held Evans wrote a beautiful, poetic piece about the community and the sacredness of…

  • Seeking Community: United Methodist Churches

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    jywatkins
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    I’m catching up on our church-visit posts. Chad and I attended two United Methodist Churches in November (not two Sundays in a row, since we interrupted our church visits with a ten-day trip to Norway). The first UMC we attended is in the neighboring town where we used to live. We used to pass this…

  • Norway: Finding Peace in “Forgive Us”

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    jywatkins
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    I chose just the right book to read on vacation to accompany our theme of peace and to align with our visit to the Nobel Peace Center. Reflecting back on my post about the laureates, the one thing I didn’t mention in my (ever-changing, evolving) definition of peace is forgiveness and lament. Forgive Us: Confessions…

  • Seeking Community: Lutheran Church

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    jywatkins
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    It’s been a couple weeks since we visited our local Lutheran Church, but right after I left for a business trip and then had visitors for my birthday… so we’ve had a couple Sundays off since this visit. I still want to chronicle it, though. I don’t know where my lofty ideas of Lutherans came…

  • 30 and Loved

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    jywatkins
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       I had a plan for this weekend. I thought, I can’t stop 30 from coming, so I might as well throw myself a party. So I was going to have my family over to our house yesterday, and then all my friends over today, but Chad had a different plan. Apparently, he’s had a…

  • Seeking Community: Bible Fellowship

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    jywatkins
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    For our third church visit, this past Sunday, Chad and I visited a Bible Fellowship Church just a couple minutes from our house. Like the Mennonite church we visited a few weeks ago, this church was small and friendly, about 30 people at the service.  Unlike the Mennonite church, it was not very diverse, but…