3.4 Church Visit

Getting Started

For Assignment 4.4, you will need to visit a church service and submit a report that describes the worship service, the use of scripture, and your response to it all. Again, this class welcomes people from all across the spectrum of the church experience. You may attend a church regularly. You may have never set foot in a church before. You may have gone to church as a child but not for many years now. This discussion will give you the opportunity to process some of your feelings and plans regarding this upcoming church visit. You may feel apprehensive or you may have a previous church experience that was less than ideal. Feel free to discuss those emotions and anything else related to your upcoming church visit in this discussion.  

Please look ahead to the assignment in 4.4 to see what will be asked of you. This discussion is also a good place to ask any questions that you need to be clarified about the requirements for the church service report. You will find two documents below. The first—“How to Visit a Church”— 

opens up the issue of visiting a church, overviews various worship traditions, and orients you to some of practical matters of attending a worship service. This can help you prepare for your church visit. The second—"Church Service Report”—is a list of several questions that you are to answer after you visit the church. You should look at this in preparation for your visit so that you know what to look for and what will be expected in the report. 

Upon successful completion of this discussion, you will be able to:

· Discuss your feelings and plans regarding your upcoming church visit. 

Resources

· “How to Visit a Church” 

· “Church Service Report” 

· both of these documents are located in the Course Documents module

Background Information

 This assignment may feel uncomfortable to you for a handful of reasons. Perhaps you attend church regularly and find this analytic approach too formal. Perhaps you have a lot of apprehensions about visiting a church. Perhaps you feel that this kind of assignment doesn’t fit well with this class. Let us just briefly explain that the Christian Bible and the Christian church are tightly intertwined. It was the church that produced, collected, recognized, and canonized the books of the New Testament under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Scripture has always formed a key part of Christian worship in many different ways across history. Also, remember that the Bible was meant to be heard in the community, and attending a church service is the best way to experience this aspect of Scripture.  

We pray that no matter what your background may be that you find this experience moving and meaningful. It will give you a window of insight into what God is saying in the New Testament in a way no other experience can do. 

Instructions

1. Review the assessment criteria in the rubric for this assignment. 

2. Pause for a moment to catalog and reflect on your own experiences with a church.  

3. Read  How to Visit a Church and  Church Service Report

4. Jot down any questions that arise as you are reviewing these. 

5. Compose an initial post of 200-250 words. This post should include: 

a. An identification of the church you plan to visit, or a request for guidance about choosing a church. Explain your choice or request in a sentence or two. 

b. A brief description of your prior church experiences (or lack thereof) and how those impact you as you come to this assignment. 

c. Two questions related to this assignment (e.g., about selecting a church, about worship traditions, about the report, and so on).