I spent the last few months meeting people with different beliefs systems and learning about them. Everyone I met was very nice and every community was very welcoming. I was fascinated by what I had learned and a few of my perceptions were changed.
Before I started writing these articles my knowledge of faiths was limited to the big 5 (Church of England, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism). I didn't really know of any others and I wasn’t aware that other religions could branch off from them. I chose to research and write about these faiths because I always found the idea of religion interesting. I’ve never been religious and none of my family are so my knowledge is limited to year nine religious studied.
Prior to this project I thought that no one really went to church anymore. I thought it was just for the older generation who only went because they had one all their lives. I was wrong about this. Going to the Bethesda free church I saw that large number of youth were attending these meetings. They were also actively getting involved in church activity and with the church goers as a community. I wanted to know if this was the case everywhere. I spoke to Micah Wint, who has only recently gotten back in touch with his religion and started going to church again.
"I do think less of the younger generation are going to church. I know that at a young age children attend church with their families but do stop going when they get older." He went on to say: “A lot of services come across as dated and old-fashioned, which can appear boring to younger people.”
However, I also spoke to Annabel Webster, avid church goer, and she painted a different picture:
“From what I’ve seen I think there’s more of a young attendance these days. However, it does depend on demographic. Because I live in a student city there are many students in my congregation.” She carries on by saying: “At the church I go to when I’m home there are probably 50 or more of the older generation in attendance. However, it is nice to have a good mix of all ages. People who come together for God’s word and love.”
I got the sense of community and togetherness whilst visiting all these places. I was welcomed into the Bethesda Free Church and True Jesus Church, the Baha’is invited me to a meeting in someone’s home and even the spiritualist healers added me into their closed Facebook group.
Micah told me that he makes a point of keeping close to his church community:
“I make sure that I socalise with members of my congregation after church. There is always a good community spirit.”
Another thing which I found interesting was the amount of community work some of the groups did. The Bethesda Free Church host after school groups to help kids with their homework. The Baha’is helping their communities all around the world, but more locally hosting classes for children. Spiritualist Tracy said she taught kids how to heal. Annabel told me of some of the volunteering she has done through her church.
“My church has provided me opportunities to help the community through Children’s and Young people’s groups, Christian volunteering locally and internationally through camps, teaching and medical missions. I will soon be volunteering with more Christian medical groups again.”
Not everyone seems to notice the work religious organizations do for communities. I thought to make this article more balanced I would interview a few atheists. I asked Alistair Adams and Isaac Johnson if they were aware of any work religious groups have done to benefit their communities. Alistair told me:
“I know that the Salvation Army have provided a lot of help in the community in my local area. This is the only one which springs to mind.”
Isaac said: “I don’t really know of any work provided by religious groups. I know the church do coffee mornings on a weekend but I think that’s it.
This shows that there are people in churches doing lots of work in the community, but getting no recognition for it. This might be why it came as a shock to me when I found out all the community support these faiths offer. All people I spoke to offered community work in different ways.
The faith which interested me the most was the Baha’is. I was impressed by how progressive they were and that their main belief is that humanity should come together as a whole. I struggled to find anything wrong with what they thought and believed and found myself agreeing a lot of it. I’m not a religious person but if I was this might be the one for me.
I enjoyed my time finding out about these groups and I came out of the experience a more educated person. Now it’s come to an end I’ve put together an info graph of some of the best things I heard from each group.
