hey everyone.
Iv been doing this survey for my project which is worth a lot of my final mark and i had decided to do my society and culture project on the coptic orthodox community. My teacher says that once you get into the project, you start to learn about many things and youll find yourself going through a journey which may be either good or bad.
Well in my case its kind of bad, because when i set up a survey to question those living in australia about the coptic orthodox faith, i found that one of my relatives had no belief in it at all. Like one of the questions were, "do you go to church", and others would be like "Do you take part in fasting and why" etc.
when my relatives would say no to the church question, i asked them well why, dont you belive? And their answer was that you dont have to go to church if you already know that god is in your heart, and they also said that the only thing you should be doing is give to the poor and all that other stuff, but yu dont need to fast etc.
this really scares me to death, knwing that those that are basically family dont even do the basic things that well others do. Plus theyr older than me so it was kind of like as if they were giving me a lecture and actually trying to make me not go to church.
please i dont know what to do, and trust me iv tried to talk to them about it but they say that its their life and their choices, and that one day ill be undergoing these changes of faith. they have also said that the church is very hypocritical. And to be honest this one got me. I honestly do think that some egyptians in the church are very hypocritical when it comes to the faith, and these are one of the things that makes me repell from the church.
please pray for me and my relatives. god bless.
Comments
you relative, like all of us has the freedom to choose what to believe, and, i pray, will later realise his/her mistake in drifting away from God and His church. however i wish people wouldn't use this freedom to tell young people stuff like 'the stats show many of you will loose faith', this is not true and unnecessary.
for every time i've found hypocritical people (and i am getting a bit old now!) i've found much more evidence of how God is showing that person the right way and giving him/her many chances to have a true, living, faith.
read paul's letters to timothy, he said 'let no-one look down on you because you are young', so don't be intimidated by this relative, instead take the chance to get closer to God than ever, especially during this time of lent.
loads of people told me when i was young, 'just you wait, you'll rebell like everyone else' or 'you won't want to go to church when you're busy in the 'real' world of work' and it simply was not true.
every year, i am more amazed at the glory of God. so (as it says in James) draw near to God, and He'll draw near to you, and give you wisdom and peace.
may His name be praised forever.
I do pray that god can somehow open their hearts and show them the way, because i deeply dont want them to be going down the other path. But they are really good people and have very good hearts, so maybe theres still a chance :)
god bless
To answer the above statement, the church is a place like a hospital. The people come to become well.
Would you be surprised if you say a broken legged person in a hospital.
God bless