#and like these were two camps in the same region same general direction of christianty (protestant)

[seawitchkaraoke]

When I was a kid I went to a, for lack of a better word, church daycamp every year. And even now years later and no longer christian I do not have anything negative to say about it. We would learn about a specific story from the bible and then do a musical about that story that we presented on the last day. We did arts & crafts that often but not always related to the story somehow. We played and we sang and we laughed and the main thing they taught us about god was that he is everywhere and he is there for you and he loves you. It was good. It was excellent. If this was all christianity was, I think many things would be much much better

I also went, not every year just a few times, to a church camp run by a different church. And for the most part this was still a fun time - nothing compared to the horror stories other people can tell for sure. But it was a lot more intense, we had like daily prayer sessions in the evening where other kids would go into these deep clearly very emotional conversations with God? I guess? And I just sat there like hmm I feel weird and uncomfortable should I be?? Crying about smth? What?

One main thing that stuck with me from that camp is the time they told us a story that said that committing sins was as if you were personally throwing stones at jesus while he was on the cross. He died for all of us, he'll forgive you, but just know how much you're hurting him if you sin. And that... Hmm. I liked the "God loves you and is there for you no matter what" messages a lot more than the "you, a 12 year old, are personally torturing Jesus if you tell a lie or if you're a little selfish one time"

So... Yeah. Idk where I'm even going with this. But yeah Christianity doesn't have to be horrible but it also isn't magically good. People can have wildly different experiences with the same religion. One of these still in my memory feels like a warm hug and summer and joy and the other one... Feels like uncertainty and not belonging and guilt

One told me that God would love me no matter what and the other told me (implicitly if not directly) that there was a right and a wrong way to love God and that I was probably doing it wrong

It's just. Interesting how that goes

#christianity #and like these were two camps in the same region same general direction of christianty (protestant) #it's just. yeah #yeah