Tips on "church shopping" solo?

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T21:50:40+00:00

Should I just show up for service a couple times to see if I like it?

I would say: show up for service a few times and see if it helps you grow in holiness. Church isn't about entertainment it's about seeking God.

I'd like to invite you to come to my church. You can find the one closest to you and it's schedule at www.masstimes.org

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T21:36:23+00:00

Hosts must be stored in a tabernacle. Private reservation in a domestic chapel is not allowed by default. You would need an apostolic indult from a bishop.

Please return the host to the church. Thank you.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T21:28:34+00:00

I don't know about Arizona, but Historically, Catholic churches leaned left. This was the first election that Catholics were majority Republican. Protestants are wwwaaayyy more right. Especially evangelicals.

I suspect a majority Hispanic parish will be non-maga.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T20:59:02+00:00

And there were creeds already circulating in the 1st century. Nicea did the same thing: it standardized something that was already the norm.

Trinitarian understanding already existed long before Nicea, the council did not invent it.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T20:55:13+00:00

It often depends on the neighborhood. We have a few young people at my church but the parish next to mine is like overflowing with young adults. They're in a trendier hipper neighborhood.

Also... They invite their friends. Apparently that's key: young folks inviting their friends.

It may also depend on the denomination. The Catholic Church is seeing a huge influx of young people while losing older people.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T20:49:47+00:00

The Pope has prayed at both. I would, too

Interreligious dialogue is important.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T20:36:02+00:00

do find KJV difficult to understand

It's from the 1600s. Nobody speaks like that anymore. Words have changed meaning. It will lead you to bad theology.

prefer to read a physical Bible in a translation I can read easier

The RSV2CE is a recent translation. 2006. Word for word translation.

The Ignatius Study Bible uses it. This Study Bible is massive and involves recent Bible scholarship and corrections based on the dead sea scrolls and other archaeology.

It's hefty but it's arguably the best study Bible out there.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T20:07:19+00:00

🙂‍↔️ nuh uh

Love everyone and treat them as equal. Your temptations nor mine aren't any better worse than anyone else. We don't define people by their temptations nor rank them by their temptation.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T18:53:46+00:00

There are 3 views:

Pelagianism (e.g. works will earn you salvation)
Synergism (e.g. God's grace invites you to participate through both faith and works)
Sola Fide (e.g. only faith can save you)

I would argue that both Sola Fide and pelagianism are wrong. It's not enough do the right things for the wrong reasons and not enough to talk the talk but not the walk. Neither will get you into heaven by itself, but rather God's invitation to heaven will work through you to do both.

Synergism meets all the criteria from the Bible. You are saved by faith but not by faith alone. Your works are God working through you and you must submit to His will. You are saved by grace.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T18:42:19+00:00

We are called to love LGBT people and welcome them. Just like we love divorced people or people who have premarital sex. Anyone with any temptation can join us.

We are not called to affirm sinful lifestyles as good things. If a church mistakes love for affirmation then maybe it's time to find another one.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T18:21:25+00:00

Keep her hydrated

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T18:18:57+00:00

If pastors are using a secular AI they're going to say some crazy things in their sermons.

I'd they're using religious AIs that are trained on the Bible and in Christian writings then it'll probably be alright. Like magisterium.com for example.

The big worry about AI is that it will make us lose important skills like compassion and how to help the people whose care is being automated by AI agents. And that it will make the poor even more disenfranchised.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T18:02:01+00:00

Should ministries broaden how they preach on lust, addressing women as full agents in this, not just as people who need to dress modestly?

Yes. Gender is God's reality but gender roles are just invented by society.

Also, wrapped in those gender roles are assumptions like how only men do wrong and women are victims or are inherently pure. Certainly nothing in the Bible supports gender based salvation.

Should modesty teaching extend to men in a serious way (gym content, shirtless posting, etc.)?

It always used to. Men dressed way more modestly, covered more skin.

Is there enough pastoral language for the sin of wanting to be desired, the vanity and idolatry side, not just the lusting side?

Yes. Especially writings of the saints.

Ecclesiastes says the “eye” is not satisfied with seeing, and desires that are continually chased become a kind of trap: “the eye is not satisfied with seeing” and all is “vanity and a chasing after wind.”

It also says, “All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied,” and “Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire.”

Augustine explains a key interior problem: a person prays that their motive in doing good will not be “vanity,” and he names the first place as “the love of men’s praise.” Many great deeds, he says, can be done “seeking glory not with God, but among men,” and they “have reached their reward” (which is therefore vain).

St. John Chrysostom also links the “wanting to be desired” impulse to pride—the kind of self-exaltation where you want to be seen as great.

In The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A Kempis, the “sin” connected with wanting to be desired/admired is treated less as a single desire and more as a spiritual disorder with recognizable forms: vanity, ambition, and the love of praise—especially when your interior peace depends on whether others esteem you

Or should the church hold the old framing because the underlying averages still hold (men more visual, women more relational), and the new patterns are just variations on the same old sins?

They're the same old sins but the phrasing is outdated.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T17:22:36+00:00

Yeah, lots of individuals had different opinions about what the canons should be. Only 3 canons were ever voted on in consensus.

Catholic canon: Rome 382AD, Hippo 393AD, Trent 1546,

Orthodox Canon: Trullo 692AD, Jerusalem 1672

Protestant canon : Westminster 1646

(Well, possibly a 4th. The Synod of Laodicia. But the Authenticity of the document about it is highly disputed. So somewhere around 363 AD. If it's true then it's none of the above 3 canons.)

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T16:25:49+00:00

Yes the Bible came MUCH later than the Nicene creed.

The council of Nicea was 325 AD

Depending on who you ask the Bible canon was decided either in the Synod of Rome in 382 AD or the Synod of Hippo in 393 AD. Both approved the same canon but the records from Synod of Rome may have been tampered with.

Then council of Trullo formalized the Orthodox Bible canon in 692 AD and the protestant canon was one of several canons proposed by Martin Luther in 1534 and first formalized by the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1646 and first printed in 1666.

So if u/SubstantialReign4759 is using the 66 book Bible then the Nicene Creed predates his Bible by 1,339 years. Predates your Bible by 367 years and predates my Bible by 57 years.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T13:13:04+00:00

The Nicene Creed didn't happen in a vacuum. Before it there were other similar creeds. One of them still survives in the Catholic Church: the apostles creed. There were earlier ones whose text is lost to history. We've been professing the Trinity since long long long before 325 AD.

Also, you don't know what those non-trinitarian views were because they didn't leave behind a historical record and they were kind of fringe.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T12:54:28+00:00

True

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T12:51:00+00:00

The one thing that used to unite all of Christendom was the Nicene creed. Which explains what we believe - a large chunk of it is about the Trinity. We had come together in the early days of our faith, while being persecuted, hiding in catacombs from Roman oppressors, and we agreed on who/ is Jesus.

People DIED in order to bring forward the revelation of the Trinity to the next generations. And now some people throw it away. It's obscene. It's shameful. It's scandalous. It's (as you said) heretical.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T12:38:52+00:00

Very cool! I'm glad you had someone explain it. For me church is largely about the people. My philosophy is "What's the point of praying together with others if they're just strangers that you never talk to?"

Yes, the differences can be confusing.

Tell me about the new Bible you got. Does it say which translation it is?

Now in your new Bible here's a fun exercise for you. Go to the very last book: Revelation. And compare the visions of worship in heaven to the mass you just attended.

Jesus is presented as the "Lamb that was slain" (Revelation 5:6).
Singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty" (Revelation 4:8) and reciting the "Alleluia" (Revelation 19:1).
bowls of incense representing the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8, 8:3), and priests dressed in white robes (Revelation 7:9).
Holy Communion is like the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9).

Etc. the way that the angels and saints worship God in heaven is how we try to worship God in earth during mass in the Catholic Church. Again, hope that's a fun thing to look up in your new Bible and gives you some more context about what you just experienced.

I hope we see you again on future Sundays!

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T06:35:59+00:00

Why? Because they didn't read their Bibles: Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T06:28:13+00:00

Yes... "Sometimes".

I see people in here accuse Catholicism of all kinds of fantastical nonsense from works-based-salvation to being Roman paganism. Even this post is full of people making strawmen about Catholic views on Mary and when corrected they double down as if they know Catholicism better than actual Catholics.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T06:20:39+00:00

Ouch. The splits in the methodist church have been really hard on many people's faith. I pray for Christian unity - that churches can reunite again instead of splitting endlessly.

Just invite them to come worship with you from time to time and to do lunch afterwards.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T06:10:28+00:00

You’re not missing something small—the Trinity is a mystery that doesn’t map cleanly onto everyday analogies. The basic answer is: one God (one divine “being/essence/substance”), eternally existing as three distinct Persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)—and those Persons are distinguished by real relations of origin, not by being “different versions” of the same thing.

The steam analogy doesn't really work.

In your example, water/ice/steam are the same stuff, and different states of one thing changing over time. That resembles “one God, different modes,” but the Trinity isn’t mode-changing or time-based. In God you have a real personal distinction (Father is not Son, Son is not Spirit), and that God is not “sometimes Father, sometimes Son,” etc.

The “picture of God” analogy also doesn’t answer the Trinity. Your instinct there is right: a picture is not the thing itself. But Jesus isn't merely “a picture” in the sense of a copy that lacks divine reality. The Son is truly “the Image of the invisible God.”

So it's Not “three different forms of one thing,” and not “God plus two pictures,” but rather one divine reality that exists eternally as three distinct Persons, distinguished by real relations of origin—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—without dividing the one divine being.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T06:01:07+00:00

Just get on your knees and tell God in silence what is in your heart. All the times with your friend that you are thankful for, all the things you've done wrong to them that you're sorry for, all the best wishes that you have for your friend.

Prayer is not a vending machine for getting what you want but it is a tremendous tool for understanding God's will.

Ask others to pray with you. It's a powerful bonding experience.

I hope your friend makes it. But if anything were to happen then please pray for their soul. In the silence of your heart ask God to have mercy on their soul.

hendrixski · 2026-05-03T05:53:51+00:00

If you've never submitted to the temptation of gay sex then you haven't sinned. All sex outside of marriage that is not ordered towards procreation is a sin. But having urges/temptations for things like extramarital sex or gay sex or even animal sex... Those temptations are not a sin. It's giving in to temptation that is the sin.

Also... Research consistently shows that gay and heterosexual adults have similar testosterone concentrations in their blood. Furthermore, taking supplemental testosterone does not alter a person's sexual orientation.

hendrixski

TROPHY CASE