Day 7: Religious experience (by Jordan)

Today we visited the First Assembly of God Church to see how the religious experience in Jamaican Church is and later through seminar discuss how different it is from other religious experiences.  When we walked in it was very loud and lively with many songs ranging in duration. My favorite of the songs is "My God is Awesome". The entire experience at the church was incredibly interesting and uniquely entertaining and extremely different from mass at a Greek Orthodox Church. It's different in noise levels, and when psalms are being read, in Jamaican church the majority of the service is songs sung at high volumes, while at Greek Orthodox it is a song sung at a lower volume then psalms and other readings, then another song. The feeling and overall atmosphere of the church was friendly and welcoming to us as outsiders visiting the church. Christianity is one of the most prominent religions in Jamaica. Religion has been present in Jamaica for a long time. Christianity came to Jamaica in 1504 when it was first introduced by the Spanish settlers that arrived to Jamaica. Since then it has been apart of the culture and society and still is a major part in the community of Falmouth and Jamaica. Comparing the atmosphere of Jamaican church to the Greek Orthodox church I attend in the states, it is much more emotional and passionate in the Jamaican church than the more serious and traditional Greek Orthodox Church.