Outsider Visits Church in the United States' Oldest City
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 06. 2023
- Thanks to everyone at Ancient City Baptist Church in St. Augustine, Florida, and thanks to the patrons of this channel who make this Church Unity Project happen by supporting at patreon.com/tmbh
I hope you cover the other churches in st. Augustine...
The Presbyterian church is beautiful and the mission is also amazing.
I’ve been to this church. It’s an awesome church. As a Baptist it’s awesome to see this.
I'm enjoying the church tours, Matt! I would love for modern Christians to be inspired to include symbolism and art in their buildings again. There's so much meaning bound up in these old church buildings.
I have often heard this lamentation from many other Protestants. But what kind of symbolism? Images? I just think that Protestants are too afraid (wrongly) of breaking the second commandment. And I say wrongly because you misunderstand it. But I too join you in your desire that you would beautify your churches, instead of having them look like plain and cheap shoes boxes. Besides, when you Love the Lord, and you want to honor the place where He will be present (" where two or more are gathered...") it makes sense that you would beautify it for Him- not for yourselves, but because He is worth it. It is worth it to spend money, time, artistic effort to beautify a place for God.
I agree with you so much. This is one thing Protestants should learn from our brothers and sisters in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
― Saint Augustine of Hippo
Oh Saint Agustine, amazing Catholic Saint. The city is well named.
Love St Augustine. Such a charming and historic city. This Church belongs in such a locale.
Live just south of St Augustine, passed this church many times! So cool to finally get a look in it. So much church history is present in St Augustine.
Amazing !!! Balanced , what This man is doing I Pray to do as a person who has Pentecostal roots
Thanks for this new video, Matt. Nice to have you back
Beautiful church and enjoyable conversation.
Super cool interview! Love these Matt. really enjoyed this as a baptist who leans more traditional but also sees the value of modern things. Pastor Pitts has some great points
7:36 he is so correct! Reminds me of some of my profs at Southern Seminary! He's totally correct on all these baptist distinctions
The Catholic parish was established there in the 1500s before there even was a such thing as the Baptist Church!
Well said...
Great video as usual Matt. I particularly like this one because I grew up Baptist and this pastor is a great example of the good of that tradition and what I still appreciate about it. Thanks for what you do. Also, really enjoying the Esther podcast.
It's so wild, my husband and I were just in St. Augustine last week. I wish we had checked out that Baptist church!
Matt, love what you said at the end there. I love these videos!
Great interview! Keep the series going my man
What a nice man. Beautiful church, so enjoyed the tour and interview.
We’re splitting hairs, but Pensacola technically is actually older than St. Augustine. The difference is St. Augustine was continuously occupied while Pensacola was established first, deserted, and then resettled.
The first mass/church service in the United States was on August 15, 1559 in Pensacola (not including Puerto Rico).
Keep pursuing church unity!!
Great episode!
Thanks James!
Lived in and around St Augustine for years and come back a few times a year to visit. This church has had an interesting history architecturally. The east side of the church wall was completely rebuilt after it nearly collapsed back in the early 2000’s. Love all the historic church buildings in town!
Very good as always Matt. Still hoping for a video from you on Modern Day Eucharistic Miracles.
Cool. Thank you
Used to play with Freds kids when I was young. Small world.
Awesome, I was just in St. Augustine earlier this week with my fam!
Great interview, Matt. The pastor, Fred, is a great guy.
e you were there did you visit the Catholic shrine that has the first church in America from the 1500
As a European seeing a 19th century church as old is kind of funny !
I thought the same thing... calling it "ancient" is even funnier.
I would love if you visited and explored some more of the relatively unknown ancient churches like the Armenian Church (St. Sarkis in Dallas looks amazing if u can arrange a visit) , Chaldean/Assyrian churches ( large community out by Detroit), the St. Thomas Christians of India (they have a big cathedral by Chicago), or the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (they have some big congregations out by Washington DC)...another interesting series would be on African American churches....thanks again for doing this series I love learning more about all strands of this family we call our faith
I know this comment was 10 months ago so maybe you've seen it since but he did a video, a few actually, regarding the African-American tradition 4 years ago. It's a 3 video series with a Missionary Baptist pastor in Alabama.
If all protestant churches remained like this one and didn't move towards entertaining the masses rather than praising Christ, I wouldn't be contemplating conversion to the Catholic or Orthodox church.
sounds like youre being drawn into deeper communion. God bless you brother
did he state this was an ancient Baptist's church? or ancient Baptist church.... that's pretty catchy since the SBC I attend now.. is full of people in their 70's and 80's..
Ancient City is the nick name for Saint Augustine.
@MattWhitman Actually, the US Territories are also the U.S. Therefore, the oldest church is in the oldest city San Juan, Puerto Rico. The oldest cathedral in the New World, dating back to 1521 - Cathedral de San Juan Bautista in Old San Juan.
I would love to see you visit a messianic jewish/christain church.
The austerity of the interior of this church has a really interesting resonance with parts of the Catholic monastic tradition, i.e. cistercian churches.
Oh wow...can't believe you were so close to where I live! Would've loved to have met and treated you to lunch. St. Augustine is drastically different scenery than out west for sure 🙂 Hope you got to go to the Alligator Farm
Hometown represent!
❤
Just one correction Matt. The first state to grant religious freedom was the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth. Not USA.
Actually it was the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great.
Loved this video, and all your videos. I’d love to see you pick the brains of a church of Christ preacher/church somewhere…
Unfortunately, I don't think too many of them would be on board with the whole "church unity" thing!
Did they talk about why there's a mirror in the back in line with the aisle?
24:00 ish... they are speaking about how young people are yearning for a more traditional outlook/service. I am happy to see this happening in Protestant churches, too. This is happening in the Catholic Church as well. For those who do not know, in Catholicism many people go to Mass on Sunday to a service that resembles much of what Protestants do in their services, this happened after the 2nd Vatican Council. But in recent years, the Traditional Latin Mass (in Latin, with Jesus in the front and center, priest with his back to the congregation, and women being veiled) has blown up and is fast growing. It is full of very young families each with the 2, 3,4,5,6,7, or 8 kids filling up a pew. So yes, you are right to say there is a hunger for the traditional, the thing that is enduring, the thing that is ancient but at the same time ever new.
In your travels, how many flags, American or the "Christian" do you see in sanctuaries? Do you have thoughts on this?
Interesting question, as a non-american I find it pretty uncomfortable sometimes seeing them. In my country, Australia, I have only seen one church use the flag in this way. In the US it seems far more common.
Can you please make a video about the Coptic orthodox Christian church???
it sounds like this church is following the same pattern of other churches... including the church I attend. .now... as many churches are trying to mix traditional hymns with more contemporary ones... in order to keep younger families attending... and trying to maintain.. the elegance of the "olden times".. interior... with more modern.. furniture as well..
Our church has gone as far as to even just about remove hymnal use .....as all the hymns are on an overhead screen now
I appreciate the stained glass windows to a point... but they look slightly out of place among white washed walls they match the pews pretty well though...
Thanks for watching and for the comment. That stained glass is original and elite, and had to remain visible in whatever updates they chose.
@@MattWhitmanTMBH yes I understand that... I guess that what I was getting at... is since they were keeping the stained glass....feature... why did they choose.. not to go with that motif.. more matching of the brick and stained glass appearance from the outside .on the inside...?... I think the white painted walls just seem kind of out of place... maybe a brick and wood paneled interior?.. or like wooden stained beams going across the ceiling.. I don't mean to sound overly critical... each to their own.... it just looks like a Church on the outside... but.. like my house on the inside.. with the exception of the stained glass of course..
Can you visit syriac orthodox church ❤❤
Its a beautiful church but I think it's interesting that the same people who reject creeds (which includes the Nicene Creed), would put up a catch phrase for people to repeat.
Reject and don't require are not the same thing. Baptists affirm the theology of the Creeds, but don't use the structure. Worth noting I think.
@@MattWhitmanTMBH Hi Matt, I love your videos. I was going off a statement I saw from a Baptist Church years ago but I realise there are many flavours of Baptist as well.
@@MattWhitmanTMBH The reason Christians repeat the Creed is because it spells out exactly what we believe. The Creed came about because of the Christological controversies in the early church, especially the Arian Heresy which denied the divinity of Christ. As Christians we have always had to draw a line around what it means to be a Christian versus perhaps well meaning beliefs but not within the realm.of Christianity. We aren't required to repeat it but it has been part of the liturgy since the beginning and is important to keep us focused on what it means to not only become a Christian but what it means to be a Christian.
@@MattWhitmanTMBH Baptists affirm the Nicene Creed, but reject the vast majority of the canons of the Council that birthed the Creed, and believe everyone of the fathers of said council was a heretic. In other words, they don't really affirm it at all in any meaningful way.
@@CosmicMystery7 From my experience with Baptists there seems to be no cohesive set of beliefs from one Baptist Church to another because of the belief of the autonomy of the individual churches. It probably explains why there are so many flavours of Baptists.
You sound like the guy that's on the podcast with the smarter every day guy.
I get that from time to time. Daily even.
I belive God had taken your faith that you may find it again by looking.
Careful now, calling St. Augustine the oldest city is fighting words down in Florida. Pensacola is actually older.
Fellow Pensacola resident here!! We have rights to the first settlement which was short lived thanks to a hurricane, St. Augustine I believe is the first city that survived! But I have to say the local Indian tribes have us beat!!!
Pensacola is a lovely town, but I'm pretty sure the original settlement there did not survive and the one at St. Augustine did, which makes St. Augustine the oldest city in the U.S. by merit of it having the longest continual run of being a city.
@@MattWhitmanTMBH thank you for being knowledgeable about that. That's why I said "'dem fighting words down there" because not many people know.
@@thorgot911 refreshing take! Christ's peace.
@@thorgot911It's all in definitions. If you include territories, San Juan, PR is 4 and a half decades earlier than St. Augustine, having been founded in 1521. Makes me wonder how the "oldest city" moniker will play out if/when PR becomes a state.
If a Christian keeps Saturday as the Sabbath, which Church is the best to go to for worship? Can he be Catholic and observe Saturday as a day of rest?
Going to church can be a lot of work.
dang Matt went hard after the bedazzled evangelicals
What?
A Protestant should visit a messianic synagogue.
Baptists would think that the 1500s are ancient 😂
Seriously though, cool church!
The pastor’s voice sounds a bit like Peyton Manning’s. Wonder if he closes his prayers with “Omaha” instead of “Amen”?
Matt, youre doing more of an exposition of your opinion versus that of an interview. Other than that--please continue these
His comments were a reflection of past episodes in EO and RC churches. His channel travels a journey that few have taken.
I liked the video after his comments on freedom of religion. Some really want to smash others' conscience.
This guy doesn’t really know a lot about his building either like many accuse the Catholic priest in the past of doing 🤔
Taos Pueblo in NM was founded around 900 AD.THAT is the oldest continually inhabited city in America.
St. Augustine is specifically the oldest European settlement.
I'm waiting for your visit to Saint Antony Orthodox Monastery in Arizona. I can't go there for economic reasons but I hear so much about it ..
What does southern Baptist mean ? How is it different from northern, eastern or western Baptist?
It refers to the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
That being said it goes back to when the Southern and Northern Baptists split in the 1840’s over missionaries owning slaves. Southern Baptists historically were centered in the Southern U.S. however today they are all over the U.S. and even into Canada.
The basic tenants of Southern Baptists are: (1) Priesthood of the Believer, (2) Independent, democratically run congregations and (3) Missions.
The difference is southern baptists say "bless your heart", "ain't you just the cutest little thing" and "uh huh, I know that's right". That's pretty much the only difference.
Southern in front of any denomination in the USA means they split over being pro-slavery around the Civil War.
Nothing like the ancient faith in a….
Baptist church? 😂
What are you trying to imply?
@@Wilkins325 lol that it's anything but ancient.
@@lancefewell3931 Dont Baptists believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? Pretty sure thats ancient.
@@Wilkins325 yeah, they also believe in a lot of heresies the actual Ancient Church has condemned in the past two millennia of its existence. But what do you expect from a Protestant denomination? Especially one that has only existed for 150 years or so, and is changing by the year.
@@lancefewell3931 Just correcting you on your offensive rhetoric.
Ancient…
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I'm 35 so many would think that I would want a band and a cup of coffee and waving my hand in the air woodstock vibe to my church service. I can not stand the starbucks christian crowds and their church services, I'm one of the ones he's talking about that want's traditional. To me they make that about them and not the real purpose. We've slowed going to our own church because there's so much oh our prayers were answered and all the spots are filled to do this trip or that (not mission). Or every get together is some potluck. It's not Bible or service centered, I'm staying at home and reading my bible and getting more out of it. Rant over
Yes you can be a Christian and not attend church services. I personally need and enjoy the fellowship of our congregation.
@@blic-sx9ix I always enjoyed going for the sermon but some of my views have changed more recently on what is being preached. By that I don't mean political or things such as that but I've felt the old testament got thrown out like a baby with the bath water and as a man my brain is programmed to need some of the do this or else type things from the old testament. I'm not very eloquent or informed so I won't speak to it more than that because someone could talk me into a hole.
There are many different church groups to cater to many different beliefs and preferences
I agree. There's one former church I used to go to that now has a Starbucks inside the church. I just find that disgusting.
It took me a long time to find a church I liked where people were welcoming and also wanted to help each other grow in the faith. But yes, you can be a Christian and not attend church. I didn't attemd church for a long time because of bad experiences. So I get it.
Hey Whitman, have you ever considered visiting a conservative Church of Christ, and then comparing them to liberal Churches of Christ?
15:40 Have a king that is both Catholic and Protestant.
#anglican
Show me a scripture where having a light shows and concerts are correct in the Bible? It says make music and melody in your heart.!
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.