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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: F*$#! in the middle of the service.
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ej
Shipmate
# 2259
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Posted
Recently, a friend of mine very aptly described the frustration of church and worship sometimes as "wanting to stand up in the middle of the service and just yell 'F*$#!' at the top of your lungs".
So I'm curious - What experiences, moments or general frustrations have lead you to want to do this? Feel free to describe in hideous detail and join in the collective chorus of 'F*$#!'
Ah, I'm feeling better already...
(expletives cunningly disguised to avoid offending the visually sensitive)
[ 19. June 2003, 00:02: Message edited by: Sarkycow ]
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For my next trick I shall turn this water into funk...
...a little breathing-space...
Posts: 426 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Jan 2002
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Duo Seraphim*
Sea lawyer
# 3251
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Posted
We recently sang at a wedding. The groom was, I think, Senegalese, the bride English. We were fine, they were fine, the priest wanted shooting. After an excruciating and incomphrehensible 20 minute homily in English, I virtually had to be physically restrained from shouting "Shut the F3@% up!" when he took it again from the top in shamefully bad French.
For crimes against multiculturism....
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2^8, eight bits to a byte
Posts: 3967 | From: Sydney Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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multipara
Shipmate
# 2918
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Posted
Well, he WAS Polish.....
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quod scripsi, scripsi
Posts: 4985 | From: new south wales | Registered: Jun 2002
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ej
Shipmate
# 2259
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Posted
I have so many, but I'll be patient and post slowly...
I was visiting my (now) wife's church (big Pentecostal type thing in a very upper new-money middle-class part of Melbourne), when the minister (whose family basically owns the church and acts accordingly) started preaching about family and children, and basically said "if you're married and don't have kids yet, you're very selfish people who aren't carrying out God's will"...
F&$^! ... for so many reasons... ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
I would've smacked him if he hadn't been standing on their almighty 8ft high stage... Prat.
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For my next trick I shall turn this water into funk...
...a little breathing-space...
Posts: 426 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Jan 2002
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multipara
Shipmate
# 2918
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Posted
Next time, take your shanghai....
I had a similar reaction a few years ago during the sermon at St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Wollongong when the priest made the observation that one of the reasons for the clerical shortfall was that we wimmin weren't breeding enough...
I managed to flounce out just in time before uttering something REALLY rude.
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quod scripsi, scripsi
Posts: 4985 | From: new south wales | Registered: Jun 2002
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Mother's Day, 1984, First Baptist Church, San Luis Obispo. The entire sermon was about the evil of women working outside the home. This in a congregation in which many of the women would have been very happy to stay home and raise children, if only they could have afforded it. And the church naturally employed a female secretary.
The only reason I didn't stand up and tell off the pastor was because it was my parents' church and most of the members knew I was their daughter, so it seemed like it would have made things uncomfortable for them. But my mother told me later she wouldn't have minded a bit if I had.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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marmot
Mountain mammal
# 479
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Posted
Maybe that's the time to set your little foot right down on the whoopee cushion you've cleverly hidden under the pew in front of you. The noise gets your point across, but nobody can blame it on you.
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Join me in "The Legion of Bad Monkeys"
Posts: 2754 | From: The land of Saint Damien | Registered: Jun 2001
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
A sermon where the preacher informed me that there would be no second coming had me quietly saying to myself 'Shut up! Shut up! Would you please shut up! It's orright for you rich bastard with your fucking deanery and your car and your nice Oxford education and your high class lifestyle mixing it with the important people. But the rest of us. Well. You know. We're rather looking forward to something better.'
I felt 'harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shepherd'. So I hope he 'knows the greatness of the fault and the horrible punishment that will ensue'.
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Idjit bishop making a flip remark about child abuse.
Many idjit clergy making remarks on Mothers'/Fathers' Day assuming that all families are all sweetness and light.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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auntbeast
Shipmate
# 377
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Posted
I think I may have posted one of these on another thread but my two favourite F**K this noise stories are:
1) The Sunday of the breeder prayer - sparkling young man with large teeth, a very blonde big haired wife, two small well dressed though bratty little shits, and a pathetic sensible mini van, student at local evangelical theological college, offers the prayers of the people one Sunday. He proceeds to have all the single people stand up and prays that we all find good Godly husbands and wives. Then he makes all the married people stand up and prays that they all raise up their children in the ways of the Lord.... My whole home group was placing bets on whether I was just going to chuck a book at him or actually go airborne. Unfortunately the service ended shortly thereafter and the line up at coffee hour to have a piece of his throat was too long and I had to leave. From what they told me afterwards he didn't get how offensive he was, even after he was talked to politely by a single female M.Div and a married physician with at least as much theology as him. I suspect he eventually slithered off to some Christian ghetto where everyone breeds. We didn't see him much after that.
2) Guest fascist Sunday - An Elderly far right wing anti-women etc etc prof at local theological college who shall remain nameless came to guest lecture oops I mean preach at my former church. He was trying to rally the troops for some great big prayer thing at a local stadium to pray for the city and somehow managed to get his sermon round to the homosexuality issue. He started off by saying "let us be very clear what the gay agenda is in this city". I was just about to launch from my pew and ask him just how many gay people he actually knew, and just how he believed that he knew the "gay agenda" and just why he thought there was such a thing in the first place. Just as I was about to yell I looked at my watch and realised that I had a Fringe show to go to so I just got up and left as loudly as possible. As I was leaving this b**tard started to expound that the gay agenda was in fact to destroy the family. Needless to say I haven't inflicted him on myself again and have simply "voted with my feet" by not attending anything he is at.
I much prefer things at my current church. After the sermon there is a time for talk back, questions etc so if I just have to leap up and say "What the F**k are you talking about?" not only can I do it but other's will get in on the ensuing free-for-all until we are called back to order and communion by the celebrant.
All good things,
Auntbeast
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"My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal" - Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)
Posts: 820 | From: Vancouver, Canada | Registered: Jun 2001
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tomb
Shipmate
# 174
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Posted
"The Sunday of the Breeder Prayer"
"Guest Fascist Sunday"
It is clear, auntbeast, that you and I shall have to have some conversations about liturgical planning.
Posts: 5039 | From: Denver, Colorado | Registered: May 2001
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Laudate Dominum
Shipmate
# 3104
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Posted
Let's see....
The liturgical dancers (who resembled neither anything liturgical nor dancers) dressed in cheap green costumes with leaves in their hair leaping about as the bishop went up to read the Gospel. F*@#!
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"They think us barbarians because we cling to the past. We think them barbarians because they do not cling to the past." --G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 518 | From: Lala Land | Registered: Jul 2002
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Paul W.
Shipmate
# 1450
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Posted
The rather masterful bit of preaching yesterday, where the guy managed to slag off church tradition, Harry Potter AND Rowan Williams in one sermon. This from the same guy who the other week told us that homosexuals were a judgement on the country for turning away from God.
I'm going to get a big heavy hardback copy of the KJV, just so I can bang my head against it repeatedly during sermons.
Paul W
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"It's just a ride" - Bill Hicks
Blog
Flickr
Posts: 2835 | From: Leeds, UK | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Paul W:
The rather masterful bit of preaching yesterday, where the guy managed to slag off church tradition, Harry Potter AND Rowan Williams in one sermon. This from the same guy who the other week told us that homosexuals were a judgement on the country for turning away from God.
Oh, my, all that in one sermon? Does he get extra points for each topic???
And homosexuals *as* a judgement, rather than *triggering* some kind of judgement? That's a new one. Even Jerry Falwell didn't say that. (He so kindly blamed gays and others as causing God to remove his protection of the US, and therefore allow 9/11.)
You know, we'd be happy to send JF over to straighten your preacher out. Postage paid! ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by auntbeast:
2) Guest fascist Sunday - An Elderly far right wing anti-women etc etc prof at local theological college who shall remain nameless came to guest lecture oops I mean preach at my former church... somehow managed to get his sermon round to the homosexuality issue.
We had one of those. He was a Christian doctor, and was supposed to be talking about sexuality in general. He did the same thing and then said - no lie - "and transexuals - well, they're just weird."
I nearly went ape. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A DOCTOR, YOU ARSEBISCUIT!
*cough* sorry. Got carried away there.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Pyx_e
Quixotic Tilter
# 57
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Posted
I was not going to mention this but then this thread came up, a sign I’m sure. I am in the middle of a few days off so I decided to go to another church nearby for a change. I was kind of looking forward to it. I’d heard it was a thriving Evangelical C of E church with a good tradition of warmth and Music. I thought I would not MW it as I wanted to simply enjoy a service I was not leading. I went in and found a nice pew and settled down in lovely clean warm surroundings. Loads of middle aged, middle classed people, chat etc felt like the C of E. Sigh……… things that so nearly made me say F**K out loud would include (and this is not a definitive list) :
The reader having no liturgical sense whatsoever. “Alllllllllllllllllllllllmighty God ………… “ ‘til we all joined in.
The very pleasant choir and organist behaving in a fascistic manner and hogging all the best bits whilst the congregation stood like sheep some trying to sing along some looking lost.
The sermon which basically said that it was Mary’s fault for leaving the boy Jesus in Jerusalem not his fault for running off like a little brat. And we are like her for taking our eyes of God. No mention of the fact that God is a sneaky so and so and seems to take delight in hiding.
All of which I could live with because I have seen it all (and probably done most of it) before BUT and don’t get me wrong this is no anti – anything rant, just a simple F**K moment. What really got my goat was the priests attitude to the elements. He honest to God did not look at them, touch them in any way or pay them any reverence at all. Let me explain this was the parish communion for over 100 people. They came here for this. It was the standard C of E Common Worship rite, very similar to what we use every Sunday, what I would call “low” church but I knew that. However this fella kept both his hands firmly on the service book and simply read the words. He ignored the elements absolutely. No respect, no reverence, no, sense of prayer, no sense of remembrance. I distinctly remember muttering “Fuck me” under my breath does that count?
P
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It is better to be Kind than right.
Posts: 9778 | From: The Dark Tower | Registered: May 2001
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
I once went, many many years ago, to an extremely charismatic service. And - I kid you not - people were invited to run up to the front and touch the preacher as a 'declaration of faith' that they would get their 'special blessing'.
I have not gone back.
There are loads more, but to be honest I am trying to block them from my memory at the moment.
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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Nanny Ogg
Ship's cushion
# 1176
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Posted
Went to a Women's Day last year - and all seemed to be fine until it came to the "words of knowledge"
A hall full of women and from the front comes "I feel there is someone here who is trying for a baby" - Ok there may have been one person there but the the classic "There's someone here with a headache"
I mean - to a room full of women????
Talk about hedging your bets on the side of success - I'm surprised the whole hall didn't get and move to the front after that one.
Did make me doubt whether the teaching and prophecy during the first part of the day had been genuine.
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Buy me a beer and I'm you friend forever
Posts: 4137 | From: Away with the fairies | Registered: Aug 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
The next time I am preaching one of my specially prepared....... long...... <sigh>...... boring..... <ho-hum>.......very....... very..... very..... long................ drawn ......... <stifled yawn>..... out..... sermons, and the congregation, as a man (or a woman?) stand up together and shout 'Shut the F*%$ up!' I shall know why ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Sadly, the moments when I would most like to yell a full-bodied 'oh, F*&$ off!' during divine service happen when I am front of church, so the only response likely to be forthcoming would be the usual half-hearted 'And also with you'...... ![[Frown]](frown.gif) Dare me to try it some day, go on, dare me, dare me!
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Kitten
Shipmate
# 1179
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Posted
Okay, I dare you
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Maius intra qua extra
Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they are in a big blue box
Posts: 2330 | From: Carmarthenshire | Registered: Aug 2001
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Clyde
Shipmate
# 752
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Posted
So do I.
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I've not been on the ship for a long time. I'm very old now and don't like it when the sea gets rough.
Posts: 1279 | From: England. | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Anselmina! ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
C'mon. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) You all know I'm a cowardly custard! I need the pension! If I get excommunicated this early on I wouldn't have enough for a one-man tent on retirement! I'm just day-dreaming again....
It's quite true, we stipendiary ministers are just time-serving jobsworths holding out til the big pay-off <ironic grunt>! Besides I save all my profanities for finance meetings and discussions with (and about) the organist... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I think the technical term is "hireling priests in steeple-houses"
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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The Machine Elf
Irregular polytope
# 1622
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The one & only Nanny Ogg:
from the front comes "I feel there is someone here who is trying for a baby"
Actually during the service?
TME
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Elves of any kind are strange folk.
Posts: 1298 | From: the edge of the deep green sea | Registered: Oct 2001
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
Some twit of a "revered academic" preaches in a church I went to. He csme from the local "Yuppie palace" church, daughtered out of ours many moons ago. He calls the older church he is in "unfriendly", in his sermon; meanwhile, his home church only cares for you if you fit into their clique or if you make the photos for the denominational magazine look good.
He moved to BC and got even more right wing.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
Some friends of mine decided to try out a new church as they had just moved to Kentucky. The lady of the family had decided to wear a lovely sleeveless dress that was in most ways conservative, except for the sleeveless part.
The pastor decided to not-so-subtly change the sermon in mid-stream to address the immodesty of women showing shoulders in church.
I would previously have said that they did not go back, but the good news is that the congregation there evidently had that pastor removed around two months later and my friends were welcomed back.
My current church of the same denomination would welcome a ragged beggar (and has). Thank GOD.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
Originally posted by ChrisT
quote:
I once went, many many years ago, to an extremely charismatic service. And - I kid you not - people were invited to run up to the front and touch the preacher as a 'declaration of faith' that they would get their 'special blessing'.
if you fancied the preacher would you be allowed at this point for special blessing with a difference?
Moving on. I remember at a charismatic service being told by the worship leader that God had told him that we should raise our hands while singing the next song in order to receive Christ. God never told me that, and I wondered whether the worship leader saw me in my arms by side pose - and thought "wicked child, you are disobeying God."
Then there was the ditzy worship chorus (this is at a different joint) where we were told that we weren't allowed to stand up and join in until we knew we were 100 percent committed to God. I never stood so i never got to join in with the ditzy little tune. Fortunately, God didn't tell anyone to minister to me, but God did tell me to leave PDQ.
Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001
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ChrisT
One of the Good Guys™
# 62
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Posted
Beenster, have we been going to the same church?
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Firmly on dry land
Posts: 6489 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: May 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
At the communion rail, our handicapped, blind, member got impatient because the wine seemed to her to be taking a long time to arrive after the wafer:
"Where's the f@$*#ing wine?" she bellowed.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Obnoxious Snob
Arch-Deacon
# 982
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ej:
Recently, a friend of mine very aptly described the frustration of church and worship sometimes as "wanting to stand up in the middle of the service and just yell 'F*$#!' at the top of your lungs".
(expletives cunningly disguised to avoid offending the visually sensitive)
Recently, I have found myself in the middle of one of my own sermons wanting to shout F%&*$£"
Do I really believe this, really, truly, madly deeply? Is this really me here preaching to these mostly uninterested souls or some deeply dishonest theological, ecclesiological mask?
Is this a crisis of faith or just normal, run of the mill existential trauma?
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'The best thing we can do is to make wherever we're lost in Look as much like home as we can'
Christopher Fry
Posts: 889 | From: Kernow | Registered: Jul 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
I was in a rapidly evangelicalizing Episcopal church near Camp Pendelton in Oceanside, CA, in 1985 listening to an ardent, mid-30's colonel from West Virginia waxing more and more emotive in the climbing strains of "The King is Coming," strumming ever more wildly, empathically, and Marine Corpically, during the formerly "quiet time" preparatory to worship. The meanest, snarliest, crotchedly old lady in the church, who always wore the same ugly little black hat and never said a word except to express dismay over the informalizing of the worship, scowled more and more deeply until she finally yelled "COULD WE HAVE A LITTLE PEACE AND QUIET PLEASE?" The colonel immediately stopped, bowed his head in prayer, and walked off to put his guitar away.
It was hilarious and poignant in the same moment.
The colonel got his revenge during a subsequent Wednesday praise service where he made it not only to the final "Praise God, he's coming for me!" but added an impromptu "Come Jesus, come!" above the final phrase, somewhere in the range of A, G, B-flat, A (Pavarotti-land). He wasn't too bad for a self-taught West Virginia hayseed. If you don't know the song you can hear it here. Listen all the way through and you get a sense of white Southern (US) Gospel.
I managed to cry listening to it just now. Col. Johnny Knight died about six months after this incident leaving a wife and two teenage boys. Liver cancer. No real way of knowing why, but he did walk a lot of point on recon in 'Nam. Maybe I'll get up the strength to post on the Iraq war thread some day. Maybe not.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Celaino
Apprentice
# 3913
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Posted
My two top moments must be...
1) At a church I used to attend, the sermon focused on the evils of homosexuality, which was the last straw really, since I had also recently discovered that this church did not allow female preachers, but, ahem, had managed to keep this hidden from the majority of the congregation. We just thought it coincidence that we had no female clergy. Facing a fellow member of the congregation afterwards I confonted her on these two issues, to be met with the reply, 'well, I suppose it must be Biblical as the church says so' Aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Needless to say I have never set foot in the place again... ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) (Mindless zombies... mutter... mutter...)
2) It gets worse (no, really) - a visiting preacher to a mixed group of students in a rather broad ecumenical chapel. Her sermon focused on the scandal of child organ retention at various UK hospitals, a tricky subject, you'd agree. She tackled it with the sensitivity of a rampaging elephant, suggesting that the parents of the children were making a bit of a fuss over nothing and that objecting to cremation was nonsense. She also wandered haphazardly through some Bible quotations finding 'good' reason to condemn both Jews and Catholics as she went. This to a group of people she'd never met, which included people of virtually every protestant denomination, not to mention the Catholics and the Jew in the choir!! I can't tell you how it ended as I had to leave before I started frothing at the mouth. I got up, marched out, and to make my point I slammed the anteChapel door which made a satisfying 'boom' which echoed round the chapel cloisters. I do know that the collection didn't get taken that evening...
Thank you for letting me rant, I'm normally a very placid creature
Oh and, AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Posts: 23 | From: Oxford | Registered: Jan 2003
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St. Punk the Pious
Biblical™ Punk
# 683
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Posted
Some of these . . . uh . . . moments make mine look like nothing. (Although a couple posts made me want to yell an expletive at the poster. Forgive me. )
But here's my moment anyway. The guest preacher at my old evangelical Presbyterian church said from the pulpit something along the lines of: "We don't believe the Bible. We believe the Jesus behind the Bible."
Speak for yourself. I believe the Bible -- as does Jesus.
I confronted her after the service.
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The Society of St. Pius *
Wannabe Anglican, Reader
My reely gud book.
Posts: 4161 | From: Choral Evensong | Registered: Jul 2001
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ej
Shipmate
# 2259
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Posted
Originally posted by Arch-
quote:
Recently, I have found myself in the middle of one of my own sermons wanting to shout F%&*$£"
Do I really believe this, really, truly, madly deeply? Is this really me here preaching to these mostly uninterested souls or some deeply dishonest theological, ecclesiological mask?
Is this a crisis of faith or just normal, run of the mill existential trauma?
ooh, I'll join the angelic choir of expletives on that one... Nicely said Arch-. It's amazing what self-analysis can go on behind that pulpit... I've shared those thoughts (although rarely as well understood and verbalized!), as well as the "I'm preaching to these blank looking cyborgs, and I'm good at it - everyone says I'm good at it - and it makes me feel good to be up here - But then am I only up here because it makes me feel good and important? - Should I still be up here then?? - If i start enjoying the attention I'm getting will this become pointless -What kind of pratt am I??? F&#^!!!"
Other F#&$ moments...
- The lay preacher who turned a sermon on an old testament prophet into a lecture on crackpot prophecy regarding Israeli, hairbrained interpretations of revelation, bizarre apocalyptic flow-charts and I'm sure he slipped a bit of bible code in there. Oh, not to mention he used the old favourite "If you're not feeling good enough a Christian, maybe you need to do more work for the church"
- Watching the church's youth deacon sit there through one of my youth group girls first sermons (at the age of 19 - poor thing was terrified but so excited) and just shake his head all the way through it, right in front of her...
- Seeing everyone from the church who'd been on some big charismatic glossy answer-all worship conference in Sydney (most Australians will know to which I am referring...) report back, and then end up having this big, exclusive, feel-good group hug on stage before basically informing the church of its vision for the next year, based on their experience...
Actually, I'm realiseding F&$^ no longer fully verbalises so much of how this makes me feel - Hence why I find myself just sitting there, speechless and stunned...
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For my next trick I shall turn this water into funk...
...a little breathing-space...
Posts: 426 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Jan 2002
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Celaino:
I can't tell you how it ended as I had to leave before I started frothing at the mouth. I got up, marched out, and to make my point I slammed the anteChapel door which made a satisfying 'boom' which echoed round the chapel cloisters. I do know that the collection didn't get taken that evening...
Thank you for letting me rant, I'm normally a very placid creature
Oh and, AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Sounds like my son when a kid; the minister was talking during the last Iraqi war of how wonderful it was that Bibles were being taken into Saudi by American troops and so God obviously was favouring the war. Son stood up noisily, knocking chairs out of the way, slammed through two sets of doors at the exit, which banged repeatedly as the minister gaped open-mouthed, and some of the congregation giggled while others tut-tutted.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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the famous rachel
Shipmate
# 1258
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Posted
(a) I was once in a service (at a church I no longer attend) where the preacher decided to illustrate his point about society worshipping sex instead of God, with the immmortal phrase "they put the penis on a pedestal", since he was in full rant mode at the time, this then contiued with "On a pedestal, they put it on a pedestal, the penis! the penis! On a pedestal!" or words to this effect. Need I say more? It was a cheering surprise to learn that at this (very, very) evangelical church, the gurus of the tape archive had actually filed this talk under "the penis on a pedestal sermon", although I don't think anyone has borrowed the tape.
(b) The same preacher once instrructed every single male in the congregation over the age of 21 to get down on his knees by his bed that night and pray for God to send him a wife.
(c) However, personally, my most regular "Oh $*&%!" moment, comes when the leader of our informal services announces "And now, as a form of prayer or meditation, we will use that wonderful song..... Jesus, take me as I am. Anyone who doesn't know this song..... well, maybe I will allow you to continue in blissful ignorance....!
All the best,
Rachel.
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A shrivelled appendix to the body of Christ.
Posts: 912 | From: In the lab. | Registered: Aug 2001
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Dave the Bass
Shipmate
# 155
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
Fortunately, God didn't tell anyone to minister to me, but God did tell me to leave PDQ.
I'm surprised you needed God to tell you this! Couldn't you have worked it out for yourself?
[Couldn't you have worked the code out for yourself?]
[ 21. January 2003, 23:23: Message edited by: sarkycow ]
Posts: 2162 | From: In a forest | Registered: May 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
this doesn't exactly fall into this category but its close enough that i want to share it.
as i've mentioned, i have a mentaly handicapped brother. he's autistic. autistics get frustrated very easily. my btother particularly.
once when we were all kids, my family church had a special weekend event... i forget the details, but there were all sorts of small groups and things, all culmenating in a big church dinner sunday night.
well we all went to the dinner. scott really wanted his food. but the minister did a talk first. scott started getting upset. then the minister had us for a big circle holding hands. then he asked us all, "what did we think of the weekend" or somesuch question. long silence. then scott, frustrated beyond control at this point, suddenly and loudly came out with "oh sh*t!"
guess that told 'em!
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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KenWritez
Shipmate
# 3238
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Posted
Most of my horror stories stem from my career as a DJ at a Christian-oriented AM radio station in Waco, Texas. (Until you've seen the fringe of Christendom in the American South, you've never seen Truly Weird.) We used to run taped teaching programs Sunday mornings, and one morning I heard a Seventh Day Adventist preacher say that anyone who did *not* read the KJV version of th Bible was going to Hell.
Another great quote was from John Brown, a pastor who founded John Brown University in Arkansas. He used the immortal phrase, "jazz drunk women" in describing the evils of "modern" music. (These tapes were from the 40s and 50s, I believe.) I have been saving that name to use as the name of a band or of something equally worthy.
Remember the Challenger Seven disaster? Some "let's record the program on my cassette recorder in my living room" type of woman in Gatesville (about an hour from Waco) titled her program, "The Challenger Seven Crusade for Christ."
A radio preacher whose name I don't recall sponsored "leper control centers" somewhere in Africa, and would ask for money every show.
One evening when I was in college in Waco, some friends and I went to a Bob Larson appearance, where the owner of a Christian-oriented radio station in Ft. Worth led the audience in the cheer, "Gimme a J! Gimme an E! Gimme an S!...." ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) (Ditto for Bob's topics as well.)
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd." --Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
My blog: http://oxygenofgrace.blogspot.com
Posts: 11102 | From: Left coast of Wonderland, by the rabbit hole | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sauerkraut
Shipmate
# 3112
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Posted
I've mentioned this on the "Crappy choruses and horrible hymns" thread, but it is worth mentioning here because it did make me want to yell "F^@#!!!"
My church has a way of slicing up the liturgy in ways that would drive any liturgical conservative (like me) insane. No Kyrie, no intriot, the hymn of praise is not what is persribed, but we always have time for a soloist to sing a stupid (and theologically unsound) song from the CCM racks or the chior trying to pretend they are black. The preface, the proper preface and the sancus are almost alwys MIA along with the Nunc Dimintus. Call this "the liturgy in an hour or less." As if that isn't enough to make me yell "F$%^&!!" at times, they like to use CCM more extensivesly replacing the wonderful hymnody us Lutherans inherited from our prediscesors. Our church has a lovely pipe organ. It plays Bach, Handel, and famous hymns with wonderful flair and grace. At times, it's been wasted on the song, "Shine, Jesus, Shine." I never knew a pipe organ couls sound something like a dying whale. I found out quickly, once this song began, that a pipe organ can make many of the sounds of nature, mainly sounds of death, but sounds nonetheless. After hearing it, I thought my fillings would fall out, my appendix would burst, and my head would explode. I know which of my pastors was responsible for this attrocity. Believe me, I would leave except that I was suckered into helping directing our bell chiors. Since no one else really wants to do it, I can make a few demands of the church. My demands might be getting tougher. I should bring this up in the next voter's assembly. Anyway, If any of you ever hear "Shine, Jesus, Shine" played on a pipe organ, get up out of your pew, plug your ears, and make the biggest distraction possible by yelling "F*&^%!!!" while running down the aisle.
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We want not an amalgam or compromise, but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning. Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.--G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 196 | From: The middle of the US | Registered: Jul 2002
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auntbeast
Shipmate
# 377
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Posted
From OgtheDim:
quote:
He moved to BC and got even more right wing.
OK, the curiosity is killing me.... did he per chance land at Regent College?
Just being nosy,
Auntbeast
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"My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal" - Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)
Posts: 820 | From: Vancouver, Canada | Registered: Jun 2001
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MrSponge2U
Ship’s scrub
# 3076
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Posted
This thread makes me wax nostalgic for the time I lived in the American South, went to a church that followed in the Copeland/Hagin faith/prosperity vein.
Some choice moments (please hold your until the end):
- The time our associate pastor proclaimed in the pulpit that Rush Limbaugh was a prophet used by God to help our nation bring back our moral virtues.
- We used to have John Avanzini visit as guest pastor sometimes, a classic prosperity preacher. One time he announced he was going to speak a hundredfold return over the offering, at his command. One other time he told us that 80% of the currency in the United States was "underground" or currently unaccouted for, and God was laying up these treasures of the wicked to give to His righteous people.
- I recently went back and visited the city I used to live, visited a new church pastored by someone I used to know. He said that faith was like money in the Kingdom of God. He also punctuated a sermon about Holy Spirit power by having the sound man play at various times during his sermon, snippets of that dance club classic "I've got the Pooooooower!" It certainly woke everyone up, at least.
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sig? what sig?
Posts: 3558 | From: where two big rivers meet | Registered: Jul 2002
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I remember a service in a church somewhere in the South of England - independent, charismatic. The preacher was a young guest from the states, over for a few weeks.
He started by announcing that he hadn't prepared anything. Not good. That didn't stop him from talking for about 20 minutes, broadly on the well known text "fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman".
I walked out as soon as I could.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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mimsey
Shipmate
# 3757
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Posted
The time a visiting preacher held up a Bible and uttered the words,
"This is everything I know about God".
Feelings mingled between F*$# and sheer pity that his God was small enough to fit right inside his Bible and not ever overflow it.
I'm pleased to say, though, that at a later point in the same talk, somebody (not me) did stand up and shout at him, and was applauded by the rest of the listeners!
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Certitude! Certitude! Sentiment! Joie! Paix!
Posts: 217 | From: Deepest darkest Suffolk | Registered: Dec 2002
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Merseymike
Shipmate
# 3022
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Posted
Mark the Punk complained about a preacher who said:
quote:
"We don't believe the Bible. We believe the Jesus behind the Bible."
Quite right too. She should be congratulated for explaining why Christianity - following Christ - is not Bibliolatry
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Christianity is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced
Posts: 3360 | From: Walked the plank | Registered: Jul 2002
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Kyzyl
Ship's dog
# 374
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Dare me to try it some day, go on, dare me, dare me!
I triple dog dare you.
[Learn to code oh longest apprentice]
[ 21. January 2003, 23:28: Message edited by: sarkycow ]
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I need a quote.
Posts: 668 | From: Wapasha's Prairie | Registered: Jun 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Mine's kind of pathetic, but when the priest (not the one at my regular church) uses, unexpectedly and without warning, "Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit" for the blessing, or in general as a replacement for the actual Trinity. I want to scream "MODALISM! MO-DA-LI-ZUMMMM!!" at the top of my lungs.
I want to avoid going there again. Been there twice for a weekday service when I missed Sunday at my own church, and this should help keep me going to my own...
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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