#107-Spoons/Mafia- AKA Socially Constructed group mechanisms to help us flirt

So I just got back from my own district's holiday youth convention...

There were four observations (only one of which will be discussed at length):

 1)Someone pointed out to me that with the bombarding of elevators all of us pentecostals do at the beginning and end of services at these conventions/conferences, the elevators become ridiculously overcrowded. This person posited that we should propose the banning of mixed-gendered elevator riding in consideration of the vast amounts touching that is inevitable in these lengthy elevator rides.

2) Neo-McCarthyism is alive and well in our ranks. Complete with a reminder that what some of those heretics consider "a new way" is nothing new at all. It is then asserted that the speaker has been around for a long time and the "new way" is old and comes up again every ten years or so.

3) There is nothing that draws an apostolic audience into a sermon more than having the preacher stop his talking point mid-sentence, look over the crowed and walk away from the pulpit to emphasize that what he is saying is intended to be very important and climactic.

4) Games to kill the boredom during conferences during the late hours of the night...which also allow for flirtatious undertones without the awkwardness....

One of these group games that is played at conventions/youth group game nights is called mafia. If you do not know about it, I apologize. It is a kind of detailed specific game so I won't even attempt to retell them here. Just know kids love it, and it is kind of cool, and people die in it.

(read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game))

The other popular group game at such events is called Spoons...

It revolves around cards, plastic spoons, and perhaps most suspiciously, it includes a lot of hand touching....

So much hand touching I refuse to play it...

And it's allowed at your conventions and conferences....

If you want to know where sin starts between male and female, it is not in the backseat of the teenage boy's car....

it starts at youth convention in a game of spoons and one hand slapped of a male upon the hand of another innocent apostolic female...

EndNote: Apologies for the lack of posts lately....Some of you readers may know (or not know) that I am a full time long-distance student at UGST (urshan graduate school of theology)...and 3 times a year I have to travel to St. Louis for short term courses that are still really intense....and before you go to St. Louis you have to basically cram a semester's worth of papers and book reading into 4 weeks...so I am in the heart of reading/paper writing darkness right now....will post when I find the time....


MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Happy New Year....

I know I have offended many and have been liked by even less, but I have really enjoyed doing this blog for the last 4 months and getting to read your suggestions and talk with you via e-mail/comments....


And now here is me in my ugly christmas sweater...and also after my decision to retire from smiling in photographs...