Stuff Apostolics Like

This post is recommended by one Kyle Brown (complete with pictures he suggested): So if you want to know what is at the heart of Apostolic trending in female fashion, see the headware above... No, really.... I'm being serious... ..... Okay. ......Now let's talk about it... Kyle pointed out that at first these headbands popped up as very mild, in the form of kind of a throwback to the days of the hippy: Which was weird in and of itself, and of course there have been the coward version to pop up to make you think these headbands are serving some kind of weird function to bind up hair:   but as every slippery slope expert knows, such rebel rousing will lead to hell in a hand basket, and in this case the hand basket was a headband... And now we are seeing bits and pieces of this out there amongst our females (no joke): First of all, let me be the first on record to say these things are hideous. The only good headband in the history of headbands has bee...

To all past readers, I am happy to announce a new merger of sorts: StuffApostolicsLike is joining the ninetyandnine.com family ! The site and it's staff have meant the world to me the past year. A few of you may have seen some of the writers on this site (Chantell Smith and myself, Joel Riley) write articles either on ninetyandnine or as a contributor of another blog through ninetyandnine called collideoscope. To all the new visitors from ninetyandnine, welcome to a blog that will hopefully change your life. And be forewarned, this is not your average blog ranting against the death of holiness in our churches or at the same token ranting against the rise of legalism in our churches. Let me explain as briefly as possible who we are, what the blog is, and some basic rules... Who We Are: The actual contributors right now to the site are Chantell Smith, Glen McGee,  and myself. I think every one of us is in college to some capacity including 2/3 of us being in grad school whic...

"Praying through" is one of many Apostolic terms that makes zero sense outside of the Apostolic world. Imagine chatting with one of your unchurched colleagues about it on a Monday afternoon during your lunch break: Colleague: So, how was your weekend? Susan and I went to a friend's house on the lake. It was lovely. You: Let me tell you, this weekend was awesome. My old buddy Bill hadn't darkened the church doors for years now. Well, last night -- Colleague: ( interrupting, with a quizzical expression ) You have church on Sunday night? You: ( laughing sheepishly) Yeah, we do. ( attempting a bit of humor ) We do things the old school way, you know, keep the Sabbath day holy! Hee, hee. Colleague: ( narrowing eyes suspiciously) I thought the Sabbath was actually on Saturday. I know a guy, Abraham ben Judah, he's a Jew you know, and he goes to his synagogue -- You: ( getting annoyed) Okay, but we're getting off the subject. I was just going to tell you h...

Okay, so it's getting late and I really didn't have time to do a complete post this evening, but I figured I would give a half-hearted attempt anyways..... Inferno is one of those annual "mega-church" events (future post) centered around youth that every church strives for, but only a few precious churches can muster the financial muscle, venue size, and sweet lighting effects to actually roll with the big boys of charismatic churches....Inferno is basically a Because of the Times except on a slightly smaller scale and a bunch of over-dressed youths looking to get as much God as possible in an evening without ruining their chances of getting future wives/husbands instead of the BOTT being filled with a bunch of ministers looking to tell each other just how much growth they had over the year and some brilliant new marketing strategy they invented.... That said, I think Inferno is spanish for "In ferno." And it really doesn't have anything to do with Dante...

And don't act like you don't know what I am talking about.... There is nothing worse than seeing a girl ask a guy friend (not a boyfriend) for a massage right in front of a group of people knowing that all they are thinking about is if we were not Apostolics this massage would equate to a flirtatious make out with no added emotional attachment.... Oh it just creeps me out.... Such events are most common during conventions when the legalism of "no touching" at camps is no longer in play....so they dudes and chicks just massage their little hearts out thinking it's okay all in the name of getting a tight knot out in the small of one's back..... Of course, all is fair when massaging is confined to one's gender, (girls seem to always be taking part in massaging madness with each other which seems fine to me.) However, to you dudes who take part in Apostolic massaging with females and say there is nothing sexual about such massages, I ask you one question...wou...

(Okay, so the google image market for "Sermon Participation" or similar searches is almost non-existent. Since awkwardness is the secondary theme of this post, I hope the above picture will suffice ) I think we have all seen this at least once in our lives...The preacher is preaching towards a climax complete with marching half way down the aisles, and at some point without clear organizational precision, the preacher glances down at a particular person sitting near the front, usually in the youth section... And just as quick as you can think "I hope the guy sitting down was paying attention," the preacher picks the young man up via the preacher's arm slipping through the half open arm slot of the folded arms of the young man, and POOF, we're in.... And by "we're in" what I really mean is we will find ourselves in concerned admiration and worry for the next 15-90 seconds as we enter the Awkward Zone..... The awkward zone during sermons is most...

Okay, some days I do wake up and feel that I need to be somewhat political....and today is one of those days....While this topic is certainly not accurate for all of Apostolics, it is still prevalent in many circles and I will address it now....Bon Apetit For some reason, the civil rights movement didn't find the UPC until the 1990's....So much so that most church planting was reserved for rural and suburban culture, and urban environments were left untouched by the UPC up until very recently. It's incredible that in the suburbs of my area (Detroit) there is almost a UPC church per city (with a few patches untouched), but up until a few years ago there was only 2 UPC church in the entire city of Detroit.....Thank God for the church planters in my area who have decided to cut the denominational segregation out in recent years (I think there are now 5 UPC churches in Detroit which is still not enough, but it's progress)... The point is we as Apostolics are worried about ...