#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...

#106-Going to the Bathroom during church

How many churches would have been lit on fire in boredom during church had it not been for the saving grace of the opportunity for a bathroom break during church?

But yet, to you "ole faithful bathroom," I thank you for the opportunity for a break from the church madness. Without you, my only other outlet from the church service would be to text which we all know is worse than chewing gum during church.

Of course, we must be willing to accept that roughly 60% of bathroom breaks are done in vain during church times.

I make no qualms about it...there are many a occasion (though not all) wherein after offering, i take off down the middle aisle to my own place of solace and silence, otherwise known as the church bathroom. At this church bathroom, usually nothing efficient happens, save a washing of hands and a rearrangement of a rogue piece of hair on my head.

While we bathroom-break-takers-during-church participants are ragged on on occasion when a pastoral rant is called for, we will take the anonymous jabs in exchange for those precious moments where we are not restricted nor burdened by the church pew/chair in front of us.

Of course the awkwardness comes for those who attend smaller churches wherein the difficulty is not in the bathroom break itself, but rather it is the awkwardness of re-entry into the service post-bathroom break where if one opens the door at the wrong time, the whole church will hear the creaking of the church doors, and turn their head around to see that you have disrupted the flow of the God-moving service.

Of course guy bathroom breaks are not why this topic is so infamous amongst apostolics....

The Female and the church Bathroom

Girls love going to the bathroom. And they love going to the bathroom in pairs.

If there is one thing I want on my tombstone when I die, it is the above sentence.

First off, I don't know why girls have to go to the bathroom in pairs...Do they need to help each other in the bathroom? Are you that lonely that you need someone to talk to? Are you that worried that you might fall in the toilet?

Truth is, I have no answer. And I have asked many girls this question and they have no answer...

How does this relate to this topic of the post? Well, girls don't just love going to the bathroom during church...they love doing so in bunches and mobs and whatnot...

Have you ever noticed that when musicians leave the platform they are miraculously gone for ten minutes on end? Well they are taking a bathroom break. And for some reason, it is well accepted in church circles that musicians are afforded the privilege of an extended 5 minutes to the normal 2-4 minute bathroom break that is customary. And what do they do during these extended breaks?

Well I think the answer to what girls do in the bathroom and musicians do in the bathroom during these breaks is one in the same:

They party and gossip and take pictures.

Seriously, the first thing a church should do if they want to slow down church gossip is get rid of the girl's bathroom.

As for the party? I really can't tell you much because I have never been invited. But it's a conspiracy of mine....girls go to the bathroom in pairs or more in order to bring an instant party to the sink/mirror. For what good is a party if just one person attends?

And as for the pictures...

My goodness...

I would venture to say that a good 50% of facebook pictures taken in front of a mirror are done at church during church bathroom break time. Nothing says like "Getting some God at church" than taking a narcissistic photo of oneself in a mirror.

#105-Cardboard Testimonies

For those who do not know what cardboard testimonies are...find someone who sends tons of e-mail forwards of anything that resembles anything inspirational in a Christian sense...

If you still don't have such e-mail neighbors...watch this video provided by our mothership of a church...the Pentecostals Of Alexandria...






For a better resolution version of the video from a church of a different breed, please visit...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvDDc5RB6FQ. If you're church hasn't had this happen at your church, please show this video to your pastor and demand action. It is only you who has such power....(it's happened at my church of 102 people).

And seriously, dare I say this is one of most brilliant inventions of Christian culture mash-up madness ever?

First notice the background music...it's usually the same song in every one of those videos...."How He Loves Us" which can be read about in more specific details here. But in summary the song is so inspiring in it's lyrical beauty and harmonious symmetry that even Charles Darwin himself would probably cry in hearing this song in spite of his atheism.

Second, is more of a question...what is the significance of the cardboard? Anyone got a clue? I mean it is tantamount to the whole process....It's has even a 50% stake in the title ownership of the thing...Why not "Dry Erase Board Testimonies?" Because I hate the feeling of drawing on cardboard with marker. It's one level short in my mind of scratching your fingernails against a chalkboard.

Third, with the musicians playing their song to the fullest capabilities, the cardboard testimonies allow for all those who are envious of the musicians' spotlight on the platform week after week to have their own 5 second of fame on the platform, and they do not even have to have a microphone to their face! What brilliant strategy...

Lastly, and perhaps most obvious, the concept involves personal testimonies. And if you have been in this pentecostal tradition for any amount of time, you know the power and popularity of testimonies. Go no further than our most recent youth congress or General Conference, where 4 services combined were dedicated to simply telling testimonies of others (although if I had a voice, it got kind of monotonous after a while and eventually  the testimonies kind of lose some of their impact after seeing and hearing about several dozen in a row).

All in all Cardboard Testimonies is so perfect in it's effectiveness in church because it combines two of the most emotional heavy trends in our church: "How He Loves Us" and personal testimonies. A cardboard testimony is bound to conclude in emotional cataclysmic awesomeness.

(Special thanks to one of my favorite online friends, who I have never met, Hayden Foster for this recommendation.)

#104-The Holy Ghost Hangover Look

Being drunk in the Spirit is one of our bold trademarks of our Apostolic Identity. Sure it may not be precisely us who has that Holy Ghost overflow from week to week, but when the Lord reigns during service, and that Sis. So-and-So "gets it" with a loud shout and a dance to boot, we smile at God's working power. Of course there are those awkward times where the "HG Dancer" dances right up in your business....do you give him/her room to claim even more HG dancing territory? Do you block her in, informing her that while her HG dance is welcomed, it's not a free pass to scurry about the altar? But then again is that like denying the Holy Ghost itself the room it desires?

Sorry, about that rant that has only 10% relevance to this post....

Anyways...what about those moments when you are drawn in at the alter? They may not be as common as the one or two at your church who consistently "get it" but there comes those joyous occasions where the Good Lord beckons you to "come hither" into his presence...

Usually it starts with repentance and then you feel the burn in your heart....

And then you're hooked....

Before you know it, you are in the rare but wonderful "HG INTENSITY ZONE." These moments tend to happen at congress or camp, but on occasion they occur at your home altar as well...

And then after being in this "HG intense state" for an indeterminate period of time, you peel your eye lids open....

and to your shock/joy/horror you realize you are the only one at the altar....church was over a quarter past forever ago.

And then you resurrect your body to walk out of the sanctuary...

But as you gaze into the eyes of on-lookers and the shock on their face, you realize....

You have  gone through a rare Holy Ghost metamorphosis. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. Your eyes are bloodshot....You have the Holy Ghost hangover look

And what you deem as shock in the eyes of the onlookers is rather looks of envy, because nothing says you have just had an encounter with the G-Man upstairs than the Holy Ghost Hangover look/mood that you are reflecting...

Of course if you are on the other end of things, as the onlooker...The Holy Ghost Hangover does appear rather bizarre. You don't quite look like a zombie, but you don't exactly look "intoxicated." It looks like you went to take on the town for the evening and instead the town ate you alive....Your shirt's untucked with inside-out pockets accompanying (Does God turn your pockets inside out in prayer without your permission?!?)...

On the inside the Holy Ghost receiver feels like they have won the lottery. On the outside it looks like the Holy Ghost receiver had not only lost the lottery but was given the sole burden of paying off the lottery to the actual winner. But because they couldn't afford to pay off that lottery, they were beaten senselessly for the entire night by a pair of Bitter Irish Farmers post-potato famine (circa late 19th century) armed with this weapon:

#103-Modest Swimming

Growing up Apo there was always one risqué summer recreation which youth groups as a whole participated in: swimming with all their clothes on. A while back an email circulated titled “you know you’re Pentecostal when…” and I was shocked that “you have the ability to swim across a pool with Olympic prowess despite having on a jean skirt” was left off.

There were two types of churches in the district I grew up in:

1) The church that strictly forbade “mixed bathing”
2) The church that condoned supervised “mixed bathing” as long as everyone was modest.

Of course modesty entailed some criteria:

White clothing was strictly forbidden.
Everyone prevented immodest suctioning of clothing by wearing so many layers that you weren’t so much swimming as you were simply trying not to sink.
Jean skirts were worn, preferably ankle length, which made paddling with your feet into a cardio workout that rivals P90X.

Perhaps this article should be added to "the slippery slope argument", due to the fact that modest mixed bathing always led to immodest mixed bathing, which led to Trinitarian baptism.

#103-Praying to God to send you "the one."

There's famous motion picture entitled The Matrix which has Neo, the main character, discovering if he is the long awaited "One" that the world has been waiting for to set it free from bondage. Most people equate Neo to a messiah of sorts, but I see Neo as a symbol of something more realistic in all of our lives...Here's a conversation that I will base my theory on:

Neo: What is happening to me?
Morpheus: You are the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I have spent my entire life looking for you. 

Neo, in the Matrix is a symbol for that future spouse we and our parents have all been praying for since our youth...

Okay, well I gotta feeling that this post applies more to apostolic females than apostolic males, but I am sure we all love praying to the good Lord to send us "The One" unless of course we have already found him/her...

To use an example I am going to out my older sister a bit (she does frequent this blog)....

Well when my older sis got married, my mother was head over heels...because Apostolic mothers want nothing more than to see their child pass on those apostolic genes to their grandchildren through the bonding of an apostolic male and apostolic female in holy matrimony....

And apostolic mothers OBSESS over this stuff....And what do i mean obsess?

Well you know when your parents teach you to do your bedtime prayers? Like thanking God, and repenting for your sins, and what not? Well at the age of 5 my mother started incorporating the praying for my sister's future husband bit as required segment of my sister's bedtime prayers....(and my mother's own prayers as well)...

It was a huge deal....

so then when my sister  got that ring on her finger ("if you like it you should put a ring on it!") from a delightful apostolic man, my mother got to exclaim to anyone that would listen that she had been praying for him since my older sister was 5 years old.

Oh what a testimony!

But my sister's testimony is not an exception amongst apostolics....It's the rule.....

For now adays before we are to learn to pray as teeny-tiny children, our parents are interceding to the Lord to send us "the One."

Except there is a downside to this whole thing of trust in Godly providence....

The females start getting visions in their head when they perform these nightly prayers...

Priority number 1: He needs to be a preacher.

Priority number 2: He needs to look like this:

Priority number 3: He needs to have a sense of humor.

Priority number 4: He needs to be good looking (uhhh....wait...i already said that? well let's put it in again to be safe)

Priority number 5: He should not have to "pass gas" ever.

Priority number 6: He needs to have a good walk with God

Priority number 7: He needs to be able to cry during the Notebook....

Well, the good news for us guys is once this vision is created in the head of the confused adolescent, it's all compromise from there!

And all the guys are asking for  is:

Priority number 1: A female who is okay with us passing gas in front of them

well that and everything that is described of a good wife in Proverbs 31, such as...

"¹³ She selects wool and flax 

       and works with eager hands.
 ¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,
       bringing her food from afar.
 ¹⁵ She gets up while it is still dark;
       she provides food for her family
       and portions for her servant girls.
 ¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;
       out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
 ¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;
       her arms are strong for her tasks.
 ¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,
       and her lamp does not go out at night."

 I do question at times that in regards to a future husband/wife, that some of us are pursuing God for the purpose of Him to be our divine matchmaker...

And this is all swell...but the difficulty can come when God doesn't send us "The One" at the exact time we want, or doesn't provide the kind of "One" that meets up to our expectations...

And when this happens...well, it must be God's will that we look elsewhere to find that "One." As Abraham sent his servant back to Nahor to find "the One" for his son...so we must find "the One" in other pastures...

Or you could always go the other route, and just let God's chosen "One" for you mutate and transform to coincidently fit the exact profile of the New Church Girl/Guy at your church/nearby church that you just met at a youth rally....

#102-The Platform

Let's get it right. It's 'platform.' God forbid if anyone were the victim of a Freudian slip and let 'stage' come out instead. 'Stage' implies that the Holy of Holies of this dispensation is nothing more than a place to allow centrally located carnality to reign. That instead of it being an elevated, anointed chunk of the sanctuary for the purest of worship to spring forth for the glorification of God, it's a place for people to put on an entertaining show for the glorification of themselves. And that's a no-no. ::shudders at the egregiousness of mistaking The Platform for a mere stage::

There are several observations I'd like to make with respect to Apostolics and their relationship with The Platform:

1. There is a difference between Regular Standards and Platform Standards.

Ma'am, you wanna come to church wearing a skirt so short that it reveals the beginnings of your kneecaps? That's all right. You can even sign up to be a Sunday School teacher with a guilt-free conscience. Flaunting slivers of kneecap is okay for Sunday School teachers because they fall within the realm of Regular Standards. But do you think you're going to set one high-heeled foot on The Platform to sing? Psshht. Girl, saddown! A sliver of kneecap = the lowest form of debauchery on The Platform. Kneecap slivers send the wrong message when you're on The Platform. We're supposed to be representing Christ up there, for crying out loud! Sir, you wanna come to church sans tie? That's fine and dandy. You can even help out in the sound booth since nobody pays attention to you back there anyway. Regular Standards are fine back there. But do you have service leader aspirations? Fool, saddown! Without a tie, you can't even think about The Platform. We're supposed to be ambassadors for Christ, for goodness sake. And have you ever seen an ambassador without a tie on? Hellooo? Didn't think so.

2. Though the Church belongs to God, The Platform belongs to the Pastor.

Sample of Pastor Smith's Sunday night message:

"We are the Church-ah! This ain't Pastor Smith's church-ah! This is Gawd's church-ah! It belongs to HIM! And He's comin back for his Bride-ah! A church without spot or blemish-ah!"

5 minutes later . . .

"Now, you can't come before Gawd Almighty just any ol' way. There are some churches out here -- even UPC churches, in our own organization! -- who let their people get up here carnal and in the flesh wearing jeans and open-collared shirts like they're goin' to a barbecue. But not on MY platform, no sir!"

3. The Platform is not a place to play around on.

After church, there are two kinds of kids: the ones who are required to stick by their parents, rain or shine, and the ones who are allowed to run free. Though the No Fun Police inevitably tut-tut the free spirits as they roughhouse in the sanctuary and play hide-and-seek between the pews, the general church populace usually tolerates them with slight smiles and knowing head shakes. But if one of the free runners is observed taking their playfulness onto The Platform, a collective gasp is heard. We all know that post-church platform trespassing is the first step on the road to backsliding. Observing such a travesty brings out the No Fun Police in us all.

Moses, prostrate before the burning bush, tread holy ground. Apostolics, those who are up to par, tread The Platform.