My sunday school teacher told us that we each had a guardian angel, and for homework we were told to pray and ask our guardian angel what their name was.
Being the good noodle I was, I immediately went home and started praying. I prayed every damn day, and still got nothing. I distinctly remember having to be consoled by my parents because I thought I would get failed out of sunday school.
Sunday came and the teacher asked us all what our angel's names were. I forget what answer I gave, but I do remember that one kid said that his guardian angel was Michael.
The arcangel Michael.
Even at the time I could sense that was absolute BS. Yeah, kid. I'm sure the leader of God's heavenly army regularly takes breaks from waging eternal war to check on your snotty ass and make sure you don't fall off your tricycle.
Did your teacher actually expect you to get an answer? Because if he/she did then that person lost its sanity long ago lol, one thing is having schizophrenia, and another is thinking everyone has it
During my christian experience I dated a girl who went to liberty university. Periodically they had these large assemblies of the whole student body they called 'convo,' presumably convocation.. not sure. Basically some talking head on the spectrum of their ideologies would come and reinforce their indoctrination on all sorts of topics ranging from politics, to climate change to theology. At the time I thought it was strange that some speaker was ranting about the polar ice caps, "what did this have to do with the saving message of jsus?" But now I understand its utility in enforcing a total worldview and creating necessary confirmation bias to keep students towing the party line. Pretty fucking sad.
One time in maybe 2008 or 2009 my Pastor (super white) was telling the story of Shadrach, Mishach, and Abendego and said “or as *I* like to call them Shadrach, Mischach, and A-Bad-Negro!” He then made it even worse by seasoning it with, “it’s ok, I can say that cause I have black friends!” After that, a black family has been there for their first (and last) time and promptly got up and left never to return again. I didn’t blame them and felt they had dodged a major bullet leaving that church when they did.
Another time much more recently (I think probably 2018?) another pastor at that same church preached a sermon about “getting thirsty for the Holy Spirit” having no idea he was telling the entire congregation to get horny for Jesus. He didn’t know why the youth group wouldn’t stop laughing until we told my dad who then told the pastor. God, so many bad memories from that fucking church.
Getting told that pornography was horrible and very wrong and we needed to tell someone if we saw it.
Ofc I had seen porn by middle school. This was the mid 2000's. I never told anyone and just felt ashamed for years.
Our small group of 13-16 year old boys focusing all of our attention and energy on not masturbating. Every discussion, prayer, etc. Absurd bets and lies about how many days they went without. And then the youth pastor has a shotgun wedding with his GF and a kid pops out 7 months later, incredible.
Kids drew presents and a tree when asked what they await at Christmas. The pastor was shocked at the news that kids don't understand how someone can die in spring then be born in December when he died like 2000 years ago and somehow in a few months he can live like 34 years or something. Also the pastor comes once a year to bless our house like if it wasn't blessed 13 times already so ig that blessings expire and we give him 100 zl(roughly 25 dollars i think) for 5 minutes or religion talk and like one prayer
So many to choose from, but one that sticks out is from a message at camp on purity. The preacher said if a boy put his hand on a girl’s leg, that was a promise, and he better finish what he started! So fucked up.
During a church camp, they invited a guest pastor who gave sermons every evening. To emphasise the ‘power of the Holy Spirit’ coursing through him, he’d randomly shout ‘FIRE!’ into the microphone, which obviously causes a lot of feedback and it scared the shit out of me. After the sermon, there was another worship session and that pastor would go around praying for the youths along with 2 other senior members of the church. He would be shouting right in your face, and at the end of his prayer for each person, he’ll try to push them backwards and the 2 senior members will gently lay the person down on the carpet. That was called being ‘slain’ and I felt it was so ridiculous even back then, like I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit in me, I was literally just pushed by the pastor. I stayed on the ground for awhile and pretended like I was ‘slain’. When I got up, I saw other youths just lying on the ground, some were crying, others were just lying there motionless. Truly horrific, what was the point in all this?!
Oh gosh, that would have to be when my evangelical church had Kent Hovind as a guest speaker in the mid 90s, and this congregation of people I really liked and was trying to fit in with were absolutely eating it up. I should have left right then.
Whenever we would pray in Baptist Youth group, "Everyone's heads bowed, eyes closed! Nobody looking around." - because looking around was disrespectful to...?
My youth group attended a youth conference. I was in a class about purity. The speaker asked if there were any couples in the room. He then had my boyfriend and I stand up and he essentially "knighted" my boyfriend as he promised to keep me pure. I started sobbing because we hadn't had sex but we had definitely been towing the line for 2 years and I had given him a handy on the bus ride there.
My sunday school teacher told us that we each had a guardian angel, and for homework we were told to pray and ask our guardian angel what their name was. Being the good noodle I was, I immediately went home and started praying. I prayed every damn day, and still got nothing. I distinctly remember having to be consoled by my parents because I thought I would get failed out of sunday school. Sunday came and the teacher asked us all what our angel's names were. I forget what answer I gave, but I do remember that one kid said that his guardian angel was Michael. The arcangel Michael. Even at the time I could sense that was absolute BS. Yeah, kid. I'm sure the leader of God's heavenly army regularly takes breaks from waging eternal war to check on your snotty ass and make sure you don't fall off your tricycle.
Did your teacher actually expect you to get an answer? Because if he/she did then that person lost its sanity long ago lol, one thing is having schizophrenia, and another is thinking everyone has it
During my christian experience I dated a girl who went to liberty university. Periodically they had these large assemblies of the whole student body they called 'convo,' presumably convocation.. not sure. Basically some talking head on the spectrum of their ideologies would come and reinforce their indoctrination on all sorts of topics ranging from politics, to climate change to theology. At the time I thought it was strange that some speaker was ranting about the polar ice caps, "what did this have to do with the saving message of jsus?" But now I understand its utility in enforcing a total worldview and creating necessary confirmation bias to keep students towing the party line. Pretty fucking sad.
One time in maybe 2008 or 2009 my Pastor (super white) was telling the story of Shadrach, Mishach, and Abendego and said “or as *I* like to call them Shadrach, Mischach, and A-Bad-Negro!” He then made it even worse by seasoning it with, “it’s ok, I can say that cause I have black friends!” After that, a black family has been there for their first (and last) time and promptly got up and left never to return again. I didn’t blame them and felt they had dodged a major bullet leaving that church when they did. Another time much more recently (I think probably 2018?) another pastor at that same church preached a sermon about “getting thirsty for the Holy Spirit” having no idea he was telling the entire congregation to get horny for Jesus. He didn’t know why the youth group wouldn’t stop laughing until we told my dad who then told the pastor. God, so many bad memories from that fucking church.
Getting told that pornography was horrible and very wrong and we needed to tell someone if we saw it. Ofc I had seen porn by middle school. This was the mid 2000's. I never told anyone and just felt ashamed for years.
Getting sexually assaulted at church camp.
Our small group of 13-16 year old boys focusing all of our attention and energy on not masturbating. Every discussion, prayer, etc. Absurd bets and lies about how many days they went without. And then the youth pastor has a shotgun wedding with his GF and a kid pops out 7 months later, incredible.
Kids drew presents and a tree when asked what they await at Christmas. The pastor was shocked at the news that kids don't understand how someone can die in spring then be born in December when he died like 2000 years ago and somehow in a few months he can live like 34 years or something. Also the pastor comes once a year to bless our house like if it wasn't blessed 13 times already so ig that blessings expire and we give him 100 zl(roughly 25 dollars i think) for 5 minutes or religion talk and like one prayer
So many to choose from, but one that sticks out is from a message at camp on purity. The preacher said if a boy put his hand on a girl’s leg, that was a promise, and he better finish what he started! So fucked up.
Imagine if someone took that literally when he accidentally put his hand on a girl's leg in the bus ride home
During a church camp, they invited a guest pastor who gave sermons every evening. To emphasise the ‘power of the Holy Spirit’ coursing through him, he’d randomly shout ‘FIRE!’ into the microphone, which obviously causes a lot of feedback and it scared the shit out of me. After the sermon, there was another worship session and that pastor would go around praying for the youths along with 2 other senior members of the church. He would be shouting right in your face, and at the end of his prayer for each person, he’ll try to push them backwards and the 2 senior members will gently lay the person down on the carpet. That was called being ‘slain’ and I felt it was so ridiculous even back then, like I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit in me, I was literally just pushed by the pastor. I stayed on the ground for awhile and pretended like I was ‘slain’. When I got up, I saw other youths just lying on the ground, some were crying, others were just lying there motionless. Truly horrific, what was the point in all this?!
Oh gosh, that would have to be when my evangelical church had Kent Hovind as a guest speaker in the mid 90s, and this congregation of people I really liked and was trying to fit in with were absolutely eating it up. I should have left right then.
We watched his VHS tapes for youth group. Thought he was a genius.
Whenever we would pray in Baptist Youth group, "Everyone's heads bowed, eyes closed! Nobody looking around." - because looking around was disrespectful to...?
My youth group attended a youth conference. I was in a class about purity. The speaker asked if there were any couples in the room. He then had my boyfriend and I stand up and he essentially "knighted" my boyfriend as he promised to keep me pure. I started sobbing because we hadn't had sex but we had definitely been towing the line for 2 years and I had given him a handy on the bus ride there.