Matthew 24:34
"Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."

October 6, 2007

A background in the Church.

I grew up attending a Pentecostal church in Long Beach, CA. My grandmother's husband founded the church in the 50's, then died of an aneurysm while preaching at the pulpit. The church elders laid hands on him, but apparently they didn't try hard enough. Eventually, my uncle took over the church.

I never really fit in well at the church. I tried lifting my hands up towards Heaven as I sang his praises. I reached my hands out to those who were being prayed for. I even honestly prayed during these moments. However, never during these times did I feel the need to speak in tongues, prophesy, or cry at the altar. Even as a 12 year old, I just couldn't see why people were doing this.

An interesting note on this: As a kid, I was never really social to begin with. I wasn't the type to go out and make friends with strangers. I was very popular at my elementary school, but it was a private Christian school where all of us attended kindergarten-6th grade together, so we were all comfortable with each other. Perhaps being active in a youth group really lets the healing balms of Christianity soak in deep...as a voluntarily-outcast warrior for Christ, I guess that shit didn't work on me.

1 comment:

  1. Pretty funny, and acutely accurate stuff there bro. My experiences surrounding the "saved" have always been traumatic, somewhat akin to the guy on the other end of the random payphone I answered when I was 14 that made me the magnanimous offer of not only sucking my boyhood, but also giving me $20! Even though I dropped the phone and ran away, it freaked me out FOR YEARS. It didn't help that when I told my stepfather he goes "Ah yeah, he was probably watching from a window somewhere close." Way to be a parent wwhoooooooO!

    Ok, so maybe not that traumatic, but everytime someone comes up to me speaking "in tongues" I tend to freak out, and speak in a tongue mortally offensive to those who initiated the conversation. They usually snap out of their religious reverie as well.

    Once I got duped into "trying out for the church band". Since I played briefly in the gospel band in High School (which was pretty damn cool, and being by far the pastiest guy there I was given a lot of attention!) I figured, what the hey?! Well, a 2 hour lecture on how I was going to hell (brother I was already there) I finally was able to beat it out of there. Now riddle me this. If politeness is a virtue, why am I always getting the shit end of the stick in the situations? Because I am too polite to leave I have to listen to some dude berate me about the way I am living my life? Not cool man! And really unrepresentative of a lot of people that are religious, and also happen to be somewhat sane.

    All in all, live and let live is a wonderful doctrine. I wish more people would subscribe to it!

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