moanareina Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Hi everyone There just happened some conversation where we talked about speaking in tongues and the stories that come with it. So our pastor used to tell stories about people he knew personally who experienced all kinds of amazing crazy stuff like for example a woman who told him she had been at a Starbucks with her friends and felt the urge to go to an african man and speak to him in tongues. So she did and what happened was, the man broke out in tears and asked her, how she knew his language (supposedly a language spoken only in a tiny part of his country...most africans here are refugees) and she said she did not, it was the holy spirit speaking to him. He then said that she just welcomed him in this country, when no one else did since he came and how God loved him etc. Talking about weather he made this up himself or this woman actually exists and just told him BS in order to feel more spiritual and accepted or if she had hallucinations someone mentioned urban legends that make it into pastors speeches...and how there are whole packets of sermons you could buy online. So I just wonder if there is some sort of 'story bank' where you can find those kinds of stories and if so if there is a website or so where you could look this stuff up. Would be great if anyone had some links or more information about this. I am interested in this because since a while I am suspecting this pastor to plain out lie to his audience. I never really believed he would do this because I thought he really believed in the stuff he is telling, he seemed to be authentic. But having learnt about psychopathy and narcissism just this past year I really have no clue what authenticity really means anymore and I want to see what this is all about. If he is purposely lying by telling stories he just bought or found online it would explain a lot. I know he used topics and stories and jokes he found online or other sources. But selling stories he claims people of his church have experienced and told him to me takes it to a whole other level. Thanks for the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sybaris Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 My wife dragged me to church today and I was thinking the same thing. We rarely go but every time we do this pastor whips off about a half dozen religiously tainted unverifiable vignettes. Funny thing is at the end of the story all the sheep nod in unison about how the story verifies their delusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francesco Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 one day the guest pastor preached about life transformation can be hurtful and use this story: The story of the eagle - This is incredible! The eagle has the longest life-span of its' species.It can live up to 70 years. But to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision in its' 40's.Its' long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey which serves as food.Its' long and sharp beak becomes bent.Its' old-aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, become stuck to its' chest and make it difficult to fly. Then, the eagle is left with only two options: die or go through a painful process of change which lasts 150 days. The process requires that the eagle fly to a mountain top and sit on its' nest. There the eagle knocks its' beak against a rock until it plucks it out. After plucking it out, the eagle will wait for a new beak to grow back and then it will pluck out its' talons.When its' new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking its' old-aged feathers.And after five months, the eagle takes its famous flight of rebirth and lives for 30 more years.Learn from the Eagle.Spread Your Wings and Fly. my logic screaming as how the eagle can survive without beak and talon for months google it up: hoax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traveller2 Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 I never heard these kind of things until i went to a residential Bible School when I was in my early twenties and we got alot of them there.Sometimes different speakers used the same tired out one as if it was new material. A common one was about the railway swing bridge operator who took his child to work and his kid goes down onto the bridge and he has to end up sacrificing his son who gets caught in the bridge mech to allow a train to pass safely over.That one got really old. http://www.skywriting.net/inspirational/stories/bridge-keeper.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traveller2 Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 I don't know about a bank of stories.I suspect most of them just get passed on or christian workers read them in others blogs and magazines and think they would be a good illustrative piece for their next talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moanareina Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 There where all those stories and our pastor used them multiple times, sometimes varying in detail. I just went on their website and saw that they are talking about the same stuff as they did multiple times when I was still there. At the moment the topic is how you bring yourself in...like how God would develop your gifts and how you could find out about them...yes usually this is about how you can slave at church so they can keep up the fancy services and everything that comes with it. I bet, the next topic will be on giving...like how you can leave your money to the church so they can keep up the fancy services etc...and make you feel good about it because it is all to God and building his Kingdom. I think what also brought me to the idea of there being some sort of bank or so was, that when I read the posts of Ironhorse in the lions den, everything he wrote was something I heard our pastor say at one point or another. And there is no way Ironhorse had been to my church... But well I guess yes, it just happens those pastors probably listen to each others sermons and look for stories and since they are not really creative they use the same stuff all over the western world. I am curious about how much longer they can spread stories of lets say people getting healed from aids somewhere in Africa or raised from the dead in rural areas of India...while the world gets more and more connected through the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pratt Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 or the prayer group who was praying for the missionary, and the angels looking over the missionary is the same number of prayer warriors in the prayer room,,,,,, heard that many times at missionary seminars and such,,,,,,,, missionary chidren picking up. poisonous snakes, couple of times,,,,, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernweh Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 A few years ago my Grandmother met us at my Uncle's Nazarene church for the morning service. She had just left her small town Methodist church service and met us in the next town over. The Nazarene preacher began his sermon with one of those "feel good" anecdotal stories and it was about rail cars or something. He emphatically told his story as if it were a first hand account. My Grandmother looked at me and said "I just heard the same story an hour ago at my church". There must be a book of lame preacher stories. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought2Much Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 Given how these stories make the rounds, one would think there was one "Christian Urban Legends Bank" for these to be pulled from, but I'm not aware of one. Did you all hear about the church in some unnamed town or unnamed country, led by an unnamed pastor, where the townspeople thought the church was on fire because they saw bright white flames coming from it one night? Well, some people (unnamed) called the fire department of that unnamed town, but when they showed up at the unnamed church, and ran inside to fight the blaze, all they saw was the congregation standing in the sanctuary and praising God. The "flames" were the Holy Spirit descending on that church! Isn't that just amazing! God is so awesome. Oh, and everyone in the fire department for that unnamed town was saved that very night. HALLELUJAH! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongWayAround Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 I have heard a preacher in a college town tell the story a couple of times about a poor xtian college student that didn't have enough money for food except for a box of cereal. Every morning he would eat from the box of cereal but the next morning it would still have just as much cereal in the box. Even when I was a xtian, I rolled my eyes at that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluechipx Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 Try this one! I was at the nursing home seeing my mother and she had the religious TV station going. A story was told about a girl that wanted a cat, but her mother said no. The mother told the girl if God gave her a cat, she could keep it. The girl went out in the yard and prayed to which instantly, a cat dropped out of the sky right in front of the girl and the mom. The mom looked around, no trees or roofs that the cat could have fallen from, so she could keep her 'miracle' cat. A few weeks later the mother learned that some neighbors down the street were trying to get their cat out of a tree by tying a rope to the tree and pulling it with a car. Well, apparently the rope slipped off and sent the cat flying TWO HUNDRED YARDS directly in front of the girl at the instant she prayed for it, and the crowd all went 'oohh' while I was face palming myself into a near coma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernweh Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 Try this one! I was at the nursing home seeing my mother and she had the religious TV station going. A story was told about a girl that wanted a cat, but her mother said no. The mother told the girl if God gave her a cat, she could keep it. The girl went out in the yard and prayed to which instantly, a cat dropped out of the sky right in front of the girl and the mom. The mom looked around, no trees or roofs that the cat could have fallen from, so she could keep her 'miracle' cat. A few weeks later the mother learned that some neighbors down the street were trying to get their cat out of a tree by tying a rope to the tree and pulling it with a car. Well, apparently the rope slipped off and sent the cat flying TWO HUNDRED YARDS directly in front of the girl at the instant she prayed for it, and the crowd all went 'oohh' while I was face palming myself into a near coma. Sounds legit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinas Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 So I just wonder if there is some sort of 'story bank' where you can find those kinds of stories and if so if there is a website or so where you could look this stuff up. Would be great if anyone had some links or more information about this. If you mean are there websites where urban legends are discussed - yes. Try: http://urbanlegends.about.com/ http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp There are probably others. You would be likely to find discussions of them on forums for those with "fortean" interests. An urban legend is ultimately no more than a rumour that gains acceptance either through plausibility or credulity. They tend to gain legs when people want to believe them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moanareina Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 Try this one! I was at the nursing home seeing my mother and she had the religious TV station going. A story was told about a girl that wanted a cat, but her mother said no. The mother told the girl if God gave her a cat, she could keep it. The girl went out in the yard and prayed to which instantly, a cat dropped out of the sky right in front of the girl and the mom. The mom looked around, no trees or roofs that the cat could have fallen from, so she could keep her 'miracle' cat. A few weeks later the mother learned that some neighbors down the street were trying to get their cat out of a tree by tying a rope to the tree and pulling it with a car. Well, apparently the rope slipped off and sent the cat flying TWO HUNDRED YARDS directly in front of the girl at the instant she prayed for it, and the crowd all went 'oohh' while I was face palming myself into a near coma. Ah yes, I remember that one and all I thought was, if this was true, God must be pretty mean to steal a cat from someone to give it to another one just to prove that prayer works... And all those missionary stories... Driving for hours with no fuel... Distributing food to people Jesus like (feeding a crowd with only some cakes but it gets mysteriously multiplied... Or the story of the christians who took the dying to self in the baptism literally and drowned people and because God saw their honesty and good intent he would resurrect them back to life... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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