yunea Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 This famous pentecostal church in my country puts videos from their Wednesday evenings online and I thought I'd watch one, now that I've read lots of threads on this site and felt ready to face it. It's been a long time from when I last was in an actual pentecostal church (though my adventures with seeking jesus took many weird turns since, as you may have read) and I wanted to see whether I even remembered it right anymore. I have a very dear friend who attends that very church and I.... for the sake of appreciating the over decade-long friendship I don't want to be dishonest with her for terribly long, but I don't want to end up not knowing what to say either (or appearing that I don't know what I'm talking about). And yes I'm getting heartburn. I can't digest it. It's awfully worse than I remembered (that's no surprise though, back then I lied to myself so much). They're doing this prayer, "thank you lord that we get to walk in faith even though we don't see; and thank you lord that we know that tonight you will perform many miracles among us!!" I thought deciding something was a miracle was "seeing" evidence? There's also a nice guilt trip about jesus himself teaching that we should place our worries at his feet and leave them there, and the preacher says he knows people who seem to WANT their life to revolve around their pain instead of doing what the lorrrrrrrd tells us to do. So he's implying it's a sin to not stop worrying, and thus also implying that not stopping worrying = wanting to sin. Wonderful, just wonderful. As someone who's gone through a lot of depression (I'm on a little dose of meds right now too, I've been able to gradually have less as I work through all this mess...) and anxiety, I can imagine many people feeling worse after that. In those states it's not like you can decide to stop feeling bad. You can do all the thought exercises on earth, hand your pain to any imaginary friends you can think of, and it may go away for a moment and you'll get a high, but you'll crash down again until you've really worked through the issues instead of just trying to put them away. And all the "thank you for allllll the gifts you're giving" and the people who go home without having received any - how do they explain it to themselves? My hands are sweating. Ahh. I think I'll watch a little bit more and then take a nice long shower. Thank... god?! (hah, erm) for the stop button on the video. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Now they're reading letters about answers to prayers... Someone had a sore toe that isn't sore anymore thanks to jesus. "What a great loving father we have, he heals our sore toes!"!!! (As he's busy healing people's sore toes, kids are born to alcoholics and drug users, countless people die of hunger, blah blah blah...great loving father yes!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToHellWithMe Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 To open your eyes to certain thruths is painful, yet many choose to do so despite the pain. They want to know. So, there's that truth to what they preach. Like for example that you are part of an parasitic organization that feeds off you, your children, your relatives etc. Opening your eyes to that painful thing should, of course, be defined as sinful, and you should be encouraged to take the blissful fairy tale instead. It's just a matter of labelling and explaining your conflicting natural urges in a way that moves you in a way they want you to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Now they're reading letters about answers to prayers... Someone had a sore toe that isn't sore anymore thanks to jesus. "What a great loving father we have, he heals our sore toes!"!!! (As he's busy healing people's sore toes, kids are born to alcoholics and drug users, countless people die of hunger, blah blah blah...great loving father yes!) They do this same nonsense on that christian tbn network show the 700 club. Jesus is healing someone with thumb trouble etc. what a sham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 I kept a break, finished the hour-long video now. Someone had hurt their fingers with a car door and oh, hallelujah, jesus took the pain away. I wish I was making this up. I too have visited this very church years ago and some things have definitely changed since then. On the video no one spoke in tongues into the mic before the last 3 minutes. There used to be a whole rock band playing fast songs, now there was one keyboardist who also sang, and a girl who sang harmonies, and every song was slow. I read some webpages and it seems some people grew tired of the gospel rock and jumping up and down stuff. The Bible verse part was kinda ridiculous though. The preacher screamed out Matthew 7:7-11, repeating "everyone, EVERYone" I don't know how many times. And that was it. Everything else was all miracles, miracles, miracles, miracles, blah blah feeling feeling feeling and if not feeling, then knowing. And jesus told someone that there was a person in another country who was supposedly watching the vid and was about to be healed from bone cancer. I feel blank. Just blank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 This church sounds like a dysfunctional insane asylum. Whatever entertains the masses i suppose. -me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 The preacher screamed out Matthew 7:7-11, repeating "everyone, EVERYone" I don't know how many times. I feel blank. Just blank. The thing about those verses is that those are some of the most damning evidences against christianity. None of the "promise" verses ever came true in my life. As to you feeling blank, i get it, i really do. -me(ow) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 I keep typing something here and then deleting it. I slept the night and I still have very few words. Thanks CeilingCat. And also ToHellWithMe, well said. I kind of want to watch more of their videos to see if they make as little sense, in case I just watched a particularly bad vid, but I'm afraid they won't be much different. Way back then I was able to fool myself that the promises were coming true left and right, but now I see what I did there. It was all in my head, because I didn't WANT such a "good" thing to be false. Unfortunately all my pain (mental and physical) that I was "healed" from came back eventually, some much worse than it was before. One thing that was ringing through my head before I went to bed last night was, "If something looks like it's too good to be true, it probably isn't true". Appropriate, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thackerie Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought it was referring to a wedding night sex video. I had forgotten about Wednesday services that are popular with christians who feel they're not getting enough indoctrination reinforcement on Sunday. I guess that shows that I was never a True Fundy™. But never mind. The real topic is much more entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Now they're reading letters about answers to prayers... Someone had a sore toe that isn't sore anymore thanks to jesus. "What a great loving father we have, he heals our sore toes!"!!! (As he's busy healing people's sore toes, kids are born to alcoholics and drug users, countless people die of hunger, blah blah blah...great loving father yes!) At least he took a quick break from giving babies Malaria. (That's a Tim Minchin reference, for those who don't know.) When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought it was referring to a wedding night sex video. I had forgotten about Wednesday services that are popular with christians who feel they're not getting enough indoctrination reinforcement on Sunday. I guess that shows that I was never a True Fundy™. But never mind. The real topic is much more entertaining. I was raised with Church on Wednesdays and TWICE on Sundays, plus occasional week long nightly Revival meetings. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 I had forgotten about Wednesday services that are popular with christians who feel they're not getting enough indoctrination reinforcement on Sunday. Yeah what's with that? I have noticed even outside of church, other churches have wed. night this or wed. night that. I guess they really need you to stay in church so they have to have all these extra curricular activities to keep you in the fold (nut house). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToHellWithMe Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 also ToHellWithMe, well said.Thanks for this. Also, noticing that you seem not to be using the quote function I feel I could inform you that when addressing someone here (on this forum software) you may want to quote their post so that the forum notification system will tell them about a response. Otherwise your response may go unnoticed. You can leave the quote itself empty to save space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConsiderTheSource Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Yunea, please PM when you run across one where the are regenerating the limb of an amputee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 also ToHellWithMe, well said.Thanks for this. Also, noticing that you seem not to be using the quote function I feel I could inform you that when addressing someone here (on this forum software) you may want to quote their post so that the forum notification system will tell them about a response. Otherwise your response may go unnoticed. You can leave the quote itself empty to save space. Hey, thanks very much, I'm still learning to use this forum, and I myself didn't have the notifications on for ANYthing but PMs. No wonder I didn't see the use of all the quoting on here! Whoopsie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 Yunea, please PM when you run across one where the are regenerating the limb of an amputee Ok I will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted January 26, 2015 Super Moderator Share Posted January 26, 2015 My favorite testimony given on a Wednesday night comes from many years ago, but I still remember it. A lady stood up and wanted to thank Jesus. It seems she got her finger stuck to an ice tray in her freezer, and when she prayed to Jesus her finger got free of the demon ice tray. Proof positive that God is good and still in the miracle business! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 Proof positive that God is good and still in the miracle business! Ohh definitely!!! Amazing story! I'm trying to think of some more old ones. hmm. Ok. Some preacher years ago claimed that as he was touring the country, he realised he'd lost his jacket at the church he'd last been preaching at, and he prayed so hard, the jacket appeared in his hotel closet. Hooray! God is good! Also why is it that so many testimonies feature people who aren't there, or something that most people "just barely missed seeing"? Like, years ago, when we were teens, some of my friends from church were going to a rock festival to convert people. Their group leader told them that right before they arrived there, he'd prayed for some guy. The guy allegedly got physically thrown around by holy spirit, actually flew into a wall, freaked out and ran away. Eyewitnesses? Nah. Any way to find the guy and ask him if anything like this happened? Naaaah, who needs that, the group leader of the teenage pentecostals was surely sharing this story completely honestly, not making anything up to scare the pentecostal kids to fearing god's wrath even more, or anything like that. Do we have a thread for crazy testimonies here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Furball Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 uhg, people still giving an imaginary deity the credit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yunea Posted January 26, 2015 Author Share Posted January 26, 2015 uhg, people still giving an imaginary deity the credit I wonder what would happen if hypnosis and its effects were more widely known. It's actually very effective for temporary pain removal for example, which explains why some don't feel their pain when listening to sermons. Ah yeah, sorry, now I remember seeing a little bit of talk about this on a Christian forum. They were talking about how "of course" miracles look like the effects of hypnosis and such - which "of course" is devil's work - because indeed, devil is at work, messing stuff up so people would be blind to the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToHellWithMe Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 They were talking about how "of course" miracles look like the effects of hypnosis and such - which "of course" is devil's work - because indeed, devil is at work, messing stuff up so people would be blind to the truth.So close. I wonder whether a merciless push into the cold water is what they should be given to open their eyes, or whether what they deserve is an encouragement to take that step for themselves... Or maybe there are two kinds of people in that discussion, of whom others deserve the painful treatment, while others deserve some love. *shrugs* EDIT: Of course, if one just neutrally states how they see it from the outside, the truth in it might be a painful jolt for some and for many, hopefully, a moment of wonder, relief and liberation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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