Crazy Christian Groups For Children

[upstarter]

ShakledNoMore was talking in another thread about Royal Rangers and someone mentioned Awana. I thought it might be fun to see what kinds of crazy christian groups we were all in as kids. Tell the name of the group and what the premise was.

 

I was in Pioneer Girls at the local Baptist church. I wasn't Baptist but it was a small town and for a while all the girls were doing it.

It was basically xtian girl scouts. We did crafts and sang songs etc. We had uniforms and earned badges, all in the name of jesus.

 

Come on people, don't let me down. I know some of you grew up in some zany churches...

 

Heather

 

---edit---

 

I'm so old... I thought I'd have a look and see if they still have Pioneer Girls... a quick google search shows me that it's now gone all politically correct on me... it's Pioneer Clubs now. Sheesh.

[The-Captain]

Yeah... I was the Awana kid. My memories of it are hazy at best but here goes, lets see uniforms, chanting, walking and standing in lines (insert easy Hitler Youth comparison here). It was, how should I say, very very very creeepy.

 

I was pretty good at spouting back that dogma..yesiree. I got my red vest and made it to some level called a "sparky" w/e that is (something to do with lil lights of the world no doubt). But oh the pride they would instill in me for making the next level and the next.

 

I mean it was cool getting a new uniform and handbook and everything, the pats on the back from the people who mattered to you at the time...oh and instead of merit badges we got little plastic crowns to put jewels in (just like heaven! ) when we were conforming particularly well.. cosmic rewards for verse memorization...sweet.

 

It wasnt all bad I guess, indoctrination aside, I did make some friends there..and if I wasnt hearing it in awanas I would be sitting listening to it somewhere else. Oh well cant be helped ,just damm sure if i ever have kids religous views or lack thereof will be their choice ill do my best to be impartial and let them choose as freely as possible. (okay that might be harder than I think)

 

I could go on and on about the oddities of the fundie youth brigade but im tired of waxing nostalgic it makes me cynical and curmudgeonly,and I would like to hear more about some of these other ones, Royal Rangers, Pioneer Girls and such never even heard about them growning up.

 

 

Commence brainwash remembrancing! Only way to heal is to get it out!

[ShackledNoMore]

Yeah, I had never heard of Awana until Doc mentioned it and I googled for it. It kind of creeped me out, and raised my hackles a bit with the thought of putting one's kids in THAT.

 

Royal Rangers, for me, was just another part of the indoctrination by immersion package from the church. The youth groups seemed more brazen, since RR had the pretense of being scout-like and we did go camping and do some things that they would have done in boy scouts, etc., but there was still no escape from the AoG madness.

 

Oh, and it was the youth group that thrust us out onto the street to confront passer-bys and "witness" to them. Cringe. At least I never went to any "jesus camp" style youth camps.

[Japedo]

Come on people, don't let me down. I know some of you grew up in some zany churches...

 

 

Daisy, Prims and Missionetts here. It was thru the local Ass of God Church. Also least us not forget... Vacation Buybull Skool for the summer.

 

ETA: Typical indoctrination. Memorizing, witnessing, Crafts and other things.

 

I also was a member of the Sign language Ministry and we used to go around to various schools and malls and fairs to preform. It brings back some memories for sure.

[Rhia]

I was a Missionette - and really pissed too. I had gone through STARs (the girls in STARs had to study Suzanna, Tabitha, Anna, & Ruth from the Bible in order to move on, it was kinda like Brownies and each letter can take up to two years to complete.) in one church, and was about to be "crowned", which is what happens when one completes all four steps. It's a huge deal at the time, the girl wears a white dress, is prayed over by the church, and is presented with a rhinestone tiara.

 

So anyway, I was about to be crowned when I was 14, and then my foster mom changed churches due to a doctrinal difference. The new church also had a missionette's programme, but they were more strict - so just as I was about to be crowned and go on to be in a teen's group (I think it was called FRIENDs) with other girls my age, it was decided (by the senior pastor no less!) that my training as a missionette wasn't strict enough to cover each Biblical woman sufficiently; and I was bumped back down to Suzanna - I had been in STARs for 5 fucking years already!

 

Now, that meant that I had to sit with a bunch of 10 year olds ('cause my foster mother made me go whether I liked it or not) and do everything that I had ever done over from scratch. I had a shitload of badges (everything from "homemaking" and "first aid" to "evangelism" and "musical accomplishment") and even a few medals that were TAKEN from me because I had supposedly not "properly earned" them. My sash was finally given back to me with most of the badges removed after I had begged my foster mother to get it back before I was placed under adoption "for sentimental reasons". I at one point had the sash, the skirt, the vest, and everything else that was in that gaudy sky-blue colour. I had gone to every pow-wow, camping trip, evangelism outreach, and conference in our area and beyond that was offered in order to get through this Girls Scout antithesis group, and was bumped back to the beginning.

 

I was so sufficiently pissed that when I was adopted 6 months later (and still in the S-portion) and found another AoG church that had a Missionettes programme, I refused to join - they would have let me even though I was considered "too old", but I decided it wasn't worth my time.

 

Damnit! I think about it and STILL get angry, though now it's not about being Crowned, but more because 6 years of my life was wasted on something that came to NO fruition.

 

 

Edit: I just googled Missionettes after writing this, and they've COMPLETELY changed. The Friends Club is there in all its stupid glory but has changed it's method from cloth badges to little silver charms, they've bumped the age-group for STARs down to 8-10 ys when it used to be 10-13 or so, and they even changed the colour! It used to be practically the colour of this forum, and now it's navy! And now they don't have Crownings, but instead get a Miriam's Award if they show extreme "courage in the face of catastrophe".

[The-Captain]

ARGGGHH!!!

 

I know you have all thought or heard this before.

 

But how can christians look at other people doing this and say, "thats brainwashing" ,or "cult" and then turn around and do this w/o another thought.

 

I mean come on! Come on! Awanas are you kiddin me!!

 

ARGHHHHH!!!!

 

Had no idea awanas could make me so angry....

[GraphicsGuy]

I was in Crusaders when I was...oh...between 7 and 10. Seriously, that's what they called it. The PAOC finally changed the name after years and years and integrated the boys and girls groups into...Boys & Girls Club (BG Club).

 

I don't remember much about it except that we played a lot of indoor sports and such. All of our "meets" were in a gymnasium where we would usually play floor hockey or dodgeball, have a "Sugar Creek Gang" story read to us, and then an object lesson or something. We had badges and stuff, but I can't remember how we got them or when we worked on them...

 

That was the only thing I was in besides youth group. I sure aided and directed a bunch of VBS stuff though...thankfully we mostly centered around fun and games...

[girlfound]

I was a Sunbeam in the Salvation Army, molested at five years of age by the corps captain while he was driving me home from Sunbeams class. I don't want to talk about this. I just want people to know.

[The-Captain]

I was a Sunbeam in the Salvation Army, molested at five years of age by the corps captain while he was driving me home from Sunbeams class. I don't want to talk about this. I just want people to know.

 

I dont think anyone expects you to talk about it until you want to, if ever.

 

This may sound empty as I didnt go through that, but I feel for you. Not sure how to express that but you have, my sympathy, compassion, and whatever other words describe how much emotion I feel now.

[2Bornot2B]

Well, I was in RAs for a while (Royal Ambassadors). We were supposed to be ambassadors for christ. We were to do service projects, witness, etc. I was not in it long as we stopped going to that church. Later in another church, they tried to get me to help (as an adult) with RAs. I weaseled my way out of it. I did go to a Christian camp as a senior in high school. It was called Centrifuge. We went to Ridgecrest, North Carolina. It is near the home of baptist patriarch Billy Graham. (If ever there was one after god's heart.)

 

Cheers,

Josh

[smellincoffee]

Aside from the Boy Scouts, I avoided religious organizations. Religion only became important me when I converted to fundamentalism in high school.

[SilentLoner]

When I was a kid I went to this xtian group for girls that met on weekend mornings. I forget what its called, but basically we would pray at a chapel half the time and then play games and such.

 

I was in the girl scouts too for one year, we did a play for the school about jesus's birth around xmas, I was cast as Joseph.

[sparkyone]

I was in a group for a little while, which I think was the Prims, and we got a little pink beanie cap to wear and did crafts and learned verses. When I was a little older, I was in AWANA, but as a Junior Varsity. For one of the projects I learned to change a tire and the oil in our car, so it wasn't a total waste. We also got a lot of exercise running around the velcroed 4-colored activity circle. When I was a little older I worked with the Cubbies, the youngest group, but I wanted to work with the Sparkies, the slightly older ones. At some point my sister and I went to another Baptist church in town for a generic weekly youth meeting. It was lots of fun since we could earn points for prizes by memorizing verses and I could speed memorize and then probably forget it soon after. Actually, I memorized so much scripture in church school I honed the skill or already knew alot of them. We also did games that were fun at that group. I remember all these groups as fun and good memories, but now I also cringe at the thought of what were being indoctrinated with.

 

Sparkyone

[Piprus]

My recollection, I was very briefly in a baptist group for boys called the Royal Ambassadors. It was like the boy scouts, only christian oriented, and sort of a prelude to the baptist "brotherhood". As per the usual, this was a positive and happy experience in my growing up, but no doubt about it, it was an indoctrination. One that although benign in its approach, was actually a narrow-minded attempt to channel the minds of young kids into lifelong fundie-gelicalism. I was one that ultimately didn't take the bait or the hook.

[R. S. Martin]

You won't believe this but I would never have been allowed to be part of any of the "Christian" groups you were part of because they were way too "worldly." Not only that, they had a "false doctrine."

 

I looked up the word "indoctrinate" on answers.com. Here are a few of the definitions:

 

v. teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

 

1. To instruct in a body of doctrine or belief: drill, inculcate. See teach/learn.
   
2. To teach to accept a system of thought uncritically: brainwash, propagandize. See teach/learn.
   

Most Christians would probably agree that their group does No. 1 because they all want their own kids to learn their own body of doctrine or belief. They prefer to call it teach/instruct rather than indoctrinate, but if it's doctrine that they are being instructed in, according to these definitions, it is literally indoctrination.

 

It's the "uncritical" part that is scary.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what, if any, parallels there would be in my past life with most others here. Using that definition for indoctrination, and with a focus on uniforms and activities shared only with other "Christians," (here meant as defined by each group itself and not its opponents and competitors) I think perhaps I can see parallels. The difference is that we were in our VBS or whatever permanently. The philosophy was that if this was the way to be Christian, and we should be Christian all the time (7 days a week 52 weeks a year as opposed to "the world" around us meaning all the other churches because we didn't know any nonreligious people), then we find a way to be Christian all the time. Our way to be Christian was to be separate from "the world," as the Bible said. [Yeah right.]

 

For starters, we never knew anybody who didn't go to our church. And we were part of the children's group of the church, which was very large. It is the tradition for families to visit each other every Sunday. There are too many families to ever visit everybody. Kids go (travel) with their parents till they are old enough to "go with the young people." In that Amish movie it's called "rumspringa." In our area the details were slightly different. At age 15 or 16 (differed with families) a boy or girl would start "going with the young people." That meant that instead of "traveling" with the parents for church and visiting he/she would go with neighbour youth.

 

The boys usually got a horse and buggy and were expected to provide transportation for girls, esp. in neighbourhoods where there were more girls than boys as happened in our neighbourhood. Girls had to "find a way," either by asking the neighbourhood boys to see if anybody had room for her on his buggy or by having her dad do the asking. Siblings would automatically travel together if they lived at home. If there were more boys than girls the boys would sometimes travel together.

 

Sunday evenings large crowds up to one or two hundred young people would gather in one home for singing and games from about nine o'clock till midnight or later. Couples left around ten o'clock for their weekly dates. They had about two or three hours till their younger sibs came looking for their rides home. Everyone was expected to get up at six the next morning for barn chores so we had to be home and in bed a few hours before then. We'd have to put in a full day's work on Monday and wouldn't get to rest until chores and dishes were done at eight or nine o'clock Monday night. That was just the way the world turned. There was incentive to get home Sunday night. Not to mention we'd been up since six Sunday morning doing the barn chores and getting everyone off to church that morning. Sometimes, by Sunday night when I thought back to the bright and cheery sunshine of the morning it seemed like it had been another day.

 

The social expectation were REALLY, REALLY high. I did not realize it then, but I do now. The migraines (known then as my Sunday headaches) that set in by about age 19 were my body's way of telling me that this was not what my mind/body was made for. But I was so desperate for any kind of approval that I did what I could and nobody would have known that socializing could be unhealthy. It was considered to be a sign of health to be out there with others doing things. Some young people had the guts to buck tradition and not go away so much. They would get nudged about it and it could reflect negatively on their reputation. Exactly what did they do? It was awfully suspicious. That kind of thing.

 

If they claimed to be home reading and playing board games they must be reading bad books. Or if they were seen out driving and perhaps the drive took them through, or in the direction of, town they must have been doing bad stuff. One thing my many years of dedicated obedience got me was the community's full confidence that I was totally trustworthy when it came to faithfulness to the church. Only in looking back do I realize how complete was their confidence in me. So complete was it that I was able to drive through the heart of the community at all hours of the day or night to classes without anyone getting suspicious or asking what I was doing. (Education beyond Grade 8 was seen as worldly and I had to leave the church when it became known what I was doing.)

 

In fact, I scattered a few hints (asked my deacon's advice on it) and no one took me seriously until I chose to come out and told a person whom I knew would spread the information. Of course, then all hell broke lose. But I had fourteen months in which to try out whether or not higher education was the route I wanted to go. It most definitely was.

 

That is how I finally got out of my "group." Looking at the title again. Yes, it was for kids. It was for youth. It was for all ages. It was for life. I'm not sure if this is the same.

[live and learn]

This thread got me thinking back to the bad old days. I was raised as a Mennonite, but fortunately our church was not as conservative as RubySera's. Not only did we have cars, we weren't even required to own black cars and paint all the chrome on the car black like our neighbors did. We were living on the edge, let me tell ya!

 

The groups we had at church were Loyal Lads and Loyal Lassies. Gag a maggot. Someone should have been smacked for coming up with those names. We didn't have uniforms or any fun stuff like awards because that would be too worldly. I don't really remember anything very fun we did, maybe bake cookies or some other activity that was deemed appropriate for females.

 

I wanted so badly to be in Brownies like the kids at school, but we weren't allowed to mix with the heathen (anyone less conservative than we were). With 8 kids, we sewed our own clothes or shopped at rummage sales. I remember being allowed to buy a used Brownies uniform. I loved to parade around in that. Wish I still had the beanie.

 

There was a youth group for teenagers. The biggest excitement was when we played "Walk-a-mile". Random couples held hands and lined up, then the whole group walked along a country road. A boy would walk up the line to another girl and tap her partner on the shoulder, then take his place. I remember my palms were always sweaty. It was the most exciting thing. I guess it was as close to dancing as we could get. Like I said, te bad old days. Ugh.

[Exclavius]

Wow, it almost seems unfair that you all got to have all those group experiences...

I did myself belong to Cub Scouts for a few years, but, I always lived with the guilt that most of the activities occurred on Sundays and it prevented me from properly attending mass.

So, I didn't join any of the other groups that were there.

 

Heh, I remember the look on the priests face when he asked me why i was the only one of my family (me + 4 brothers) that never served as an alter-boy... My reply was something like "If i did, i don't think I could worship him as well during mass"

Coming from a child that age, i'm sure the words in his mind were along the lines of "Well, we got this little sucker for life!"

 

Ahhhh.. makes me feel good to know that that is yet ANOTHER thing he was wrong about.

 

Anyways, Cub Scouts was a weird mix of a quasi-militaristic and quasi-xian experience.

I guess it was xianism without the name superimposed on it.. at least not TOO much anyways...

But the principles were all there. They were "drilled" and they were repeated ad-nauseum. Maybe it was Lord Baydon Powell's way to proselyze to children in a way that even the ones who DID know how to think wouldn't quite notice. Heh... odd analogy comes to mind... The rest of the Xians were trying to steal the Salvation Army's approach *grin*

[Emme]

I was in Royal Rangers (in Sweden), and my group leader,

who I first fell in love with, then ended up despising,

(his remarks, which seemed charming and flattering to a twelve-year-old, turned out to be sexually harassing in retrospect),

spent most his time convincing us that evolution had been disproved a long time ago. He would show us (bad)

pictures of tree fossils inside of mountains(???), that were supposed to disprove everything ever said about evolution.

 

Any attempt to debate would be instantly shot down of course, and to this day I still wonder about that picture!

 

It's kinda funny now (or very tragic!), I can picture him there, in this little room, ranting on about

the lies we've been told about the world.

But this man had a huge impact on me,

and one day I will work up the courage to find him and tell him to shove it!

(pardon my french)

[Ouroboros]

spent most his time convincing us that evolution had been disproved a long time ago. He would show us (bad)

pictures of tree fossils inside of mountains(???), that were supposed to disprove everything ever said about evolution.

It's the petrified trees that cut through several layers of old layers. But there are explanations to this phenomenon done by real scientists, instead of all the wannabe-apologetic-amateur-creationsts' speculations.

 

and one day I will work up the courage to find him and tell him to shove it!

(pardon my french)

Heck, you haven't seen nothing yet. We don't shy words here. If we think someone is stupid, we call them on it. So, your pardon, not granted.

 

(I'm just so excited to finally meet another Swede on this site!)