Church Trauma/Deconstruction Thread • Page 2

The most recent church I was at opens each service with prayer requests. Which I’m not against, generally speaking. But the amount of personal medical information I would hear each week just felt wrong. Always sharing too much detail. Sometimes it came across more as gossip more than a sincere prayer request. The worst one though was last summer, before Biden dropped out, when an older guy asked to pray for Biden to step aside (as president). I was no fan of him at the time, but I felt like I was the only democrat in the room and felt so out of place.

When it came time for the actual prayer, the person praying did not say that and kept it a general prayer for leaders, which is fine. So it didn’t go as bad as it could have. But I started to distance myself and stopped going in October. I knew I couldn’t be there around the election. I just didn’t see why I would go back to that church.

 

Thrice is probably the best “Christian” band I listen to. Obviously, they never really fell under that label in any official capacity like Anberlin/Relient K, but a lot of lyrics make Dustin’s faith clear. This may be more of a band led by a Christian than a Christian band. But I’m sure most here get it.

I have this distinct memory back shortly after the Alchemy Index came out. I went on songmeanings for The Messenger and I’ll never forget someone confidently saying it was about bombs being dropped. Meanwhile, Dustin is quoting Isaiah haha

 

Oh I forgot about Thrice, I very much do fuck with them.

I am full-on atheist now, but I grew up in the Lutheran church. Thankfully most of that denomination is just an excuse for old people to get coffee with their friends on Sunday mornings.

I definitely remember frustrating my confirmation teachers with questions that were too big for them to answer.

 

I remember a lot of "unspoken" prayer requests in youth group. It seemed to range from "I have something I legitimately don't want to talk about" to "I don't actually have a thing, but I like that you think I do". Ah. Teens.

Since Acquire the Fire was mentioned, did anyone else ever attend a Dare2Share conference? I have some very guilty memories about that.

 

I mostly went to Younglife camps. I went as a student in high school and was a leader for middle schoolers a couple times and high schoolers once.

I’m sure if I could go back and listen to their speakers I might find things I think are wrong. But young life was so focused on make everything comfortable and fun that I feel like they probably played it pretty tame.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with Younglife, it’s basically a Christian camp for spoiled rich kids.

 

Recovering Catholic here. A goofier story to start out:

We had a “retreat” as 8th graders before confirmation which was just 5 hours in the church rec room with Catholic teenagers doing weird skits. To teach us about the whole “sex with one person is like sex with everyone they’ve had sex with” lesson, they glued a piece of blue paper to a piece of pink paper and then tore them apart and had us count how many pieces of pink paper we could still see on the blue paper and vice versa

 

Not my story but a friend had to do the Oreo thing where each kid gets an Oreo and then spits into the same cup and they’re shown how black it is.

 

I think our youth group did something with adding something to water that made it all black. Maybe? That could’ve been about sin in general. They were very seeker friendly, so that topic may have been saved for smaller group discussions.

My favorite attack on those sort of activities comes from Matt Chandler. He went to a young adult event where the speaker passed a rose around while he was speaking. Once the rose got back up to him, it had been kind of beating due to being a fragile item handled by a hundred people or whatever. So his point was that who would want that rose now? All beaten up and used? He reflects back that the obvious answer is Jesus. Jesus wants the rose! These kind of things just don’t hold up at all.

Have to say also, I recently found out Chandler’s wife was younger than him and they met when she was underage and he said he knew that he would marry her. They just had to wait until the right time. Pretty sure he was the speaker at a camp she was attending. Oof.

 

I’m sorry, WHAT? I’ve never heard of that. That’s so gross

 

Cool huh? If you share Oreos with someone you’re basically eating all the Oreos of everyone they’ve ever shared Oreos with


Or something

 

I’d assume the intent was when you mix the pure with the unpure, it’s now all unpure. Or some shit like that.

 

dustin did the modern post for a bit, too. great renditions. that unfortunately happened during the whole driscoll / mars hill fiasco. crazy he’s still allowed to preach the gospel.

 

Remember when Chevelle albums somehow made it into the C28 stores in the mall?

Anyone else remember C28?

 

I remember getting a laugh out of the Zao album called The Funeral of God being in a Lifeway

 

i remember spotting Paramore's Riot! at a local Christian bookstore, which was kind of funny

 

the amount of times I prayed the salvation prayers at acquire the fire to get that sweet dopamine and validation

 

I mean, they played a huge mega church in that era. Not a full show, but, yea…

I swear I recall seeing a legit recording of this back in the day. It’s either been scrubbed offline or I am not remembering correctly.

 

oh for sure, i knew back then people thought that since they were Christians that they could sell the album, but it still felt odd at the time given the controversy with the lyrics Misery Business

 

Shaming someone you would consider a sinner is very much the “Christian” way.

 

yeah I mean the premise is slut shaming and saying the guy will end up with me because I’m a good girl which to piggyback on your point is def the Christian way (at least at the time)

 

I don't think mine is super dramatic, but the final straw that let to me leaving the Southern Baptist church I had been attending was a prayer request for someone who caught "the China virus", and realizing that not only did the person feel comfortable making this type of comment as an announcement to the whole congregation, but that there was no pushback.
Seems like a small thing, but something about that scenario just took me over the edge.
I have been looking into the Episcopal church, but committing to a denomination doesn't seem like the right move for me at the moment.

 

album rules so hard

 

I was involved in church for my whole life until about 28-29 (now 36). My doubt started while working at Christian summer camp, which I had attended as a camper a lot before. Mewithoutyou’s catch for the foxes was the first time I’d heard someone even question that this wasn’t the one way of life. Heavily involved with the Christian hardcore scene and eventually toured with a couple bands in the scene. Worked at churches and a non profit record label. Went to Christian school 1-12 grade and a Nazarene college. I just stopped going after a while. I went on warped tour one year and met so many people who were atheists and so much better people than the Christian’s I knew. Still took me a few years to leave the church just because it was all I knew. All my friends were there. But after a while, I just got jaded and bored by all of it. I honestly miss playing music every week. That’s what I miss the most.

 

The best job I ever had was running the band for our kid’s summer camp. I worked it 6 years, but played bass one year and then ran the band the next two years. Got to play a 4 song set in the morning and 8-10 song set every weekday. Then we got to play a couple songs during Sunday service on the big stage with in ear monitors and such.

Living the dream at the time. Getting to choose what new songs to bring in, running auditions/rehearsals, making set lists, and the actual playing. Sunday would be in front of like 2k people.

Two churches back, at a much much smaller church (75-100ish), they asked me to play bass every Sunday and it was fun to play with people again after having not done so for like 9 years.

 

My wife bought me a bass and then we stopped going to church the next week I think. Haven’t used it since lol