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Sometimes, if you want to hear an interesting story, all you need is the right prompt. And this one on twitterasking people to share the worst church service they’ve ever attended was enough to inspire them to share all sorts of disturbing anecdotes.
There are so many answers that it’s hard to share them all, but I can group most of them into a few basic categories…
Pastor :
The visiting preacher lamented over dying churches and said it would be better if the people in them died and gave him the money so he could do good things with it.
— Joanna S (@stoneflour) July 18, 2022
The pastor was talking about being a godly woman. He says, “and I say to my daughter, see that woman over there. The one with the tight skirt. She’s a slut. A pious woman doesn’t dress like that.
— lucyzoe (@lucyzoe) July 17, 2022
The underlying beliefs:
A “healer” continued to lay hands (Benny Hinn style) on these two obviously indifferent teenagers…they didn’t want to fall, and he continued to push them all the way down the shrine aisle until they reached what they finally remain lying down.
—Joel Eastlick (@joeleastlick) July 17, 2022
Church camp when they paraded pregnant teens on stage so they could cry and tearfully beg us not to have sex https://t.co/q41HyMbVVN
— Dale Nixon (@ole_cv) July 19, 2022
Hate and hypocrisy:
The one where I was given this program. Note the highlighted paragraph at the bottom. It was so bad that I’ve been saving it since it was given to me in the 90s as an encore. Never again. pic.twitter.com/C9tBtAZky0
— Tim Dillinger (@timdillinger) July 18, 2022
Christmas Eve service. The associate pastor gave a scorching sermon on the dangers of “liberal” Bible interpretation and *ripped pages from the Bible* to make his point. (We later found out he had a secret second family.)
— Allison (she) wears a mask 😷 (@allisonata1) July 18, 2022
What’s interesting about the answers is how many of the answers involve self-inflicted hurt by church leaders. Many of the speakers would probably have stayed in their churches, but something happened that pushed them out. They weren’t atheists. It wasn’t something in the Bible. It was a choice made religious leaders. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Will any church leaders learn from these answers? Probably not. Their loss.