Outreach

Gospel Gimmicks: The Witness Stick®

96 Comments

Now you can have the wordless book emblazoned on a fine walking stick so that you can witness to those you encounter on your hikes around your neighborhood. I’d recommend you speak softly if you’re going to carry it.

(This is one of many bits of material that Don gathered and sent me from the national Sword of the Lord conference. There will no doubt be more to follow.)

96 thoughts on “Gospel Gimmicks: The Witness Stick®”

      1. That was in the conference package. Yes, the conference package, a veritable cornucopia of fundie goodness. 🙄

        2. Just the ad, but I would hazzard a guess that there was one on display somewhere in the exhibit hall.

          There is only so much fundie you can take at a time and the god marketing for profit in the exhibit hall was just too over the top for me to go in there more than once this year. 🙄

    1. Dern you Rob….I meant “Witness Stick” but I was typing fast cuz I could just “feel” someone else posting at the same time as me!!! 🙂

      You win this time Rob!!!

  3. What? Someone asking “What kind of stick is that” is an invitation to “share your faith”?? What??

    1. Why is your shoddy looking walking stick poorly spray painted in some kind of psychotic color array?

    2. That’s like saying that a friendly, “Hi, how are you” from a neighbor as you’re walking down your street means you can walk into their kitchen and grab a soda. =P

  4. I’m a little surprised they acknowledge the existence of wristbands and necklaces, seeing how men aren’t supposed to wear such worldly things. And let’s face it – at the SotL conference, that’s what everything is geared towards by default, unless otherwise noted.

    1. Perhaps these fundies who don’t like bracelets and necklaces for men (I don’t either, really) wanted an alternative? Besides, everybody else is carrying around walking sticks these days!

      1. Are you serious?
        I haven’t seen anybody carrying a walking stick lately, except for blind people, people with serious mobility impairments, and hikers on mountain trails.

        2. Some times on flat desert hikes too. Good for getting the branches of a palo verde out of the way, helping yourself up the sides of an arroyo, snake handling, or fending off coyotes or bobcats! (Fortunately, I’ve only had to use mine for the first 2 items on that list.) :mrgreen:

  5. Stuff like this reminds me of these verses:

    Matthew 21:12-13
    Then Jesus went into the temple of God[a] and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’[b] but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

    2. But just think how much cooler that scene would have been if He had only had a cool colored stick to use when He did that…

  6. The lyrics to Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” just popped into my head. 😀

    “Here comes Johnny and he’ll tell you the story
    Hand me down my walkin’ shoes
    Here come Johnny with the power and the glory
    Backbeat the talkin’ blues.”

    1. If the gold was a bit more yellow, it could also be a rasta (that is, Rastafarian) stick.

    2. Yes, that would be my first question if I saw a white person carrying one: “Er . . . is that a Kwanzaa stick?” I would be thinking that it was an act of cultural appropriation and as a fellow whitey I would want to warn them that they were being tacky.

      If the white person happened to be college age I wouldn’t even talk to them. Just another Rasta faddie.

  8. “Though your sins be as scarlet..though they be red like crimson”….never mind, my stick says sin is black.

  9. I would love it if “witnessing” tools were things a person could actually use.

    Go to a dark bus stop and pass out free keychain flashlights. On a hot summer day, pull up with bottles of water. Flu season? Packets of Kleenex. And THE ONLY witnessing would be giving an extra item with the request, “Please pass it on–that’s what Jesus asks us to do.”

    1. We’ve given water bottles and otter pops out in the park on hot Tucson summer days! The neighborhood Community Christian Church operates a food bank. And the Salvation Army is all about practical. Wonder why it seems like it’s always more “liberal” and “worldly” churches than the Fundies that do stuff like that?

        1. Yep! Or the Southern Baptist Convention – I’ve heard fundies call the SBC liberal! 🙄

  10. We made something similar to this in Bible Camp one summer. It wasn’t a stick, but several pieces of construction paper put together to form a little “book” with the appropriate colors. We were told that once we had won someone to the Lord, we could cut our little book in half and give it to the new convert so that they, too, could go out and witness.

    I guess the smaller your book, the better soul-winner you were.

    1. After about ninety consecutive cuts (or souls ‘won’), you’ve reached the subatomic level! Very helpful if you’re witnessing to the Atom. 😉

  11. “Since 1992 these sticks have been effectively used . . . ”

    Hmmmm??? Really??? Well since roughly 30 AD “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” has worked more effectively. See your good works, not hear your erudite words, nor see your big stupid colored toothpick.

  12. At the county fair, we had something called The Storytime Caboose, or something like that. Anyway, it was a caboose and they would tell Bible stories to the kids in it. I remember at least one year they handed out bracelet kits with a leather thong (no, not THAT kind of thong) and 5 plastic beads of the colors of the wordless book as well as a paper that explained it. I saw several of the kids wearing the beaded bracelets – I think that makes a lot more sense than a colored walking stick for adults!

  15. $25, plus S&H? Really. Does shipping and handling include some guy walking out in the woods and picking up the stick? If they’re so pumped about their stick’s conversion capablitites, why does it cost $24.99 more than what it’s worth?? I have a feeling Stokes Mayfield “Stoker” has a few wooded acres.

    1. That was my first thought (after ‘WHAAAAAAT!’). Anybody can go get a stick and paint it, why would we pay $25 for one? Maybe we can’t be as good of a witness with a homemade stick.

    2. I’ve picked up lots of sticks that are good walking sticks, even out here in the desert! 😆

  16. LOL!! I just noticed it’s COPYRIGHTED!! So…no one is allowed to duplicate The Witness Stick, or Stoker will sue you. Classic.

    1. Is he going to sue all the trees that are growing sticks, or only the people who spray-paint sticks?

    2. Wait, that’s not a (C), it’s an (R), meaning “registered trade mark.” So I guess you only get sued if you call your stick a “Witness Stick.” If you call it a “gimmick that gets paint on your hands,” you’re in the clear.

  17. There was a boy in our youth group who came to Wednesday night Youth Prayer & Praise Service because his grandmother brought him. We thought his heart had really been transformed because he started selling bracelets with the Wordless Book on them in bead form. He was teaching all the girls how to use them for witnessing. Then, we figured out he was just doing it to make money and hold hands. He was told not to do that any more. He never came back. I never got one because I had already memorized The Romans Road and just used my Bible.

    1. ooooo, CMG what are you doing us so late? More importantly why are you on the interwebs at this hour? hummmmmm? tsk,tsk

      1. She’s doing the proper thing, Don – by checking the internet to make sure her fiance’s not placing any evil before his eyes… :blush:

  18. Why are the sticks painted in descending order?
    Which way is this stick pointing people? 😯

    btw I loved the line:

    “They have been seen on mountain trails and along the beaches, and in the backs of pickup trucks.“

    I would have been more impressed it it has read, “and on the gun racks of pickup trucks.”

    Yep, God Marketing at its very best…

    1. BTW, the silhouette sure looks like a caveman wearing a dress to me. Is it possible these people believe in evolution & condone cross dressing? 🙂 😯

  19. Regardless of the fact that I don’t believe that there is a Hell that people need saving from, I find it pretty obscene that there are people out there that do believe in that and are willing to make a buck off of it.

  20. I’m amused by the silhouette. It reminds me of John the Baptist, but I don’t think he had a Witness Stick.

    The mysterious figure apparantly is wearing a skirt or robe, is barefoot, has a hunchback, is bearded, has medium length hair worn in a flip, and has a rather slender arm. Could it be a Neanderthal with a Witness Stick?

    1. You beat me to it, pw. I think the Evolutionists crossdressers have secretly invaded SOTL! Beware the wolves in sheep clothing! 🙂 LOL

    2. I made a similar comment last night, but the server spit my comment back out for some reason. What’s that dude in a dress doing in their ad?

  23. Designed for Christians huh? Beats all those plain simple woodden walking sticks of Satan I have seen everywhere. Instead of just using it as a conversation piece maybe they could use it to, you kinow, walk with and try to combat the unhealthy and disrespectful way most fundimentalists treat their bodies.

    1. These sticks were designed by Christians, and are much better for them to use, than all the sticks God designed. Those suck without being improved on by a Christian…

      🙂

  24. Your Witless Stick can be used to stun your prey, I mean potential convert, before you get serious and smack them upside their head with your AV 1611.

  25. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no “Witness stick“, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Lukester 22:36 (King James Embellished)

  26. Shouldn’t there be an actual cane version for the infirm and stylish? Complete with self-defense instructions. 😉

  27. I picture an old person trying to talk to the neighborhood kiddies. (and the children running home in fear)

  28. Sadly the “witness stick’ is probably being use by some sadist fundie parent to spank their children.

  30. This is awesome. Ha ha. I just finished reading Portofino by Frank Schaffer, fiction yet very much based on his real childhood. He talks about The Gospel Walnut and his mother’s awkward yet persistent encounters with people.

    1. Now I’ve got images in my mind of Mr. Witness-Stick-in-a-dress-guy sauntering about town to that jovial little ditty. 😆 Did you mean “effective use” in getting everyone to cross the street to get away from you? 😉

  32. This is actually a good deal for $24.99. For that bargin price and with this arborous off-fall, you can proclaim that you can officially remove splinters from others’ eyes because the rod is in your hand and that guarantees that you do not have a beam in your eye.

  33. Must the man wear the dress as demonstrated in the picture to effectively carry the stick? Or is that a woman with immodestly short hair?

  34. Since it’s already been used for 30 years, I’d love to hear stories from people who have used one and all the witnessing opportunities they have gotten from it. And how often exactly they had people come up and ask them to tell them about their stick.

    Sure is a heck of a lot easier than going out and doing good works, visiting those in chains, or caring for the widows and oppressed.

  35. How about a set of wordless-color-coded shot glasses? After five shots, the guy next to you at the bar will confess to anything. You (clever witnesser) call the shots. I think I’m on to something….

  36. I was just thinking about somebody asking someone about their “walking stick”. I can only see THAT happening if someone had an intricately carved or exceptionally beautiful one, not a plain one with colored bands! 🙄

  39. It’s a measure of how far the stick goes. The farther you can shove it up your own ass, the more spiritual you are.

  40. What strikes me first and foremost is that this is not a walking stick. A thin stick that zigzags like that will snap at those dramatic bends if you try to use it to actually help you walk and put any amount of weight on it. (I have back problems and need to use a stick to get any distance, so this jumps out at me.)

    That said, an actual good and nice-looking walking stick will indeed get people coming up and asking about it. Mine has lovely twisting patterns from insects that lived under the bark when it was on the tree, and it’s not uncommon for people at bus stops or on lines to ask if I carved it myself. Somehow I don’t foresee this thing getting that kind of attention, though.

  41. Its funny how someone would get so mad about someone else expressing there personal beliefs, If this was rainbow colored and called a gay pride stick would there be any issue on this site. I think not. And of there were they would instantly be called homophobic so does that mean the opposite would be a phobia of christianity? I wonder.

    1. The Witness Stick ad is more comparable to saying that a carrying a rainbow-colored stick is an effective way to change straight people who see it into gay people.

      If you said that, I would, indeed, make fun of you. I wouldn’t be mad, any more than I’m mad at the Witness Stick; I’d just be laughing myself silly.

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