127 thoughts on “txtspk”

    1. It’s been a long time since I had a first; I’d like to thank specifically the person who called a wrong number and woke me up in the wee hours of the morning.

      1. Oh, no!

        Then again, I got a text the other day saying, “This is [familiar first name]. Can you help a friend?” I asked what she needed. The reply? Could I hook her up with some drugs. 😯

        Wrong number.

        4. I knew someone would say, “What an opportunity for soul-winning! You could say, ‘I have no drugs, but I have something better– Jesus. Let me tell you about the Romans Road.'”

    2. I live in York, PA. This church regularly drops off their teens in my neighborhood for weekly visitation.

  6. Interesting; their calendar does not show a soul-winning time… don’t see how they can have an attachment to JH w/o this activity. They have a teen soul-winning each Wed before service, but (from the calendar), that seems to be it.

  7. Sure, dump your kids on us! We know exactly what to do with the children of distant, preoccupied parents, especially once we get them on our turf!

    2. This concept of appealing to parents to dump their kids on the church to be rid of them for awhile is just so out of tune with what the Bible teaches about parents and children. These same churches criticize and condemn these parents for an over-reliance on the church to raise their kids right, but then look at what the church acutally practices . . . wanna get rid of your kids for a while? Send them to us. Scares the crap out of me……. 😡

    1. Since all children have to take their diapers off, maybe they should call it the Nudist Club instead.

  10. My teenage daughter assures me that txt spk is so uncool now no young person uses it anymore.

    Why would anyone entrust their children to people who use so many fonts anyway?

    1. Why would anyone entrust their children to people who use so many fonts anyway?

      That cracked me up. Thanks!

        1. I bet somewhere out there is some footage of a preacher screaming and ranting against other churches using “the world’s” fonts to appeal to the lost. Them queer letters ain’t gonna get nobody saved, haymen, because God is not the author of confusion, haymen?

          (Our church came dangerously close to this one year when I suggested to the youth pastor that we print our VBS doorhangers and he said, no, we had to write them all out by hand. Something about a “personal touch” or whatever.)

        2. DS, how many flyers did you guys have to hand write? That is insane. Our church used to do flyers every year but we passed out about 5000 at one time. They were definitely printed. There was no way I’d be handwriting ’em.

        3. D’S, surprised you didn’t have to pluck feathers from the goose and mix your own gall and carbon for the ink. 🙄

        5. Hay-men Big G.

          Yes, we had to do . . . I think it was 500 . . . door-hangers every year. Our lazy youth pastor would get up and say, “now you know my handwriting is so bad and we don’t want to keep people from the gospel just because they can’t read the invites, so do I have volunteers to fill out the info on the door-hangers?” My mother would always volunteer to do them all and then leave them on my desk at home and make me do them. One year, it occurred to me that we could just set up our inkjet printer to print them all so I did one to show the youth pastor and got chewed out for wasting one of the door-hangers and wasting the church’s money and that we needed to fill them out BY HAND ONLY! I was actually told that the door-hanger I had “ruined” couldn’t be hung on anyone’s door and what if that person would have come to church and gotten saved!!! 😯

        7. If I got a hand written door hanger, I would would think that they were too cheap to print it professionally.

        8. I hope you’re satisfied, young man. Your foolish frippery with a worldly printer-machine has doomed someone to Burn In Hell Forever!! 🙄

          Getting back to your mother, wow! She must really be a piece of work.
          Deacon’s Son, have you ever thought of writing a memoir about your youth? I think it could be a hit of the magnitude of “Mommy Dearest” or “Running With Scissors.” Those moms had nothing on yours.
          Shucks, I’ll even ghost-write it for you if you want.

        9. D’S: On the plus side, I hope it improved your penmanship. Too bad you couldn’t tell the pastor that maybe the “ruined” ie, printed flyer might have been able to be used saving a computer geek.
          Sometimes you can’t win. 🙄

        10. Big G, every time I think of writing my memoirs, my mother goes and does something else so epic, so crazy, that I realize that my thoughts of reducing her exploits to writing are premature. Just today, for instance, a young female family member had her first lady doctor visit and my mother informed her that she had lost her virginity because she let someone “touch her before her wedding night.”

        12. You know, DS, your posts always make me (a) laugh, (b) cry, and (c) appreciate the reminder that my own Fundy upbringing could have been worse. I think hard-core Gothard is marginally worse than hard-core Hyles, even though they both come with crushing guilt, perfectionism, and self-condemnation.

        13. Deacon’s son,

          Now I am worried about the young lady who was told that by your Mother. Does she realize your mother is being insane, or is she upset about her mean comment?

    2. I only counted five fonts (seven sizes) in eleven lines of text.
      By Fundy flyer standards, that’s fairly restrained.

      1. Yes, most fundies think “seventy times seven” is a biblical command pertaining to fonts. (Well . . . we KNOW they don’t think it has anything to do with forgiveness, so it must mean SOMETHING!)

  11. I remember when I was a teen back in the 1970s, we’d kind of looked down on the parents, who used church as a baby sitting service on Sunday morning. Now, it’s part of the advertising at this church. In 80s and 90s, when churches were getting out of the bus ministry, part of the reasoning was that the bus ministry was just a baby sitting service.

    1. Dost thou dare to imply the old ways are wrong? Haven’t you read about the bus ministry in Acts of the apostles?

      1. It is actually in Luke 14:23…at least that is how I heard fundies interpret it. It is amazing what one can recall 30+ years after getting out.

        1. Oh my. I’ll never get over how they pick and choose verses to take out of context whenever they want.

      2. Read “The Philippian Fragment”, by Calvin Miller- a chapter written by the scribe, Eusebius tells of the “chariot ministry”, by the church pastored by “Hylus”.

    2. I’m sure they still look down on these parents. No fundy would ever admit that they were tired of their children because that would insinuate that they weren’t applying their “Godly” discipline often enough. As we all know, all GOOD children are sweet. No, they are simply using this as a bait and switch. “We’ll secretly bolster our numbers while brainwashing your children right under your nose!”

      1. What disturbs me is how they are suggesting (I think) that parents use Sunday School as a daycare while not (I assume) attending the church themselves. That right there is what is wrong with “bus ministry.” They want the kids, not the dirty, sinful parents. Kids are better for boosting numbers and making “decisions” anyway.

        1. Children make decisions so easily because their brains haven’t finished developing. That the fundy church isn’t able to reach adults goes to show that they don’t have anything that is either reasonable or genuine to share.

          (And yes, I’m a christian. But what the fundy churches sell is very different).

        2. I agree with you. That is why I have always been skeptical of the Child Evangelism Fellowship with all their stats about how most people “get saved” (whatever that means) before the age of 10 or whatever.

        3. “Children make decisions so easily because their brains haven’t finished developing.”

          Fundamentalists are perfectly aware of this, which is why they target children and teens. Youngsters tend to be more malleable than adults. Now I’m having scary flashbacks of “Jesus Camp” …

        4. Pretty much any religion or denomination trains their kids while they’re young….

        5. Edith Griffin (Griffith) shared with me the gospel in early 1973. A classmate in the 3rd grade shared with us (in our public school classroom at Hackberry Elementary school no less!) that his parents were hosting a Bible study on Tuesday afternoons.

          I went for the free cookies (no bake) and acceptance. It was the first time I had heard about Jesus Christ and his work, along with the apostles ministry in Acts. This wonderful woman led me to Christ at that home one day! I will never forget the change in my life and how God worked despite the lack of concern or involvement of my parents.

          Edith was with Child Evangelism Fellowship. Although my parents had no problems “handing me off,” I will always be grateful in this case. They later shipped me off to a First Baptist Church in our area when the Sunday School bus whould show up on Sunday mornings.

  12. Wow. They seem so hip and trendy. I wish I was a kid again so I could go to their super phat VBS. 🙄

  13. What parent in their right mind would entrust a child in the hands of a Hyles sycophant? Seriously? You’d almost be better off leaving them at the local NAMBLA meeting…at least there they make no pretense about who/what they are.

    1. Most people outside of fundamentalism don’t know what’s going on within fundamentalism.

      Then again, most people within fundamentalism don’t know (or refuse to believe) what’s going on within fundamentalism.

  14. They only want to babysit your kids if they are out of diapers. I guess they don’t want my disabled 5 year old coming. We couldn’t have them have to do too much actual work.

    1. Don’t judge them too harshly. It’s just because they don’t want extra padding there during spankings.

      1. Yeah you got a point. In fact fundy churches told me my son wasn’t disabled, he was just in need of more spankings. He’s 5 now and still doesn’t understand very much.

        2. He’s five NOW??? As in, they wanted you to spank him younger than age 5!?! Sadists!!!

    2. It’s sad. I know I tell a lot of stories about my mother one here, but this is one time she actually got something right. She found out that a little girl in the pre-school VBS class was wearing adult women’s underwear from her mom because that was all they could afford. So, my mother went out and got the little girl some underwear in her size.

      1. That warms my heart, about your mother. 🙂 If only she’d been more able to use her powers for good.

  15. When I used to help out on the Sunday School buses at my church as a teenager, it would break my heart to see parents sending their kids to church, sometimes pre-K age, and using the church as a baby sitter. It now breaks my heart that a church would encourage parents to do so.

  17. I’m setting the line at “Dr.” Trout’s degree being earned at 1,000,000 to 1. Any takers?

        1. BG – I take it that you are a Vonnegut fan like myself. Do you also find many similarities between the students at Tarkington College (from Hocus Pocus) and the typical FundyU?

    3. That degree is genYOUine and printed with real paper and signed by real people that can spell their name … kinda

  18. Translation of subtext:
    “Look, we know that you barely tolerate your kids and you are glad to get rid of them so you can have some crackhead alone time, so why not dump them on us so we can earn some brownie points with Gid.”

    or something roughly to that effect, I’m a little rusty at my IFBspeak. The longer I’m away from it the more it fades into irrelevance.

  19. I have a feeling that the number 5 that appears all over the clip art of the bus was added at the same time the name of the church was added to the side of the bus. It’s like, oooh, look, we have FIVE busses running!!! Yay us!!

    1. From their church’s pictures, it seems that they run a lot more than just five busses.

  20. Dear SFL Reader:

    Wasn’t the whole congregation of Ysra’el supposed to hear the reading of the whole book of the law?

    There’s something fishy here, Dr. Trout.

    Christian Socialist

  21. Ugh; THAT’s where I went to Fundy church!

    I can’t comment other than to say it’s a Hyles church — extrapolate on your own.

    1. Really, Don? I dated a Bricker and went to some of there banquets. Their new church is super close to my parents’ house.

      1. Bonnie used to babysit for us. Saw her at the York Fair last year. My daughter and Charity were best friends; attended Charity’s wedding in fact.

        I left Bible Baptist to move the Dayton to go to Charity Baptist Bible Institute.

        Finally; I’m related to Brian Darbrow.

  22. A photo on their website shows a line of busses. I counted 18, but the line went on beyond the photo. I also noticed that they have thoughtfully and prominently placed a “Donate” button on their website. What with the price of gas and all…

      1. Dr., you are correct (as usual), but hit a nerve. How about a larger man (think Tony Soprano with a shaved head) in a made-to-measure Brioni?

      2. Unless it’s a fine silk pocket square emerging from the top of the pocket in a subtle arcing fold, and it complements your tie, stuff that snot rag down where it can’t be seen. The ‘fundigami’ (nod to Don) four point is ridiculously pretentious.

  24. In all seriousness, the Blue Denim and Lace reference is really bothering me. Here is a little snippet from Chapter 24:
    “Keep your body straight. It is very important that a Christian should learn how to walk properly and sit properly. No Christian should be slouchy. In our family altar we have taught our children such habits. We have had our girls to practice [sic] walking across the room. We have taught them to walk like girls and sit like girls [which is why one daughter now identifies her father – the writer – as a cult leader, and the other – using Hyles’ logic – didn’t do enough to satisfy her husband so he had no choice but to have illegal sexual relations with a 16-year-old]. We have taught our boy to walk with a manly walk and sit with a manly posture [and he would up being a serial adulterer and had a child die under questionable circumstances]. Keep the body straight. It’s God’s. Let it be a good testimony.”

    With a track record like that, who wouldn’t want to follow Jack’s advice?

    1. It just never stops being funny that David Hyles’ father wrote books on how to raise perfect children.

      … And it never stops being tragic that there are still people who read them un-ironically.

    2. Wow! Here the last 20 years or so I’ve thought I came up with my obsession with sitting up straight all by myself, but it probably started with reading that book when I was about 11. I will now stop feeling guilty about having started to slouch about 12 years ago. Thank you for that quote!

  26. The text speak is horrendous, but to then follow it with poor grammar leads me to wonder why “Dr.” Trout thinks he should be entrusted to teach children.

    I detest text speech, but putting that aside, someone in the church office should know when to use “a” and “an”.

    Why look ignorant on top of silly?

  27. Oh gosh. Our pastor worshipped JH and we had Blue Denim & Lace. I hated it. I couldn’t cook or sew and I’m no good at making collages or decoupage (sp?) or what have you. Plus we had to wear those stupid vests. Even after all the other girls eventually dropped the uniform, I still wore it because my mom made me and I was the dutiful little goody-goody girl. Yuck!
    Hyles visited our church when I was elementary school age and never came back because we were supporting a pastor he did not approve of. Yep that’s Hyles’ ego for you! Oddly enough, that sort of behavior did not make my pastor stop and think of what kind of man he was worshipping. Our church kept on with the Hyles way of doing everything–the only RIGHT way, hay-men? Soul-winning, buses, all his books, Blue Denim & Lace, Baptist Boys Battalion…I think my pastor read the Hyles church manual book cover to cover. I think he could quote it.
    So many bad flashbacks with this post.

  28. Also I remember the pastor bought the BD&L book for all the girls who were in BD&L. I remember being so excited about getting a new book to read..until I started reading it and it bored me to tears.

  29. Hey where is Charles Stover on this particular piece of blasphemy? Oh that’s right he is still whining about his parents and their church over at EZEKIEL3 where he is getting the intellectual whipping of his short miserable life. Or maybe his parents called pleaded that he stay off sites that promote damnable heresy. 😆 Bro. Ray

    1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

      1. Charles, I respect what you’re doing there, but it’s ultimately unsatisfying to have a battle of wits with an unarmed foe.

      2. Fwhoa! Look out, Charles; he’s got you on the ropes!

        *doesn’t suppress the giggling*

      3. Charles, more power to you, but you remind me why I quit talking to these people about 10 years ago. Willful stupidity is the only true stupidity.

  33. Thanks for the link, I found Charles’ attempts to be patient with such a fool to be an encouragement to me.

    1. I can’t find any reference to race in the poster.

      Am I being naive?

      Or are you bringing outside background knowledge to your reading of the poster?

  35. I live near this church and pass it quite often. I also have a few friends from elementary school who attend there. Pastor Trout (uncle of LA Angels phenom Mike Trout) is a Hyles grad; but from what I can understand, they are not a typical strict Hyles church. I know that pants are tolerated and that church members go to movies without incident. I do know that they have a fleet of buses parked behind the building; but they are quite distant from a traditional Hyles church. (disclaimer: I’ve never been there, but I’ve never heard anyone really bash them).

  36. It’s finally happened!! A church that I know about and have been to has made it to SFL. While I didn’t attend this church often, I did date a guy from it and went to several of their banquets.

    They are very much a “Hyles” church and a bit too liberal in their music for my parents. Yes, I came from that conservative of a home.

    Anytime I see a post on SFL about churches who over-do patriotism, I think of this church. Their parking lot is full of flags anytime there’s a holiday. I can’t imagine what the sanctuary looks like.

    The have an ACE school about which I’ve heard not-so-good things about. A friend from high school transferred from there and had some interesting stories!

  37. I grew up in this church. (left fundyism around 2006)

    in fact, within a few guesses I could probably tell you who made this.

    I’m not sure if I should be proud or sad they made it on here. 😉

  38. “ur kidz”? Seriously? Are you trying to appeal to the “kidz” or to their parents? Text-speak is so horrid that I would find this a big turn-off and read no further. But anyway, why would I put my children in the hands of a cult that would indoctrinate and brainwash them?

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