God Bless America Independent Baptist Tabernacle
Order of Service For the Annual Fourth of July Service
Opening Choir Number: God Bless America
Invocation: Dr. Hezekiah J. Puttermaster (wherein he shall ask God to smite the liberals in government, media, and the local zoning board on the hip and thigh and restore our country to the Christian Nation that it might have been if it ever had been one.)
Hymn #1: Medley: You’re a Grand Old Flag & Yankee Doodle Dandy
Hymn #2:We’re God’s Favorite Land (And we have the nukes to prove it)
All Rise for the Presentation of the United States Flag, Baptist Flag, and The Pastor’s Personal Battle Flag by our church honor guard. Remain standing through the playing of the National Anthem.
Brief Remarks by City Council Member Leonard DiAugstino who (although we suspect he is Catholic) is in a tight race this November and needs votes.
Hymn #3 Oh GOP Stand Fast Against the Raging Foe
Special Music: We Need A Blessing On This Land (And A Wall Across The Border).
Sermon: “Promises Made To Israel That We’d Like To Think Are About Us.”
Closing Prayer: SFC Colby Brainard, United States Army(HOOAH!) who as he ends will actually mention Jesus for the first time this service.
Hooah! Isn’t that a Marine thing not Army?
This is funny Darrell. Keep up the satire. I love it.
Hooah is Army, Hoorah is USMC. Semper Fi!
You forgot the monolgue about our Christian (Baptist?) Founding Fathers. Otherwise, exactly the reason we didn’t go to my in-laws’ (tiny, IFB) church this AM.
Darrell, you have got to do a post on dispy fundy churches using OT terms in their church names, e.g. “Baptist Tabernacle” and “Baptist Temple.” That has always struck me as odd.
@Robert. Hooah is Army (and sometimes Air Force although some have taken to yelling “Air Power”), Ooh-rah or Hoo-rah is the Marines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorah_%28Marines%29
Ya know, I used to think I was so alone in my repulsion of evangelical nationalism. But I’m finding more and more people who agree. Thank you for this. I would’ve laughed, but it hit too close to home.
Wow that was fast.
@ Amanda; hey my church has temple in its name. Besides that in I Cor 6 the bible does call the church the temple of God.
It was a grand service. Made you “Proud to be an American” (Which was the closing hymn btw.) The Fly Over by the Blue Angels and the Golden Knights jumping in for the Dinner was awe-inspiring.
We were ready to charge hell, (or at least the Mexican border) with a squirt gun after that message! Amen?
After dinner we all started singing “God Bless America….. Again” since Charlie showed up with his fiddle.
And all God’s people said….. _ _ _ _!
I wonder if our Baptist friends north of the border sing “O Canada” in their worship services?
This patriotic “America is part of Christianity” nonsense really gets to me. Why churches feel it necessary to turn a worship service into a patriotic rally, I will never understand. I purposefully attended a reformed church this morning to avoid the inevitable “God Bless America” singing, the “America was a Christian nation” preaching, the American-flag-saluting, and the armed-forces-honoring that would have taken place at my home church.
In other words, I loved this post. It totally reflects my attitude towards this subject 😀
I attended a Reformed church this morning and we still sang “God Bless America” and had a military man pray for the nation. I don’t think this is just a dispy fundy thing ;-)…!
I’ve got no real issue with that to be honest. It’s when the entire service gets turned into a political parade that I get bothered.
I’ve been to quite a few like that both fundamentalist and SBC.
Yeah, this was the SBC church I attended last 4th to the letter. To. the. letter.
Except they did have a really, really smooth saxophone jazz solo for the offertory of “God Bless America.” That was pretty sweet.
@ Stan.
“I wonder if our Baptist friends north of the border sing “O Canada†in their worship services?”
We don’t.
That mess burns me up. I had to skip my church’s worship service this morning because it was filled with that type of garbage. And like Lou, I attend a quasi Reformed church, not a crazy IFB one. It’s really pitiful that we have turned our Great and Sovereign God into a sort of tribal deity of the USA.
Too funny!!! As a worship planner, I only do patriotic when July 4 falls on a Sunday. God trumps country.
You know it just would have been so much easier if Jesus had just said “America” at least once.
I’ll be honest–I enjoy patriotic services a lot more than other types and don’t have the slightest problem with them.
I was in a “preaching” service in Niagara Falls, Ontario back in the early 90’s when Pastor Cunningham (HAC Alumni), had Jack Hyles preach a July 4th weekend service. We sang both “O Canada” and “The Star Spangled Banner” at the start of the service. Jack Hyles was very impartial – he yelled at both the Canadians and the Americans to stop taking his picture and to sit down – no joke.
@ Richard Sullivan: AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
BTW I left you a comment on preaching to the converted.
@ Richard Sullivan: I did not exactly leave comments more like some questions?
Wow I am tired I commented on the wrong post THe first comment below Richards was to his comment on Sunbeam. It’s time to go to bed. goodnight all
“It’s really pitiful that we have turned our Great and Sovereign God into a sort of tribal deity of the USA.” Bo.
Bo, may I use that quote on my Twitter page?
Jeri
regarding the closing prayer:
as a child, I used to sit in sermons and count the number of times the word “Jesus” was said during the sermon….usually in the single digits….and my parents wonder why I left fundamentalism….
I don’t know how many times I counted the boards in the ceiling, the letters on the Bible verse above the baptistry (it was off center, and I always bothered me), and the lights in the room (FMA!).
@sarah We had a guy who said “Dear God Lord” constantly during his prayer and he was asked to pray for everything. We left to do some ministry, and came back a few years later and he prayed exactly the same way. We used to count them too and it was always around 15 or 16, but at least he got on with it. We had some of the longest prayers ever at that church.
@alm517 Unfortunately I used to be one of them 🙁 ……(snicker) I thought I was the only one who counted the DGL’s when he prayed. 🙂
@ Don LOL I didn’t call any names…:)
and no, you weren’t 😀 There were at least 2 others.
also, I was always terrified of falling asleep at the piano during those long winded prayers and my elbows hitting the keys so everyone would know. I mean, I really enjoy your story of storming Omaha Beach on D-Day and I can appreciate that you really want God to give you a senior pastorate when you’re in your 70s but you pray it every week for like 8 minutes…can we pray for something else this time?
My younger son was just an infant and I had a special needs 3 year old who still woke up crying every night and I was having all those health problems so I wasn’t getting much sleep at the time and I would hear some names called by the pastor and I’d just groan and try to imperceptibly shake my head to stay awake!
“I don’t know how many times I counted the boards in the ceiling, the letters on the Bible verse above the baptistry (it was off center, and I always bothered me), and the lights in the room (FMA!).”
I always counted the lights, the number of light bulbs in the light fixtures, the number of openings on those light fixtures, the panels on the wall, the number of plants on stage (they were NEVER placed symmetrically – boo!), the number of openings on the little half-wall in front of where the choir stood…I could go on but I think you get the idea. And people wonder why I left fundamentalism. Granted I still do that, but not nearly as much now that I’m out of fundamentalism.
The church most of my family still attends has/had this guy who uses/d “Lord” more liberally than most people use commas. “Lord we just want to thank you Lord for blah blah blah Lord blah blah blah Lord blah blah blah Lord blah blah blah Lord…” I would sit there counting all the “Lords” and the number was always well into the double digits!
And then of course there are the “justs.” “Lord we JUST want to…”
Those were always my favorite Sundays.
>>We had a guy who said “Dear God Lord†constantly during his prayer and he was asked to pray for everything. <<
Then they go and get all critical over those of us in liturgical churches with our beautiful written prayers.
@ Phil:
Left you some answers at “Preaching To The Converted”.
When I went to a church that was near a large military base, we had a lot of members who were in the armed forces. The church always had a big, patriotic ceremony for Memorial Day, but it made sense in context because these were the actual people that were putting their lives on the line for us by being in the military. They made somewhat less of a big deal out of Independence Day.
I’m not sure how I would feel if I were at a church with a different congregational makeup that did something like this. I know it wouldn’t feel right in my current church, even though I would say that I love America very much.
Alright, that made me giggle. Too true of so many churches I’ve been to. Not just fundamentalists. The hyper-charismatics tend to go that direction too. I have never felt comfortable with the American flag being in a place of equal standing with the Christian flag on podiums, and don’t even really understand why we need a “Christian flag” in the first place up there. ??? Patriotism is reasonable. Good citizenship and service of the country is honorable. Nationalism within the churches is a little scary.
“…The Pastor’s Personal Battle Flag by our church honor guard.”
That made me spit my tea out! That is so funny!
Two “pastors” came to mind when I read that. These two would most definately put in place an honor guard and design his own flag if the idea ever crossed their holier then thou, elitest minds.
One of these guys are soooooooo full of himself and his “authority” over HIS flock that he removes, yes removes, children from parents homes if he doesn’t like something the child is doing. You know, if the child is so “rebellious” that he/she would have the audaucity to choose to go to a college that the pastor does NOT approve of. He forbids the parents to speak to their children until the children come and applogize to him for not obeying him in every manner of life. Then and only then will he allow the children to return home. Sad thing is these so called parents do exactly as this nut job “pastor’ tells them too…no questions asked.
This nut job even refers to himself as Pastor King where ever he goes. I bet even his utitlity bill is in the name Pastor King. If you walked up to him today on the street….cold turkey…and asked him his name he’d say “Pastor King”
Why my sister and her family ever attended this church is ….welll it leaves me speechless. Praise God they finally saw that this guy is one messed up cookie and left. When I visited their church once I was sick through the whole service. This guy is on one ego trip after another. He demands that everyone learns a certain Bible verse each week. He starts SS out by asking each and everyone in attendance if they learned the verse and demands they say it, word perfect or he goes off on them. One by one he calls them out and they say their verses like good little soldiers.
Well, the day I was there one man did not know his verse. The people literally gasped when he said he didn’t know it. Pastor King’s face got red hot….and he blew! He tore into this man like there was no tomorrow. The man sat calmly…almost smuggly while he was being torn into. Finally, King finished his rant then the man said…..”and I won’t say it to you next Sunday either.” The crowd collectively shuffled in thier set. I was giddy with delight! Finally someone is going to stand up to this bully!!!!! Woopie!!!!
King look down upon the man, the man returned glares……then King moved on to the next person. BUT before King could call out the next person the brazen man called on King to say the verse to all of us. You guessed it….King couldn’t! After a few attempts at it, he finally conceded and blamed his wife for taking the verse list and not putting it back where he told her too.
You may wonder why almighty King allowed this man to remain in HIS church as did I. My sister said that King usually leaves this guy alone and would never chase him off because… Yep you guessed it….he is a big tither!
@ Sandra Yep, follow da monie!
Money, money, money! MONEY!
Dance my little monkies, dance! My interpretation of the Bible says you must support ME! Now Dance to my tune! Bwahahahahaha!!! All except you… you don’t have to dance if you don’t want to, you pay handsomely, you do not have to dance if you do not feel like it. You comfortabe? Ok?
All the rest of you DANCE! I command you Dance!
Woah, man I gotta quit taking those fundy side trips… got…. to …. get ……back to reality.
@Sandra Thanks GOD I’ve never seen/witnessed something like that. IDK whether I’d walk out, or just sit & stew. I really don’t know if I could handle being in something like that. Thank God your family finally left. Makes you wish people w/ that much whatever going on that they want to be dominated were more into acting it out other ways than religously. I’ve met better adjusted S&M wierdos than what I’m afraid would come out of that environment. Who on earth would let a Pastor take their kid out of their home?
Brilliant.
@ Don, LOL!
@ Rob, It was incredibly hard for me to sit through the whole morning “show”. During the second service I put a piece of gum in my mouth just to distract myself for a bit. The look of horror came across my sisters face. She leaned over and begged me to take it out. His majesty didn’t like gum chewing while he “preached”. She said he would call me out if he saw my chew gum…..I put another piece in my mouth and made sure he saw me do it. =) I was hoping he’d call me out, but he didn’t. I guess he knew he meet his match and I wouldn’t go down quietly!
i used to go to a church where the pastor would stop the service and lead the congregation in an impromtu recitation of the pledge of allegience. said the Spirit had moved him. or it could have been indigestion.
i told my wife that since our preacher was gone this past sunday, if the speaker was going to deliver a God and country sermon, i was leaving. thankfully, the speaker had been a missionary in malawi for the past 30 years and entitled his sermon, “what are you celebrating?” it wasn’t about God and country at all! rather, God and his kingdom. text was matthew 13:44.
I call it the “Christian Patriot Movement”. I don’t think it puts a positive image on God or on the USA. I’m a veteran and a Christian who doesn’t need it or want it. I swore an oath to defend this country and and have kept it. The patriot/ love of country thing is for those who need it and have not taken that oath. Just my opinion.