160 thoughts on “Church Promotional Videos: Hammond Edition”

    1. Well that was surprising.

      To the video…….Gotta love the Hyles spent the whole night in prayer while walking a frontage road. Who needs sleep anyway.

      SFL: Making stuff up to make them sound holier than you.

      1. It’s like the whole “evangelist getting up at 3:00 a.m. daily to read his Bible” dribble. Please. I bet he never even walked all night and prayed. . .And, if someone DID do that, doesn’t Jesus say it should be a PRIVATE matter?? The Pharisees were the ones making their prayer lives known.

      2. I lived a block away from that frontage road. I guarantee even then he did NOT walk alone on it. It is dark and scary. But I never believe ANYTHING he said now.

      3. If I wanted to spend the night in prayer, I doubt that a freeway frontage road is the place I would pick, but then, I also doubt that Hyles Anderson College is the answer I would come up with to the world’s problems.

        1. So… HAC is solving America’s problems? I must’ve missed something. When did this happen? Seems America is in a bigger mess than ever. 🙁

        3. What you may not know, is that Hyles billed himself, and HAC (when he opened it) as the “saving America” ministry. Vic Nischik hits this very thoroughly in his book, BTW, THE WIZARD OF GOD. IFB churches by the droves bought into that, in the early seventies and right on through to the mid-eighties, when the scandals started to break. So, dragging that old theme back into this bizarre video is apt, as the Hammond crowd’s thinking goes.
          Back in the day, JH liked us to think that he flew somewhere in America every single Monday morning, to preach at various churches, 52 weeks a year. He was, you see, saving America. I was told by a family member of his, in the late seventies, that this was not true. Though he was gone a lot, he had plenty of “blank weeks” where no one had wanted him. He would never let anyone know that, though, and like us all to think that he was so in demand that there was a waiting list. At my home church, my late pastor once told me that he had only been on a waiting list due to the particular week he wanted JH. There had been other weeks he could have chosen. By the early eighties, there definitely was not a long line of churches panting to get him.
          I was also told, in the seventies, that Falwell started the moral Majority in competition with JH’s goal of “saving America.” 🙄

        4. I wonder if both of them were started in competition with Jesse Jackson’s PUSH– People United to Save Humanity, which he later, presumably out of belated humility, changed to People United to Serve Humanity.

          What did the “BTW” in Nischik’s title stand for?

        5. That is an example of very poor composition on my part, and I apologize! That BTW is poorly placed. It is the acronym for “By the way.”

        8. Didja get it? Did ya? It was pretty funny, wasn’t it? You know… cause… get it? Ok, I cracked myself up seriously with that one.

      4. I once felt “led” to spend the entire night in prayer. It tortured the hell out of me. I tried two or three times, but always ran out of things to pray about after an hour or so. This went on for a month or two. And I was in college at that point; I needed my sleep. Still, I felt like I had failed God and was probably not even saved. That was pretty much the breaking point of the spiritual abuse. After that I started to seek a way out.

  2. … oh and then there’s that Jeusus person who might have has some small part but it’s primarily our efforts. 🙄

    1. Good morning george I see you are already at work Thanks for the extra “u” this morning.
      don’t mention it

    2. Don – Happy Veterans Day to you sir.

      Jesus is part of HAC. He is a member of their trinity – Hyles, Schaap and Jesus.

      2. Trust me, Scorpio, Jesus is nowhere near those other two you mention, at FBC or HAC. P.S. Congrats on being first!

    3. Now that I’ve listened to all I can stomach I take it back. It is all about them and their efforts, it was the Jeusus with extra “U” and not Jesus. So george got it right this morning.

    4. All the good things that happened…because of Christ? No, because of the “old church downtown.”

      1. Exactly. Not thanks to God, or Christ, but thanks to the Old Church Downtown, and mainly thanks to Jack the First and Jack the Second.

    5. Don, you got to my idea before I did. I’m thankful God is able to work, and it’s not primarily our efforts.
      The more I see of this place, the more sickened I am.

    6. It is good that they didn’t try to blame Hyles Anderson College on Jesus. I don’t think He ever had anything to do with it.

  3. Boy they sure do love to pat themselves on the back don’t they? They put out self aggrandizing videos like this, and supposing they’re really doing God’s work, as the Bible says they have their reward already. They seem to do everything they do for the praise of men! 👿

    1. And their self-agrandising videos go on for way too long! It’s all about their church for sure, “no thanks, God, we got it covered here at fbc” 🙄

    1. The more I see and hear out of FBC and HAC, the more I’m convinced that there is no God in their world. How in the world could anyone write that piece of man-centered, self-deifying, inward focused piece of “music” and not have a pastor, deacon, or anyone say it’s wrong? The only way is that they have removed God so far out of the equation that they don’t even know He’s not there anymore.

      2. If anyone were ever asked (these things get produced with very little permission-getting) they would be told to quiet down, they were just inhibiting the work of god or something like that. They would be given either discipline or a guilt trip or be pushed back down the ladder (which is a crowded ladder) to a rung where they have no voice at all. There is no avenue for dissent and while they proudly say the door swings both ways (in and out, NOT gay and straight) they will gladly push you through it if you disagree with them enough. All that to say, you are right Eric, they left God behind several generations ago.

      3. Oh, there’s a God in their world, all right. It just isn’t the same God that Jesus and Peter and Paul were talking about.
        They worship almighty Hyles, and the Son of Hyles, Schaap. The other member of their Holy Trinity is the King James Version (not the Bible, just the King James Version).

  6. How is it that a church of “20,000” (give or take a few inflated 1,000) can’t find anyone who can sing, direct a choir to stay on pitch, or actually tune the string section before they start to play. There are many churches that have a much smaller talent pool to draw from that do music much better. Yikes!

    1. AND with 7,000 graduates serving all over the world, why is it that the whole world hasn’t been changed yet? Throw in the thousands of other IFB University graduates and we SHOULD have had the whole world converted times 3 and wrapped up with a pretty bow for Jesus ❗

      1. Mainly it is the possibility that most of us who are graduates have left their idolatry for the Truth. So, we are no longer making the kind of impact they want, which would be to bring more worshippers of Hyles/Schaap into the “fold.” I am ready to toss my oatmeal, now…. 👿

      2. The Doctrines of Hylesology:
        – The Sovereignty of Jack
        – Saved by Soulwinning alone
        – Saved by the Soulwinner alone
        – Saved by Decision alone and Sinner’s prayer alone
        – Saved by Membership in our Bunker alone

        “All Hail the Powere of Hack Hyle’s name let David’s prostate fall”

        “To Jack be the Glory great thing he hath done.
        So loved he the girl that he broke up her home.”

        “Oh Lord my god When I in awesome wonder
        Consider all the works they hand hath made
        I see the cars, I hear the pulpit thunder
        Thy power throughout the Old Downtown Church displayed…
        Then sings my soul my pastor-god to thee
        How Great thou art
        How Great thou art
        Then sings my soul my pastor-god to thee
        How Great thou art
        How Great thou art

        1. @Don…we need to get a new hymnal published. You’ve re-written so many in the form in which they are truly sung and lived!!

          What shall we name it?

      3. They will always claim to have had so many saved every week/month/year. When you add it all up it seems all of Chicago should’ve been saved by now. So why is it still so wicked? Like my old church in Michigan, a Hyles church, it’s the same thing. They have many saved every week soul winning, and at the fair every year there are 200+ saved, so why do things continue as wicked as before? Because all these people did is recite a prayer they did NOT get saved! Their lives continued the same way. The Bible says our lives should change (2 Corinthians 5:17) not necessarily to go to one of these churches and get involved in Fundyville but to change for the Lord. That isn’t happening! 👿

        1. Chicago-style religion is like Chicago-style politics. You get to include the dead to pad your numbers. 😉

    3. Politics, Eric. The singers are likely the daughters of pastors or staff members or “faithful friends” of the church. (that one translates into large amounts of tithes given.)

      1. The lady who was doing the solo is probably one of the few real Christians in that chruch. I actually admire her.

  7. I thought the beginning of the maudlin song was about HAC & it’s members when it talks about hos cold dark & miserable a group of humans are.

  8. I’d be curious to find an actual person who you can call a good person who finds their time at HAC to have been beneficial. I can’t think of a typical HAC grad that you would call a good person.

    1. I have only ever been able to name two benefits of my time there, and neither one occurred while I was a student, but when I had later returned as an employee:
      1. I met my late husband there.
      2. I developed a nose for manipulation, control, and Machiavellian behavior.

      1. My sincere admiration goes out to those like Sims and Monipenny, who saw these things during their time as students. I was not that perspicacious, intuitive, nor bold. I was a baa-ing sheep, swallowing their crap whole. Shudder…

        1. I saw some things, but I also was drinking unhealthy doses of kool-aid. I would also ask questions that got me into trouble and draw lines in the sand that they dared not step over. (Of course erased them really quick if anyone came near.) I have just never been able to keep my emotions to myself. My sister was CONSTANTLY on guard telling me to change my facial expression because I looked mad. (She wanted me to look compliant.) She was afraid people would judge me to be rebellious because I wasn’t smiling when I was being told what to do.

        2. But, still, it was YOU who saw the crookedness. You were simply surrounded by people who wanted you to be compliant. I wish *I* had seen things the way you did. It took four years of being away, first, of teaching in yes, an IFB church school,. but one that was not of the HAC-cult persuasion,. thank God. Coming back, to teach at HAC, was when I saw it. Ugh. What a cess pool. 😡

        3. I was duped like anyone else there, I wasn’t aware of the scandals until a few years ago, though those scandals happened during my time there, we were kept in the dark with no TV in all.

      2. And having seen it and lived through it you will now easily recognize if it you run into it again. Your eyes and ears will be fine tuned to recognize it immediately and you won’t be sucked in again! 😀

    2. My husband says he got good out of it. But my response to that is that he was at work most of the time and asleep. He liked most of the classes and Joe Combs was his favorite teacher {shudder} It took him a really long time to finally admit that JC hadn’t been falsely accused, and he still gets this look of amazement on his face when I tell him stuff that happened there. He was in a bubble inside the bubble. He is a great, strong Christian though. (A *real* one, not a fundy one) who sometimes has his head in the sand. In this case I think it insulated him from the madness while he was there and he was able to get what Bible they taught. (He did a lot of Bible reading while there and never had the personality to be a “preacher boy” so that worked in his favor.)

      1. Sims, his Bible knowledge does not come from HAC. I refuse to believe it. I was an A student there, and graduated with next to no Bible knowledge, and yes, took classes from Combs, too. Laurent’s classes were a joke. Jack Rose taught pretty well, but was very dry. Okay, as a preacher boy he took more Bible than I did, but I still took a lot of Bible classes. He got his Bible knowledge from self study. and from years in better churches, I am willing to bet. Combs’ classes were the best on offer at the time, but I have since studied and taught those same books of the Bible numerous times to my adult Sunday School classes, and he taught from a super-fundy POV. His curriculum on Hebrews, and on Ezekiel, was especially skewed. I know your husband knows the Bible; but I maintain he got his knowledge before and since HAC.

        1. Yes, you are right about that. I also think he remembers it fondly because it was where we met and fell in love, etc. He has a pretty splotchy memory anyway, and during those years (when we got married and had our first baby, etc.) we had some of the happiest moments of our lives. But it was IN SPITE OF the college, not because of it. But we are so much stronger because of it… so there is that.

      2. I’ve met some people like this, mostly men, who are genuinely good, godly people who really studied their bibles and seem mostly unharmed by the legalism and guilt/shaming that goes on. They all shared the same trait, an immunity to nuance, they heard the same words but seemed oblivious to things like tone, body language, unspoken rules, posturing, etc. that alter the meaning of what is being said. Trying to explain to such people how the teaching that left them unharmed really hurt me can be a challenge. No offense to your husband, Sims, just a tiny lightbulb moment I had while reading your story.

        1. You are absolutely right! You said it in a way I couldn’t but exactly how I would have stated it. I can’t tell you what a God-send this site has been to me because for over 25 years he would look at me like I was crazy whenever I would mention anything about that period of time that seemed “off”. He truly didn’t notice anything askew. But you described him perfectly when you said that he lacks the ability to detect nuance. He sometimes says he has asburgers syndrome and sometimes I believe it. Of course it just made me feel like a complainer about not enjoying the manipulation. (Also they treat the men and women differently there so a lot of the manipulation went right over his head because it was never aimed at him. And he didn’t live in the dorms. And he wasn’t raised in it. A lot of things immunized him to it but whatever it was I am glad for it. I would hate being married to a fundy man.

        2. Your husband does sound like he might have some autistic traits if he can’t understand the social undercurrent in conversations and whatnot. My fiance has the same issues all the time

  9. I’m sorry, I couldn’t get past the “do his part to save America…” There are no words, just no words…….

  12. “Some even gave their wedding rings?” I’ve never heard that being put into the offering plate.

    1. It was just before my time there. They either had to pay off the building debt of HAC, which had originally been a Capuchin monastery, or were trying to buy it in the first place, I forget. Yes, he ENCOURAGED WOMEN TO PUT THEIR WEDDING RINGS INTO THE OFFERING.

      1. AND THEY DID! And he gave one of the donated rings to Greg Doane so he could propose to Francine! He said that when he offered him a ring to propose with he pulled out a whole box of them. THAT MAKES ME SO ANGRY!!!

        1. Yes, he was a twisted, sick, manipulative SOB, but come ON, Sims, would ANYTHING have made you give away your wedding ring???

        2. I don’t know. I am so glad I wasn’t there for that service. You know how strong the pressure could be. And how selfish they would make you feel if you didn’t. And how much we wanted to please God. I might have.

        3. What would have REALLY sent me over the edge though would be if I *had* been there and given my ring and then a year later seen it on Francine’s finger. THAT is the scenario I always imagined when I found out where Greg got her ring.

        4. You would not even have to SEE it, though that is a horrendous scenario. Just KNOWING he was doing that, after you had given your precious ring??? I would have told him off so royally his body guards would have taken me down.

        5. So, he only encouraged the women to put in their wedding rings? Interesting. Why not the men?

        6. Good question. I can come up with several guesses.
          1. JH himself wore no ring, so just assumed no one did?
          2. Men were not required to make the same sacrifices?
          3. Men had better be easily identified as married, due to all the female predators?

          I just cannot figure out his weirdness. For which I am devoutly thankful. 🙄

        7. * Women are more easily manipulated.
          * Women’s rings have more value because they usually contain a diamond.
          * Men are already not wearing their rings because they sold them to pay their tuition to school.
          * It didn’t occur to him to ask the men to assume such a sacrifice, they can give $$$ where the ring might be the only thing of value a woman there owns.

        8. OK, these are just names to me. But what did this Francine think about her husband giving her a fraudulent wedding ring???

          What does a stolen wedding ring convey as a sign and symbol of a marriage covenant?

          Better to have used one of the old ring-pulls from a can of Koolaid with sincerity and truth, or better yet a ring that you had at least laboured for more than 10 minutes to buy.

          I hope the Greg and Francine marriage lasted against all odds?

        9. Sadly it did not last. I don’t think he realized at the time where the box of rings came from. I don’t know how much is appropriate to tell here, but Francine was a friend of mine and she was pretty proud of the fact that her ring had been provided by Jack Hyles. They also got to go to the furniture store that the church (?) had purchased and pick out furniture for their home. I think it made them feel special.

        10. Thank you. I am sorry to hear that. It would be inappropriate and unnecessary to share anything more. We must remember these are real people with hurts and feelings and not just stories.

          I am sure within the culture of the place (and no doubt the low pay culture) that it might have become normal for the pastors to like to play the hero with the wedding ring, furniture etc.

          We need to be honest with ourselves and remember how much we can all be manipulated in a church setting. A lesson to us all.

        11. This makes me sick. He was a THIEF. I was reading this thread to my husband. He said he would not want to be in their place when they stand before God.

      2. No preacher had better even think of “telling” me to give him/his cult anything my husband gave me!

      3. One of my female relatives donated her very modest wedding ring for one of Lancaster’s annual building banquets, after an emotional appeal by David Gibbs. Her husband* eventually left the church and later ended their marriage. Even though I was thoroughly intoxicated by the strong Kool-aid they served up, I was shocked that she did this.

        *He was a jerk, so the divorce was not all about her behavior. But she clearly put the compound..er church..ahead of her marriage.

      1. I actually met someone once who expected someone else to give them their wedding ring. She was a drug dealer calling pament due.

        1. Jack Hyles and a criminals who preys on the weak, behaving similarly? You shock me. Read heavy sarcasm…

        2. The difference being that the victim hadn’t handed it over and the dealer was highly indignant about it.

  14. My church in Pomona’s claim to fame was that it was that church in Pomona by the freeway that Hyles was preaching at when he felt led to open Hyles-Anderson College. 😳 sorry all 😳

  15. This is the first hymn to a church that I’ve known of since “The Church in the Wildwood” a hundred-plus years ago (a real church, by the way, in Nashua, Iowa).

    I thought churches were supposed to praise God in their hymnody, not themselves.

    1. “O, come to the church in the wild hood
      O, come to the church just like jail
      No spot produces fear from my chi-ild-hood
      Like the Old Downtown Church of White males”

    2. I’ve known of a number of churches that commissioned hymns for a church anniversay, but all that I know of (except this one) were hymns in praise of God and God’s love, not in praise of the church itself.

      1. yeah, where the song praises God, and an inscription at the top of the music explains who commissioned it and for what memorial purpose, absolutely appropriate and useful because it is what the church should actually be using music for – This was a disgusting display that merely demonstrates how not about God and His gospel this place truly is.

    3. My MIL got married to her second husband there. She was so excited that it was a real church and not just a hymn. She said the aisle was so narrow they couldn’t walk down it together. We wouldn’t know, she picked a date when both of her sons were out of the country.

    4. That Little Brown Church was the church my parents were married in in 1957. I’ve been wanting to take my kids there someday and I will. They even have a recording of their wedding on a 78 vinyl record…I’m surprised you even knew where it was…no one else does that I know.

  17. That is one of the most hideous interiors I have seen, and I’ve seen a few. It’s just overblown, opera-house-meets-bad-set-design-meets-leisure-centre-meets-Roman-theatre-at-Ephesus, all interpreted by a man whose aesthetic ability has been destroyed by a lobotomy. I mean, that THING behind the pulpit reminds me of something I saw once in a 1940s musical, only with none of the subtlety. 😯

    1. Further, the aesthetic seems to have been aiming for American Colonial, which simply does not work on that scale, or with that ceiling.

      1. What’s up with the big white doors in the back? Is that where God lives (like a holy of Jolie’s) ? In the Orthodox tradition, the altar is behind smaller doors. Or is that where the MOG swoops in like Liberace? Just wondering.

        1. that’s where the mogs and choir members come out during the opening music, lol. behind them is a choir practice room with seating set up the exact way as you see in the auditorium, but it’s sound-proof.

        2. Does remind me of the time I went into the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London just in time for the iconastasis to open. Quite a difference from all the places I’ve preached, where the pastor came out of a small door in the side of the sanctuary, or in one case in the front door like everyone else.

    1. My guess is that that man is the only black member, because they stuck him into a picture whenever they needed some ethnic diversity.

      1. there are actually quite a few black members. even had one sitting on the platform with the other mogs before he left to start his own church. never heard anything about him after that, so I asume, his chrisianity wasn’t “up to par” with the pastor’s.

  19. for all those sexualy abused by deviant ifb pastors we thank you….for all those people blown out of churches and called bitter we thank you….for all the wack-jobs around the country sending thier support to mecca we thank you….for bring the students to our college who squeezed a 4 year degree into 10 and tithed 90% the entire time we thank you

  20. 5:14
    “Cellular phones must be turned off before entering the Auditorium.”

    Nothing must distract you from the Immacualte message from pastor-god. We take our preaching seriously. We have been know to even choke down dogs so that the soulwinner can get folks to the magic prayer words undistracted.

  21. For a local church production, that’s quite a slick video.

    But can they really have no idea just how blasphemous it is to depict First Baptist, Hammond as the savior of the world?

    1. “First Baptist, Hammond as the savior of the world?”

      Which is funny considering how little of the world is even aware that FBCH and HAC even exist.

      1. Here is what I always wonder, about that:
        1. Do they really believe they are world-famous?
        2. Or, do the leaders actually know how pitifully nothing they are to the rest of the universe, but simply are in denial about that fact?

        3. SFL–“It’s A Small World” because it’s all our small gid can handle, but only with our help.

        4. I am almost embarrased to admit that in our present church when I finally broke down and told someone where I went to college I was SURPRISED that they had never heard of it at all. I started listing *famous* fundies and nobody in the room had heard of any of them. I was astonished because I really did believe that they were famous beyond their walls.

        5. Sims, incredible as this may seem to you, I have met people from the Chicagoland area, in the past twenty years, who did not know much/anything about JH, FBC, the bus ministry, etc. Now, when the scandals broke, I am sure nearby people did find out, by the simple fact that some of it–not that much, surprisingly–was on the news. Especially the series that the one in Detroit (WJBK) did, in the early nineties.
          They were always, ALWAYS a legend in their own minds. But if you consider the breadth of just urban Chicago itself, let alone the suburban sprawl stretching for miles around it, it is not really a surprise that the unchurched and those of non-fundy denominations had never heard of JH. Which is hilarious, given Hyles’ inflated sense of self…

        6. And to be fair, lots of other evangelical groups suffer from that cultish overinflated opinion of their own importance.

    2. I think my friend’s 13 year old can do similar. Really all it is is a bunch of photos set to a soundtrack. No real video at all

  22. When the video started I thought “Here we go again”

    When they spoke of Jack wanting to do his part to save America I thought (in the voice from The Fly) “Help me! Help meeeeee!”

    When the choir started singing I thought “Darn it! How am I going to get the vomit out of my keyboard?” 😕

    1. My wife has a teachers aid who went to school here. Unless he wants to teach at a Christian school his diploma is worthless.

  23. Nope, it’s not a cult. No placing undue moral burden for the fate of others’ souls. No hero worship. Not a cult at all.

  25. So … while downing Christian “rock” music as a sinful means to bring people into the church (debatable, but certainly NOT clearly spelled out in the Bible), they create a promotional video full of arrogance and pride – two things that are clearly spelled out as sinful in the Bible.

  26. ATTENTION ALL FUNDY U’S!!!

    Every soul saved and every instant of spiritual growth in anyone’s life is credited to Jesus Christ ALONE! He often gives believers the privilege of seeing it happen, but it isn’t their work that accomplished it! STOP USING IT FOR SELF-PROMOTION!!!

    Taking credit for Christ’s work is bad enough, but I’ll never understand Fundy U’s that even go so far as to claim they are responsible for the work done by graduates from 20+ years ago. The college president sitting in his expensive office has no right to claim a hand in the hard work of a missionary ministering in a third world country.

  27. “Every church that is built, every soul that is won, and every life that is changed is because of you. And because of the love and generosity of the Old Church Downtown.”

    Something about the cadence of this sales pitch reminds me of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
    http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/9556.html

    I’m tempted to say that “Every church built to honor Hyles/Schaap is a theft from those who are cold and have no shelter; every soul that is swindled into Hammond legalism is a theft from those who hunger spiritually and are not fed; and every life wasted in this foolishness is a loss to the Body of Christ.”

    1. Central Baptist Church. Ray Batema was the pastor at the time. It was the white square building next to the 10 fwy that everyone said looked like a circus tent (but supposedly was supposed to look like a crown with jewels.)

      1. OMG, Central Baptist? I accidentally broke a stained-glass window on that building!! I didn’t go to Central Baptist but Calvary Baptist of San Dimas met in that building for a while around ’92 or so. I was 5 or 6 at the time.

        The outside walls were covered with rocks (???) and my friends and I would always try to climb it like a rock wall. Good times. 😀

        1. I used to try to climb the wall too. But that was quite a few years before you were there. I graduated in ’75 and then was back again in ’80. My brother-in-law was a pastor there and I lived in the big house across the street, right across from the playground.

    2. Jack Hyles wasn’t from there, though. Apparently he was visiting as a guest preacher at the time.
      Hyles was originally from Italy, Texas (in the hinterlands outside Dallas), but he built his kingdom mostly in Hammond, Indiana.

  30. 3:21 stopped it, puked, and then posted this.

    seriously? God laid on Jacky Hyles heart to start a school so future sex offenders could be trained in the ministry?

    I think that sentence is right….

  33. I was born in Pomona, CA (really)! It happened as I walked on a lonely frontage road all night.

  34. Well they are certainly a legend in their own mind. We lived in Lansing IL from fall 1993 to spring 1995 and never heard of FBH. I was several blocks from Hammond. We even church hunted in the area after we moved. The husband does not like big churches so maybe that was how we missed it. Another reason to be thankful.

  36. I’m actually from Pomona myself. Lived there until I was 6 months old. My grandparents lived there for 50 years, and my Mom lived there from when she was 5 until she was 25 (when I was 6 months old!) Have a LOT of good memories of Pomona, of my grandparents’ house, and my aunt and uncle’s house.

  37. Man…I’ve not played the viola in years and my ears freaked out at that awful strings beginning. The choir can’t seem to hold a tune for long if their life depended on it. The whole effect overall was stultifying and childish, especially the lyrics. I’d be embarrassed to be a part of that organization after watching that clip.

  38. A bit off topic but just wanted to report that I visited a very nice new church with my kids this morning! How refreshing to visit other churches and see how different things are done. This one had lots of kids in the service which I like but a lot of people who forgot to turn their phones off… The message was great, brought me to tears actually, tears of joy at the GREATNESS and FAITHFULLNESS of our God. Same thing at last nights service two messages I needed to hear. They fed us breakfast, too! It’s good to be free from IFB and all the staleness and fakeness. 😎

  39. Don, you’re really reaching for it and grasping at straws on that one. Americans in general are inconsiderate, moronic, selfish rubes who actually do need to be told to turn off their phones. There is nothing unusual for a church to have to cater to the lowlifes and actually say that.

  40. I can’t help but think of what Jesus said to Peter “I will build my church”. The more I hear of Hyles the less I really want to be associated with anyone who claims the name fundamentalist.

  41. I grew up in East Chicago (Hammond’s next door neighbor), and I recall “running the gauntlet” of FBC Hammond’s turf on my way to downtown Hammond on many Saturdays. The college students were out in droves, stopping people with their sales patter about salvation. The only way to get past them was to go through the motions with them.
    I bowed my head and prayed the prayer many times because, as an adolescent male, those coeds were so darn cute in their skirts or culottes, I just didn’t have the heart to disappoint them. Ahhhh, youth!

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