154 thoughts on “SFL?”

  3. I will sit down and watch a game for 2 & 1/2 hours and play a round of golf for 4 hours and 15 minutes without batting an eye. As opposed to sitting through any length of a fundy sermon because when I watch a game or play a round of golf, no one is yelling at me.

    2. It’s not so much the yelling… The baseball players don’t harangue the crowd for not playing ball as well as they do.

      No one tries to make the crowd feel bad for not bringing more people with them — they are glad that you are there at all!

      1. Yeah that’s something that’s always irked me, how the preachers seem to expect laypeople who have to make a living in the outside world to do just as much as they and their staff do who are paid by the church for their work. In this they expect the layperson to fund both their own work and the staff’s. 😥

        What goes along with this is how the fundy pastor will guilt people into giving more than the they can probably afford. The first pastor we had in Michigan loved to stand up there and say how much he was giving and challenge the men to give the same amount. Then he’d act disgusted when few of them would do it. He seemed to forget that most of his salary was discetionary income, he got his housing free, his gas allowance, book allowance, all his bills were paid by the church so his salary that he got on top of that went only for food and clothing. And he and his wife were invited to people’s homes a lot for meals. So he could easily give a good amount to an offering while the laypeople couldn’t who had to pay for their rent or mortgage, gas, etc. I wish some of these people would get a clue as to what life is like for the layperson. 👿

        1. My old pastor constantly bragged how much he gave and that as a result he was continually blessed. And that if we didn’t give a big amount, we wouldn’t get a big blessing.

        2. “God shovels it in, and I shovel it out.
          God shovels it in, and I shovel it out.
          And God has a bigger shovel!!
          Hay-men!!!!”
          🙄

  4. I don’t ever want to attend another Christian conference. Words cannot adequately express my distaste for such meetings.

    1. I know what you mean. I feel the same way about ladies’ meetings. Just the thought of them makes the bile rise… 😳 I still wish there was a pukey emoticon, til there is I will use the 😳 one lol. Just imagine it’s turning green instead of red.

    2. We had evangelistic meetings likes these at the beginning of the fall semester at MBBC in WI. I guess they wanted to make sure everyone was saved before the start of school?

      I hated them as well.

      1. The first week was always the longest week of the semester. By far. 😥

      2. They had a preacher for one of those weeks of meetings, when I was a student at MBBC. I hadn’t heard of him before and I haven’t heard of him since. I think he was the father-in-law of one of the teachers. Anywho, this preacher had a whole bunch of students doubting their salvation by the end of the week.

        1. I remember at Camp CoBeAC there was an evangelist who used to do this every summer and people would doubt their salvation and get saved over and over.

          The camp’s owner’s wife said this…”so did so and so get saved again?” I remember thinking, why in the hell say that?! It sounded so cold-hearted.

          He touted the verse…”lest ye repent, ye shall likewise perish.”

          How much does one have to repent to be saved??!!

        2. Wow. Terrifying sensitive young people and then mocking them when they respond by wanting to “get saved” again? That is cold-hearted.

    1. I think it’s a very clever attempt at damage control through self-deprecation.

      But I’m pretty jaded.

      2. They need to move beyond recognizing that fundamentalism is all about semantics and start asking WHY. They should start repenting of their desperate need to LOOK good in front of other fundamentalists, even to the point of using deceptive words in order to get the approval of other judgmental believers. They need to realize that a church based on word games to preserve the appearance of one’s outward conformity to a list of man-made rules is NOT what Jesus had in mind for His bride.

        3. @pastor’s wife – they also need to end the “good ol’ boys” network in which they preach against sins of others, but cover up the same sins practiced by their friends.

      3. No Darrell, you are absolutely right. You are not jaded. I know the preacher well and this a tactic he often uses. He is a gifted speaker and charismatic. His sheeple fawn over him.

      4. The first guy comes across as reasonable and balanced. I think it’s the approach of many of the younger fundamentalists.

        The second man, even from that short of a clip, is the typical fundy: mocking those with whom he disagrees. Apparently, according to him, everyone who disagrees with the IFB, talks with an exaggerated femininity and equates political support with doctrinal support. Meanness and anger — that’s the typical MO from many fundies.

        2. pastor’s wife said, “The second man, even from that short of a clip, is the typical fundy: mocking those with whom he disagrees. Apparently, according to him, everyone who disagrees with the IFB, talks with an exaggerated femininity and equates political support with doctrinal support. Meanness and anger — that’s the typical MO from many fundies.”

          Yup. You have totally pegged him. His way or the highway…

          I am so very glad God led me out of Lancaster Baptist Church.

      5. Wow. You mean some of you actually listened to this? How much medication do you take before and after hearing such muck?

        1. actually I have been innoculated against this type of disease by regular vaccinations over a period of years. It has no effect any more, other than increasing my cynicism slightly (which is a known side effect)

    1. I am hearing the term more and more in the IFB churches among the Pastors that are not indoctrinated into the traditional ways of most IFB churches. It’s refreshing to hear!

  8. How old is that argument? I’ll sit and watch a ballgame because it’s interesting. I’ll play a round of golf because I’m participating. However, listening to someone make and remake a point for 45 minutes rarely is interesting. And if it were to go on for 2.5 hours, he’s either delusional or off in so many directions it would be impossible to follow. Why fundies insist on comparing the two is beyond me.

    1. This is especially true if the point being made and remade is exactly the same point that was made and remade last week, and the week before that, and the week before that…

    2. I actually can’t remember ever hearing a logically valid argument in a fundy sermon, but this is a classic example. Categorical fallacy anyone?
      “Y’all heathens will spend 6 hrs in open heart surgery just because you had a little ol’ heart attack, but you can’t barely sit through my two hours of preaching!!!”
      Yep. Because for the heart surgery they medicated me 😆

      1. I have often listened to interesting speakers for hours, and left wanting more. But ten minutes of a dull talk is too much. One minute of an abusive or deranged speaker is too much.

    3. Agreed. I don’t understand why they can’t see how illogical the arbitrary comparison is. If that’s the case, let me choose the comparison. I can only sprint for about a minute before it becomes so painful I have to quit or puke. I will now only listen to your sermon for that long.

    4. Also: while watching a ballgame, you can get up to use the restroom, grab a coke, eat some snacks.
      While playing golf, you can move around, engage in conversation, generally be in control of the way things are going.

      While listening to a fundy sermon, you have to sit perfectly still. Except for nodding along and saying amen, of course.

  9. someone with video editing skills should splice the second guy’s limpwristing and stomping into a loop and play it over top of some riverdance songs

  10. “Since when do fundamentalists use the word “”?

    Well, since I’ve started mentioning it in front of my mother, she has. 😀

  11. “Since when do fundamentalists use the word “fundies”?

    Well, since I’ve started mentioning it in front of my mother, she has. 😀

  12. I guess movies are being called “multi-media presentations” now instead of “films” that fundamentalists used to call them back in my day.

  13. Fundies making fun of themselves? The spiritual leaders of this bunch know it’s all a big joke? They’re as cynical as the rest of us and still trying to put one over on the sheep? That’s sad.

    1. I can’t speak for the Hyle’s crowd (they’re hopeless) but I can speak for men such as Kurt Skelly who sees the problems and wants to change its better than being a critic that doesn’t do anything about it

  14. I agree with those of you who are annoyed that he’s comparing watching a ball game to preaching.

    Next two and a half hour sermon he attends lets see if
    1) he wears wear comfortable clothes,
    2) he has snacks and a drink to enjoy throughout the sermon,
    3) he is allowed to leave and move around whenever he wants,
    4) he can talk with the people next to him as well as yell out his support or frustration (“Come ON, pastor! You said that last week! You can do better than that!”)
    5) he can join in silly activities that sweep the pews like tossing around a large beach ball, doing the wave, and dancing along to YMCA,
    6) there is a 7th inning strength (I’ll take suggestions for what music should be used here – Wiggle Worm maybe?)
    7) there’s a color commentator adding his insight while the sermon is going on, and
    8) after the preacher makes at least three good points, he sits down and ANOTHER preacher comes out and has HIS inning.

    Plus, do I need to add, NO ONE IS YELLING AT ME during a ball game.

    Go, Tigers!

    1. Sweetheart, I might consider attending church more often if there were beer vendors roaming the aisles.

      That was an excellent list, PW.

        1. Sorry – no beer there, they have high-quality “ales” and even higher-priced wines and other assorted spirits…

          (anytime there are four Episcopalians in a room, there’s always a fifth…) 😛

    2. There should be a third point stretch during sermons, or at least put it somewhere before the final illustration. Either way though, every sermon goes into extra innings depending on how many verses of Just As I Am are sung.

      1. I think the “stretch” is needed after the phrase “and that was my introduction!” :mrgreen:

        Excellent list, PW.

        1. I’m a Tigers fan too having lived in Michigan most of my life. I just wish they’d play better baseball. 🙁

    5. Haven’t had time yet to play the video and even know what you people are talking about. But I’d MUCH rather watch/listen to preaching than the American game of baseball! Baseball is like – This one’s high and outside……(15 second pause)….the windup…(8 second pause)……and it’s low and to the right, ball 2…….(45 second pause)…

      Talk about boring! I don’t know what’s worse. American baseball or watching paint dry on American HGTV!……….Give me preaching any day.

    6. Doing the wave? Are you serious? They were doing that in America in about 1982 if I recall. Do they still do that?

  16. I guess we could compare a fundy preacher saying “fundies” to a rapper using the “n” word.

  18. Oh for heaven’s sake that first preacher was ticking me off. 😡 It’s the same thing we heard from the former pastor. He’d preach a 70 minute long sermon and say the same thing about the length of ballgames, and other things you’ll watch for 2 hours or so. IT’S NOT THE SAME THING! Baseball games have breaks at every inning so you can get up and use the bathroom, go get a snackie, stretch your legs. If you are at the game itself there’s the 7th inning stretch. If a movie is overly long there is an intermission. There are commercials on TV in your home so you can get up and move around, use the bathroom, get a snack, whatever. You’re not expected to sit there in a pew in one position while your backside begins to ache from the hard pews and your bladder threatens to burst! 👿

    I can’t sit still for very long, I need to stand up and move around. Anytime something is longer than a half hour I get rather antsy. And I’m an adult. How do they expect kids to sit still for that long while some fundy MOG stands up there and hollers for 2 hours and 47 minutes and he has the nerve to compare that to a ballgame or movie where you can get up and move around and use the bathroom? 👿 I have often felt like I was in a straitjacket sitting there! 😡

    I did have to laugh to hear Bro. Chappell use the word “fundy.” Since last September when we left the former church that word has been in my vocabulary a lot! :mrgreen:

      1. No that’s one of MY words. Been using it for years. Though I’m sure other people use it. 😀

  19. At a sporting event no one judges me if I get bored and start reading my Kindle.

    I can get up and go to the bathroom when the mood strikes. It does not reflect badly on my character if I pee while the game is under way.

    I am not expected to wander around the neighborhood of the stadium pestering non-sports fans into coming every weekend.

    Once I have bought my ticket no one takes attendance. I can leave early, fall asleep or stay home and nobody notices.

  20. Somebody is definitely reading SFL! That was hilarious. The thing about church for me is, by the time a preacher reads his proof text, I already know exactly what he is going to preach. I can already give you his three points, and I have probably heard his poem and/or knock-your-socks-off illustration before. As soon as I hear him start a point I can already finish it. At least with a ball game, I don’t already know who wins and when exactly the home runs are going to be hit.
    Personally, I think baseball is a bit boring, but soccer takes more than an hour and that I enjoy. Go Manchester! :mrgreen:

    1. Oh, and if there were men as good-looking as a few of those soccer players at church, I could maybe stand sitting and enjoying the scenery for a few hours.

      1. I enjoy watching soccer, and part of the reason for that is the men in their shorts… oh but we women aren’t supposed to have those thoughts! 😳 That might mean we were just as human as the men! :mrgreen:

    3. Shame on all of you. This is ‘Merica. We play football and baseball! 😛

      1. HACgirl is in Asia, which explains a lot. I lived in SE Asia for 5 years – ESPN over there doesn’t even mention the NFL. It was quite sad. 🙁

  21. I know the exact sermon that the first preacher is referring to because I sat through it while visiting for the mission’s conference. 🙄 I can tell you it wasn’t worth 5 minutes on my time let alone 2 hourrs 45 minutes. The “sermon” consisted of an African missionary telling one self-aggrandizing story after another. There was no Biblical message whatsoever. So yeah, I’ll take a ball game any day.

    1. We had a visiting missionary who turned his 5 minutes of slides into about 45 minutes as he named and described EVERY SINGLE PERSON in each photo. Each time another slide appeared with a group of smiling people grouped around him, I groaned inside as he happily started naming them one by one and telling each one of their stories.

      1. That is so terribly boring. As a missionary myself, i can say that missionaries are frequently really poor communicators.

  22. I was trying to imagine a fundy sermon with a color commentator:

    It sure is a beautiful day for preaching here at Bible Baptist isn’t it Jason?
    It sure is Dave. A lot of fans are hoping that Pastor Dinkies breaks his streak today. 17 straight sermons with no one walking the aisle is a league record.
    Yes, just last week we had allegations of bribery leveled against Pastor Dinkies saying that he was trying to pay people to walk the aisle.
    True. But he is hoping to clear all of that up today with a clear win. He told journalists yesterday that he just bought a complete set of sermons off of the Sword of the Lord’s website so he should be in top form today.
    Let’s go down to Karen who is platform-side with Pastor Dinkies.
    —————————————————

    -So, Pastor Dinkies, how do you feel?
    -I feel loose, I feel ready to preach. I have been training really hard this week and I feel ready.
    -Do you feel like you are going to end your no-aisle-walker streak today?
    -Oh absolutely. I feel that the sermon today will really catch people off-guard. They won’t know what hit them.
    -We will look forward to that. Thank you for talking to us.
    -Thank you.
    -Now back to you Dave in the studio.

    1. Love it!! Awesome!

      (BTW, I’d be more interested in sitting for over two hours if I had a chair like that plush one on the platform!)

    2. We’re 20 minutes into Dinkies’ sermon, time for the 20 minute recap brought to you by Brother Ned’s Vacuum Emporium. At Neds’ our vacuums really suck.
      So after 20 minutes Pastor Dinkie has definitely brought his A game. He only quoted one Bible verse, Zephaniah 2:1, and has used that as example as to why America is no longer a desired nation. He artfully incorporated the gays, muslims, democrats, Victoria Secrets catalogues and the movie “Iron Man 2” into his 1st point as to why America is doomed. The spit was really flying during that point. In fact I saw at least 2 women get up and leave. They must have been visitors since they were wearing denim and crocs. Probably lesbians. If Dinkies’ can do this for the whole 60 minutes, he very well may break his streak. Stayed tuned for the next 20 minute recap. Back to you Dave.

      2. Fans it’s 40 minutes in and that means it’s time for the 2nd 20 minute recap. This 20 minute recap is brought to you by the good folks over at Johnny’s Meat Market. Remember, at Johnny’s Meat Market, nobody beats our meat.
        Folks I have to tell you that Dinkies is on fire today. The 2nd 20 minutes has surpassed the 1st 20 minutes if you can believe that. He is still springboarding off of that single verse in Zephaniah 2. This reporter has never heard such convicting preaching about the turmoil our country is in. The last 20 minutes has seen the preacher dismount from the platform and stand on the pews as he railed against hellywood, the evils of CCM, the Nickelodeon channel and other Bible perversions that interpret wine as an alcoholic beverage. If he keeps this up, the entire altar will be full and decisions made.
        Befoe I throw it back to you Dave, I have to tell you Dinkies just started in on statues and idols which means the Catholics are next in the crosshairs. The ending should be fun. Stay tuned for the next 20 minute recap.

        2. Tough to say at this point. The Southeast is the premier region for preaching. All the boys are born, bred and cornfed to preach. Let’s see how he closes today.

        3. Dinkies is on fire today! I would venture that the church can disband their Head Pastor search committee. All of those free-agent pastors who have been dropping by for a visit are going to walk away disappointed.

        5. I think that’s it, Don! The top Invitation responders get the “head S.H.I.T.” award that is highly sought after!

        6. I thought all participants received an Honorary Doctorate in Shouting Hellfire Invitations Thunderously with a concentration in Altarcall Salvation Sermons (Hollering Out Loud Evangelism)

    3. Folks this is Dave here in the studio. We are trying to get in touch with Jason at the church but he is not answering. Our live video is working so we can see inside the church. Pastor Dinkies has finished his sermon and the altar is full. We just heard the 28th stanza of I Surrender All and people are still going down to the old fashioned altar. Wait a minute, what’s this? I can’t believe what I just saw! Do you believe in miracles? Yes! Down goes Jason! Down goes Jason! Down goes Jason! Ladies and gentlemen, our very own Jason went forward at the invitation. This sermon was truly the finest sermon preached since the one back on the Mount. Excuse me while I compose myself.
      We are now hearing from Jason via cell phone. He is dedicating his life to Jesus and just committed to becoming a missionary to Sweden. Well Jason I hope you like your summers short and your women blonde.
      Post game coming up.

      1. What an amazing sermon! I believe that Pastor Dinkies should stay by his phone after this. The boys in Walkertown will definitely be calling. They are all about the numbers and he put the numbers on the score board today.
        There is no way Jason going forward does not make play of the week! Truly phenomenal!

        This is why I love this sport. Here we had a fellow who was honestly slipping. He was posting some really unacceptable numbers but all of a sudden he came out of nowhere and really ran the score up. It reminds us all of his glory days his junior and senior years at Fundamentalist Forever Baptist Bible College and why he went pro in the first place.

  23. Who/where are the “Christian seminaries trying to get along w/ Mormons?” I can’t think of any fundamentalist or confessional evangelical seminary doing this. Is he referring to something Fuller’s doing?

    2. He was talking about Fuller Seminary professors who made statements about wanting to get to understand LDS beliefs. Go to Lancaster’s site and watch the whole sermon, if you dare.

      1. Christians trying to UNDERSTAND the beliefs of others?! *gasp of horror* 😯 What madness is this?

  24. So…many…comments…

    Amen to the concept that if it’s so bad you can joke about the semantics, maybe there’s a problem that needs addressing?

    But the thing I came away with was that I’ve sat under sermons close to 2 hours every once in a great while; couldn’t take my eyes of the speaker or even sit back and relax I was so engaged with the beauty of the truth he was expounding, systematically, from Scripture and the God he was glorifying. It was God who was enrapturing; Christ who was enthralling.

    None of those pastors were fundies, or ever had been. They were preaching the Word of God, and they were standing out of the way, pointing to Christ. No one was paying any attention to them.

    If fundies ever preached like that, maybe people wouldn’t mind 2 1/2 hour sermons. But I’ve never heard a fundy yet I could stand to listen to more than 10 minutes of.

    1. I should clarify: “No one was paying any attention them.” Not in the sense that no one was listening; in the sense that people weren’t seeing the speaker. They were taken up with Christ.

    2. You’re right, Miriam. I love Jesus and His Word. When a preacher with ability and passion and knowledge lifts up Christ, I’m definitely not checking my watch. But badly prepared messages, rehashed cliches, mean-spirited rants, and personal opinions disguised as “sermons” will not hold my attention nor should they.

    3. Very true; I have had the (all-too-rare) experience of sitting in a “long” sermon that was fascinating, and God was using the message to speak to me. It was great and I didn’t mind the time.

  25. I have psoriatic arthritis. There’s no way I could sit through 2 1/2 hours of anything. And any pastor who enjoys the sound of his own voice that much needs a reality check. 😐

    1. To a fundy preacher that’s only an excuse. Having a bad back or needing to use the bathroom or any such thing is carnal and if you were really spiritual you wouldn’t care how long the preaching was, you need to ignore your carnal nature and your physical problems and just pay attention to me, I will be done when the Holy Spirit tells me to be done and not before!

      I know a woman who had a bad back and after one service at the former church she was in pain all week. 👿

      1. I have osteoarthritis in my jaws and I’m not sitting in church for that long either.

        1. I’ve never heard of osteoarthritis in the jaw before. It sounds awfully painful. 🙁 I have it in my knees which makes going up and downstairs a challenge. But I’m ok for sitting and standing.

        2. It’s called TMJ Syndrome and it is painful. I injured my jaw when I was 14 and didn’t know it. I had oral surgery in 2003, but I still have problems with fibromyalgia in my face, head and neck.

          I remember one of my SIL’s yelling at me for missing church “b/c I had a headache.” And come to find out, it wasn’t all “just in my head.” It took me years to find a doctor who believed me and knew what was wrong.

        3. I’m glad they finally did though you went through that usual “fundy guilt trip” over not wanting to go to church and get hollered at for an hour when you had a headache. I didn’t need even that much of an excuse. In the former church I was looking for any excuse I could get. 😐

    1. I wonder if this site has opened some eyes and caused some people to question the legalism that has been force fed down their throats?

      SFL.com = bringing clarity to the gospel of grace by exposing the false gospel peddling MOGs?

    2. Of course! How else will they be able to maybe catch church members/staff members who might be leaving non-fundy comments here and “discipline” them? 🙄 😀

      (no, I don’t attend or work for a fundy church/school)

  27. Darrell, 👿 👿

    Please refrain from posting conference material when the weather is nicely warm and sunny…..it’s giving me horrible flashbacks of Spring Break….er…I mean Bible Conference week at BJU. Not only are we so pure and holy that we don’t participate in Spring Break, we dress up in a suit and go to 20 sermons a day for 5 days. Somebody say, “amen”

      2. Well I was going to give you one, but this person ahead of me said I couldn’t.

  28. If I weren’t so jaded, I would have really liked this stuff. Interesting thing is, he’s so right. I’m on facebook. I see the good fundy families that go to the beach. It’s time to stop pretending and just be real.

  29. So, Darrell did you attend this conference? My fundy sister & her preacher husband attended it. I don’t think they will ever see how crazy the fundies are. Here is what she wrote on Facebook about the conference:

    “We had a good time at the Spiritual Leadership Conference as always. The Lord used it to touch our hearts & encourage us to stay rooted in Him & His Word. We are leaving very early in the morning so we can get back for a funeral. Pray for Rick as he has to conduct the funeral shortly after we get back.”

    I am so grateful to be out of that madness. I don’t see either man being reasonable. One thinks that it is okay to play semantics. Who was the 1st guy, btw? And, then Chappell talking all effeminate disgusted me. That’s supposed to be funny??
    And, maybe Chappell knows about this site because I have quoted it to my sister & her children. 😆 Yes, the one that was at the conference. Her son (my nephew) attends West Coast.

  30. Yeah, Skelley totally got those quips from here…

    If he decides to “borrow” ideas from SFL, the least he could have done was give us a shout out, LOL!

    BTW, I can name many, many people in that choir. I looked at a few faces and tried to see if they were really agreeing or simply enduring – especially during that stupid comparison between ball games and preaching services. I have my suspicions…

    2. Get over yourself, I’m sure he could come up with his own humor without condescending to your level (although most of what is posted here is extremely humorous in its absurdity).

  31. Wishing I could find a video of that stupid “Hypocritter” song they used to annoy the women during ladies’ retreats.

    Yeah, I am sure Paul Chappell was happy to point out all the problems and errors outside of the IFB…and with other IFB who disagree with him. Somehow I doubt he ever mentioned the serious allegations about his own brother, Mark Chappell, the pastor of Freeway Baptist Church in Arizona.

    http://www.stufffundieslike.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4303

    http://www.stufffundieslike.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4511

    Mark was at West Coast Baptist College’s recent Youth Conference along with a group from his church. A former deacon from Freeway said Paul has had the college’s tour group perform there and has allowed his staff to preach for Mark.

    Way to be supportive of an alleged perv, Paul!

    Wonder if Mark was a welcome guest at Lancaster’s Spiritual Leadership Conference…although I would never in a billion years consider Mark’s leadership spiritual…

  32. I do love that they seem to be completely clueless about the difference between Film & Movie.

    1. PS, for the Fundies that dont’ know the difference: the Cohen brothers make films, JJ Abrams & Jerrry Bruckheimer make movies.

    2. “Film” and “movie” can actually be -and commonly are- used interchangeably.

  33. Well, based on nothing else but these two short clips (and not knowing anything about these two speakers) I found the video funny. The comments the first guy made about semantics were so true. In the past I might even have said I found it “refreshing” to hear a fundamentalist preacher recognize it, but I’ve heard it several times before in different IFB churches. Everyone would have a good laugh, but nothing would ever change in those churches.

    Regarding what he said at the very start, I really am not bothered by sermons just because they are long, and I’ve been to conferences and seminars that were a couple hours long yet still very good (time to stretch is always nice, though). The problem is the long sermons that have very little or no content. If a speaker only has 10 minutes worth of content, adding 40 more minutes of filler material just kills the entire thing.

  34. My old pastor always had a sermon outline printed in the church bulletin for everyone to fill out during the service. It would have the main points listed, with certain key words blanked out except for the first letter, so you were supposed to fill it in as he got to that bit. Often, the words needing to be filled in were alliterated. It became a bit of a game to guess the word before he got there, lol.

    Sadly, he also has a bible college. This bible college uses exactly the same system. Fill in the blanks. Suitable for a tertiary institution? *shudder*

    1. I used to do that. Sometimes my husband and I would make a game of guessing what the next blank would be. It was easy if it was alliterated. I remember one time when they all started with F and I couldn’t think of anything that started with an F to fit that category and then he used a word that started with ph because it sounded the same lol! 😈

      1. My mom used to comment that she heard the same sermons used over and over. They all learn the same legalistic crap at “college.”

        I doesn’t even come from their personal experience as a Christian. Nothing is real.

  35. What does the 2nd guy think about Jesus hanging out with sinners? It’s an axiomatic point, but these guys never seem to get it. “Draw lines!!”, “Stand over here!!”, sound a whole lot like what Pharisees were yelling at Jesus in the New Testament.

    Religion is about rules, the Bible is about Jesus.

  36. I get the impression that they perch these messages to nail everyone outside of the room, because anyone who would attend that conference would not be engaged in any of the “compromises” that they yell about. I have listened to the keynotes of many Leadership Conferences and they take every shot they can to speak against the bloggers and those who criticize them. It’s usually the point of the entire conference – to defend their fundiness with as big a crowd as possible and yet there is little or nothing to actually help struggling pastors except to make fun of them for running under 100.

  37. Ah, the old ball game illustration… Maybe if they were as entertaining as a ball game I’d pay more attention?

    2. The “why can’t you get as excited during the preaching as you do at sports events” is such a tired, overused statement in fundamentalism. And the preachers that use it do so without really thinking about the implications. In reality, if people in the congregation got up and started loudly cheering and carrying on during the sermon, most fundamentalist preachers would call it “emotionalism” and condemn it. They also wouldn’t like the idea of someone starting the wave, food and drink being sold in the isles, or people just getting up and walking around and talking at will.

      A sports event and a church service are two completely separate events in two completely different environments. It is not a sign of poor spirituality that Christians don’t act the same at both of them.

  38. I know for a fact that PC is smart enough to see the problems with IFB and does in fact see them…. Not sure why the rant. Trying to make himself feel better about where he is stuck perhaps. Who knows. Just glad to be out.

  39. I used to hear this guilt-ridden rhetoric frequently when I was in youth group and college group. It is on the level with the other most used platitude: “Hey, if you don’t like what I’m saying you’ve got a problem with God.”

    Maybe if churches served beer, soda, peanuts & hotdogs, played “rock you like a hurricane” while passing the plate, and let the congregation leave and tailgate if the service isn’t up to par…then maybe this argument would have a shot at holding water.

    Fundies like to shout from the rooftops that church isn’t entertainment. But all of their comparisons for how we spend our time when we are not in church are entertainment venues and activities. Can’t have it both ways! Haymen!

  40. Seeing this makes me so thankful that I survived 4 years of it and wound up only slightly cynical toward fundamentalism…

  41. How funny… if you google “Paul Chappell Leadership Conference,” his dot.com comes up and I get warnings about “dangerous downloads!!”

  42. I wonder if by “getting along with Mormons” the second guy was bashing Liberty University for having recently had Mitt Romney as a commencement speaker. I know there was a big stink about that.
    I’m still trying to interpret the nonverbal gestures on the part of the second guy. It’s the limited-range arm movement that fundie pastors normally exhibit when they’re trying to mock gay people, but that’s not the subject he was on. Was it supposed to represent chicken wings flapping? a gesture of contempt toward seminaries who don’t honor the Old Paths? The sentiment that Mormons are yucky and make his skin crawl?

    1. Not sure about this election, but in 2008 BJ3 endorsed Romney…maybe his “sermon” mentions that later on

  44. Chappell said good stuff. Skelly is just having fun.

    S.F.L. is for the jilted and bitter. It’s sad that you’ve “let the sun go down upon your wrath” and bitterness has set in. If you get over your disdain for other Christians you will feel free again. Even Jesus prayed for Unity. May it be granted to you.

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