Preachers

The Rambler Redux

131 Comments

We’ve met racist preacher Stinnett Ballew once before when we looked at his rant against interracial (whatever that means) marriage about two years ago.

Well now he’s back to demonstrate that he is also a consummate rambler, managing to fit almost ten minutes of inanity, self-promotion, and sales pitches between the time he announces his text and when he actually starts reading it.

131 thoughts on “The Rambler Redux”

    2. Dang! All that rambling while all those people are standing. Not having a persuasive faith in God, he can only talk about himself and his accomplishments, and then post script his boasting with attributions to God.

      1. We stand for the scripture lesson, and that is only if you are able.

  4. I’d be ready to go home before I even sat down after that! Good Lord. Crazy.

  6. Without respect to the content of what he is saying, this guy is annoying. With respect to what he is saying, this guy is very annoying.

  7. comment from pastor’s wife on the original ‘rambling’ post, which I’ma reply to here since that post is old: It’s always strange to me how fundamentalists want to raise young people with a backbone who’ll stand for Christ yet their methods often crush people’s spirits.

    Nailed it. In fact I’m not so sure that it’s ‘often’ as much as ‘always’. I’ll never understand it either.

  8. He is just so full of himself.

    “Let’s stand so you can hear how great I am. And oh yeah, there’s that pesky little Bible verse that does nothing but get in the way of my self-promotion.”

  9. Yes, this is definitely Stuff Fundies Like, unless you’re in the congregation listening to one of these “ramblers”!

    To quote Darrell in the previous post about this racist, ignorant preacher…”There’s no Fundy like an old Fundy!”

  11. Only ten minutes between announcing the text and reading it? Amateur.

  12. He got an email from a “preacher” in Nigeria. Sure, we’ve all had those emails. Most of us are smart enough to delete spam though.

    3. So funny 😀 Except he left out the part where he sent him a check for $7,000 so he could get $70,000 at a later date. I actually have heard of IFB preachers who have fallen for the Nigerian scam and lost thousands. How pathetic.

    1. certainly seems to have a well-fed family.

      Surely blessed by god with great abundance, at dinner times.

      1. Oh, let’s see now …

        IFBs are supposed to be happy-happy joy-joy all the time. Kids are supposed to be seen and not heard. Women are supposed to be silent, subserviant and submmissive. To be a good fundy, you aren’t allowed to have feelings, and you aren’t allowed to access any of the coping mechanisms “the world” offers. You can’t even take psychiatric meds because those are “of the devil.” Is it really, REALLY any wonder that so many fundies eat their feelings? Emotional eating is the ONLY option many of them have to deal with their negative emotions and feelings.

        Honestly, I find it sad. I also find it sad that so many people here trip over themselves to point their fingers and scream, “FATSO!” at the tops of their lungs.

        BTW? I’m fat. I a freaking hamplanet. Now go ahead and mock me. And I hope you enjoy every minute of it. 😐

        1. Now I am not a big fan of fat-shaming, having been the victim of that at the hands of my parents for years. (At least one of my siblings has a borderline eating disorder.) But I think the issue is a bit more nuanced than you give it credit for. Namely, that fundies love to judge others for all sorts of “consumptive” sins such as drinking and listening to rock music, yet they nearly all fall prey to gluttony, which, if I am not mistaken, many churches list as one of the seven DEADLY sins. Then, there is the issue of claiming to be a servant of God but refusing to take a “vow of poverty” (so to speak) and instead embracing a life of over-consumption and materialism. So, while I do understand that some can’t help their diet or body shape, the overall culture of the IFB certainly does promote gross indulgence in the area of food.

        2. Hamplanet? That’s the best new word I’ve heard in a long time!

          And, I’ve heard depressed IFB women say out loud, “Well, we can’t drink, we can’t take drugs — the only thing we’re allowed to do is eat.”

        3. “the overall culture of the IFB certainly does promote gross indulgence in the area of food.”

          Yeah, that’s pretty much what I just said. In my first paragraph … I know I tend to be verbose, but geez.

        4. I’m not amused by fat jokes.
          They’re just toweringly unimginative.
          Yes, Mr. ABC is obese. How brilliant of you to notice!
          There are certain politicians (of both major parties) who, every time their names come up in the news, will be mocked for their size.
          This is (a) boring, (b) offensive, and (c) beside the point.

          It’s fine to mock politicians for things they do in their political lives, but their personal lives are only fair game if they reveal hypocrisy in their public lives. If a politician who pushed for laws regulating people’s diets is grossly obese, it’s relevant, just as it’s relevant when a politician has extramarital affairs and votes to impeach the president for adultery, or opposes gay marriage on the grounds of “family values.”

          So if a preacher condemns others for some lifestyle flaw while overeating shamelessly, it’s fair to call him on it.
          But if you’re just expressing a prejudice against fat people, I’m not laughing with you.

        5. Not to mention obesity is at epidemic proportions in the US, anyway, Fundy or not.

        6. And if that comment had ONLY mocked the pastor who happened to be condemning all sorts of other sins, fine. But it didn’t. It attacked his family. I’m sure there are plenty of apologists here who’ll be along shortly to explain what that, too is ok and why pastor’s families deserve everything they get.

          Suffice it to say, I disagree. If his wife and daughters are fat, what of it? It doesn’t affect you (general) any more than my thunder thighs and round butt affect you.

      2. It seems I need to offer some rationale here to defend this observation – which some folks have apparently “unimaginatively” (TM) taken to be nothing more than a “fat-joke”;

        Part of the over-riding narrative that exists within the fundamentalist world is one of being the “remnant” of true faith, existing within an in-part or in-whole persecuted environment. Just listen to the rhetoric coming from this guy, it’s replete with the use of such terms as “self sacrifice” and “surrender”.

        As many of us here know, the lifestyle evidence, when examined, seldom stacks up in support of the narrative that these fundamentalists rely on. Access to calorific intake is one such lifestyle measure. Those who have the time and resource to calorific intake of above 2500 per day (which the evidence suggests is going on in this case) undermine their case for claiming some kind of “hardship for the sake of the cross”. When you drill down, preachers such as this must run a fine line of claiming that their religious positions somehow results in blessings (i.e. almost always a reference to money), but is also a physical and or financial burden that requires the financial input of others to keep going. Let’s not forget, this guy is asking for money from people to maintain his “ministry” – the language of self-sacrifice is key to being able to garner such financial support. This is where my reference to abundance comes from; the tight rhetorical balancing act that guys like this have to perform in order to live what is essentially a middle class life, whilst at the same time being able to use the words of the likes of St. Paul (with respect to hardship etc..) in order to maintain the flow of financial support.

        Coupled with thew above, is the notion that fundies somehow enjoy a greater level of moral purity than everyone else, or at least have a codified way of recognising moral purity. Take careful note of his admission of sin “I could have done more”. These guys are not wiling to admit any failings, especially moral ones. Yet I bet you they would be among the first to call out those who they see as having such moral failings (people who are addicted to various substances, for example). Are they willing to see the health implications of their own calorific intake as in any way morally implicated? If not, why not?

        kudos to the one or two people who realised there is more going on here.

        1. jsky (not that you care since I’ve been dismissed as “unimaginative”), more low-income people are suffering from obesity and overweight than any other socioeconomic group. Lots of reasons for this …

          At any rate, anyone who cared to read my comment in full would have seen that I was addressing not the hypocrisy but the fact that the women and children often have little outlets for their feelings and so turn to food for comfort. You want to rag on the preacher? Knock yourself out. But the rest? FTS.

        2. @PP, I’m not convinced that you’ve properly read or understood, the thread (i.e. why the term “unimaginative” is referenced), nor what I wrote in particular.

          I apologise for any lack of clarity in my posts that might have contributed to this apparent confusion. I don’t see much value in continuing when we are perhaps unable to do so appropriately.

        3. Persnickety, the “unimaginative” comment wasn’t aimed at you.
          My point was that it’s unimaginative to attack people for their physical appearance.
          Calling a fat person fat is so obvious that it doesn’t qualify as wit. That’s what I was trying to say.

        4. Speaking of hypocrites. I had a missionary friend who told me a church said they wouldn’t support him because he was obese. He then said they had a picture of a missionary they supported on their wall that was twice his size. Maybe they meant he was not obese enough.

  14. “I sent them my book on Baptist doct-uh, Bible doctrine, rather…”
    Because OF COURSE those two are the same thing.

    At 5:20 he acknowledges that he’s had them standing too long…and then continues for another FOUR MINUTES.

    Has anybody heard those can do-should do-would have-could have statements outside of IFB churches? They seem to be the only ones that use tautologies like that.

    And either the picture in the previous article was old, or this has lived at an all-you-can-eat buffet for the last two years.

  16. The idea to stand for the reading of God’s word, I thought, was to HONOR God’s word, not for the speaker to ramble on about his own great accomplishments!

    1. And that’s where you were wrong . . . the point is to focus even more attention on the preacher because everyone is wondering when he will let them sit. Most preach what would pass as an entire sermon in other denominations while making everyone stand for 10-15 minutes. Those who are weaker in the faith just select extra long Bible passages to read (once had a preacher read the entire Sermon on the Mount) while we stood. The point is to make you do something and get your attention.

      And, for the record, what does standing have to do with honoring God’s word? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. If we needed to stand to honor God’s word then why do they not stand every time a passage is read throughout the sermon. Why is the first “text” so special?

      1. I think standing for the initial reading of the Word is a tiny bit of formality in our mostly informal, non-liturgical IFB churches.

        1. That’s probably true in many IFB churches. However, they usually have some twisted scriptural explanation for everything else they do but this practice has always baffled me. (The IFB church that I grew up in did not observe this practice, which is why it stands out more to me, I think. Our pastor once stated that the NT also says that Jesus sat down to teach and if preachers aren’t going to sit down to preach then we didn’t need to stand when he read the sermon text.)

        2. From my experience, it’s definitely just formality/tradition. Like how at my non-Baptist church we stand up for a reading of any of the gospels, but not for any other scripture.

          Meaningless things like that kinda drive me crazy. 😐

        3. There is a tradition of standing to honor someone; it is seen today in standing ovations, and in standing for the Hallelujah Chorus. In the 1940s era, it was polite to stand when a women entered the room or when she got up from the table. So, I do think that standing in honor of the Bible does show it honor, but it is pretty old-fashioned.

        4. It’s a practice that goes at least as far back as Homo Erectus, though I would not advise throwing that term around in a redneck church.

        5. Yes, standing for the Word is a left over from ancient liturgies. As is referring to the front of the church as an “altar.”

          Fundies don’t realize this any more than they realize that a communion table is for communion and NOT a place to put KJB 1611 plaques.

        6. My childhood church had the custody of standing for the bible reading. They used Nehemiah 8:1-5 as an example. They also used the passage to condemn other preachers for using glass pulpits! Because it says he made a pulpit of wood! It’s all nonsense in my opinion now!

      2. BAM! Qualified!

        Do you realize the power trip one can get off on just having the congregation stand and sit on cue or with the mere wave of one’s hand?

        And the pews are filled with sheeple practicing proper Pavlovian response. baaaaaaaaaa, baaaaaaa 🙄

        1. LOL. Good point. At least in liturgical churches, you stand, sit, and kneel when the liturgy says to, not when the preacher-man says to.

        2. In the Catholic church we stand for the reading of the gospel because now we are listening to the Words of Jesus. It is in respoect to Jesus that we stand.,

    1. Wow, he must be just as dumb as that stupid, dark-skinned Nigerian man.

  18. According to him his tract taught how man could live at peace with God.

    What about living at peace with others? 🙁

  19. He wants to get the “blood of this generation off his hands”? How does he sleep at night knowing he is single handedly responsible for the salvation of so many people?!

    🙄

  20. I find it very revealing that the “sin” he is worried about at the judgment seat of Christ is “not being all that I can be.” This is a favorite fundy “sin” because what it means is: I am pretty awesome already but I probably could be more awesome, I guess. In other words, it is nothing more than a backhanded complement to oneself.

  21. A few comments:

    1. He seems to chuckle at the ignorant African: “I think the fella has no idea that there’s a time difference between Africa and America.” “I don’t think he really realizes that phones work cause he yells in the phone.” Did this sound a little patronizing to anyone else?

    2. Like a lot of “Babtist” preachers, he doesn’t like the title “Reverend.”

    3. At 3 minutes in, the blonde lady passes off the baby to the woman next to her.

    4. If he had 6 African churches yearning to hear him, I hope he exalted Jesus and not himself and not man-made rules.

    5. The camera angle shifts so we can barely see the head of another blond woman with another child around 5:20. It looks like she’s exiting the pew with that child.

    6. At 9:09: “Let’s read the Word of God . . . oh, can I say one more thing.” 0.0

    1. Yeah, I noticed that too. “Patronizing” is a nice word for the sentiment that he expressed. Personally, I believe the story was invented. It would have been *extremely* difficult and expensive for the African man to phone Stateside. Also, the preacher says that the African man told him, “We have started an *Independent Baptist* church” and that the church was fending off Charismatics. “Independent Baptist” and “Charismatics” are trademark American fundamentalist vocabulary; there’s no way that an African man saved from a tract would have used those terms. Thus, the story was invented.

      1. To clarify: I’m talking about PW’s first point, the story about the African convert.

    2. 1. Yes, it did sound patronizing; encouraging laughter at another is not “kind”

      2. Check. Perhaps it is not liked because it implies some kind of decorum in behavior?

      3. Didn’t notice

      4. Well put! I hope Jesus Christ is exalted, and not him… but listening to his self-promotion (and it IS STILL self-promotion, even if you put a the phrase “I’m not exalting myself”), I don’t have a lot of hope.

      5. Didn’t notice

      6. Yes, I noticed this… He comes across as full of love; love for the sound of his voice, and for all that he has accomplished in his life.

      1. I noticed the women standing there with babies because I’ve stood holding a heavy child in my arms and they get heavy really quickly! I just kept thinking how uncomfortable the congregation had to be standing and standing there, especially the ones with babes in arms.

  22. “There’s a book back there on advice for older preachers to younger preachers.”

    How ’bout some advice from a younger preacher’s wife to an older preacher: LET THE PEOPLE SIT DOWN (and stop talking about yourself.)

  23. If anyone was actually listening to his radio broadcast it would fund itself and not need $5,800 per month to keep it going.

  24. This guy is a classical example of a religious connunbrum – Why do Fundamentalist Baptists nearly always get their mouths and backsides switched round? Is is part of their Spiritual Training?

    1. I think it’s due to misinterpretation of “first shall be last and last shall be first”

  25. This poor Nigerian was too ignorant to understand time zone differences and to know that phones work, but he wanted this windbag to preach their “crusade” and said they had several “works” started. And prior to having this guy preach over the phone they were going have one song and prayer. Really? He learned all that American Fundy vernacular and church-style from a tract? Including the use of the word “ain’t”? If this story is even true it has been painted with a great deal of bovine’s finest.

    1. I find it disturbing that such a profoundly racist and thoroughly ignorant man has positioned himself as the spiritual adviser to a church in Nigeria. 😥

    2. ISTR it was an Anglican bishop in Nigeria who wrote an open letter to the denomination some years back that went roughly, “Yes, this current furor over having an openly homosexual bishop is occupying a great deal of your time. Meanwhile my parishioners regularly crap themselves to death because we don’t have safe drinking water on tap. The cure for the disease is about 11 cents’ worth of salt and sugar in a specific ratio, but we don’t even have that. Perhaps you could spare an afternoon for this little issue?”

      The words of an actual Nigerian clergyperson, folks. “Oooh, please rescue me from my ignorance, mighty Whitey” was nowhere in the letter. If anything it was more like “Y’all might want to have that mass cranio-rectal inversion seen to.”

      Except in grammatically correct newscaster English. Because they study it in school.

      1. Earlier in the century, I was in Kenya for a couple of weeks working with some folks in a rural area a bit outside Nairobi. Most of those “backwards” natives spoke three languages and many were learning a fourth. Their English was impeccable. I currently work with guys from Nigeria, D. R. Congo, and Burundi. All of them are very well educated, know many languages, and are good aviation mechanics.

        Mr. Ballew needs to actually travel, not pretend. He is proof that ignorance isn’t limited to “furriners”.

        1. My husband once worked on a team with a Nigerian gentleman and a Cuban gentleman. I use the word gentlemen….they were highly educated, extremely well brought up men who made us look…..well….kinda rednecky and hickish in contrast. Now, mind you, he and I have traveled the globe and aren’t totally backwards, but any time folks start denigrating folks from other places, I think about those two men.

        2. This very weekend I attended a very interesting talk from a missionary to Zambia. He had nothing but respect for his Zambian brethren, who he credited with the majority of outreach work done, and expressed a desire to be able to communicate more effectively… because he can only communicate in five languages and is working on a sixth!

          The sheer number of languages people use in many African countries, including Zambia and Nigeria, is mind-boggling to me. How do children keep them all straight?! And yet somehow they do!

  26. Que the Allman Brothers singing, “Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man…”

    1. Or Johnny Cash singing “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”:

      Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
      Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down

    2. or Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”

      http://youtu.be/a3HemKGDavw

      Mine’s a tale that can’t be told, my freedom I hold dear
      How years ago in days of old when magic filled the air
      ’twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, mm-I met a girl so fair
      but Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her
      her, her, yeah, and ain’t nothin’ I can do, no

      I guess I’ll keep on ramblin’, I’m gonna
      Sing my song/Sh-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, I’ve gotta find my baby
      I’m gonna ramble on, sing my song
      Gonna work my way all around the world
      Baby, baby/Ramble on, yeah

      2. No offense, Don, but ‘Ramble On’ makes me want to poke my brain out. Heard it for the first time in a looong time watching the movie Oblivion with my guy the other night. *blick*

        😈

    3. On a warm summer’s evening on a train bound for nowhere
      I met up with the rambler
      We were both too tired to sleep

  27. Here’s an entry for the SFL Glossary:
    When a preacher says, “Just let me say one more thing,” he’s about to say seventy or eighty more things.

    1. One of the tenets of preach-craft is to hold your audience’s attention. Statements such as, “One more thing,” or “And in closing…” But when these tactics are misused or over-used, they lose their holding power. It will also cause the speaker to lose all credibility because his words don’t mean anything. One of my favorite “holding patterns” was when a preacher said, “And, as the old cow said while crawling through a barbed wire fence, ‘Just a few more points and I’ll be through…'” And then he went on for another 45 minutes. When a preacher closes and closes and closes, I’ve learned the hard way not to get my coat or put away my Bible just yet.

      1. One of the things I appreciate about Ravi Zacharias is that when he nears the close of his message, he will say something like; ” I just want to share with you an anecdote followed by my last point, and I will be through.” Then, he does just what he says.

        How can he do this? Because he is actually *Prepared*. Speakers like “Baloo” demonstrate their lack of preparedness by their rambling. It takes much more time and effort (editing) to prepare a 20 minute message than it does to “wing it” for 45 minutes.

        Public Speaking 101…

        Also, for a great “rambling” song parody, check out “Never Did No Wanderin'”, by the New Main Street Singers in the Christopher Guest mockumentary, “A Mighty Wind”. (The clip is on YouTube as well, but the entire film is a hoot.)

  28. There is something a bit odd about the configuration of the congregation. It looks to me like there are mostly men on the left side and mostly women and kids on the right side. Anyone else notice that or is it just me??? 😕

  29. “…I dread the judgment seat of Christ…”
    For starters, this presumes a specific eschatological framework which most Christians throughout time and space haven’t agreed with. However, the larger point is that if we face our Christ with dread, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with our theology. There are no works by which we can stand before him, it is only his work for us that is meritorious. I have no fear of judgment, because my sin has already been judged at Calvary, and I am baptized into the risen Lord. If I hadn’t come out of it, I couldn’t even imagine a fear-based Christianity. It is oxymoronic.

    1. “…I dread the judgment seat of Christ…”

      more evidence of modern day, foolish Galatians…

    3. Amen to that. I can’t figure out how the logic of it is supposed to work, and it’s the primary reason I nearly gave up on faith altogether. If I can only be saved through fear, then I’d rather go to hell.

    4. “Dreading the judgment seat of Christ” is just another manifestation of “Catholic-envy” on the part of fundy Baptist preachers. They need to have some form of the doctrine of purgatory to use as a tool to manipulate the parishioners. Other forms of Catholic-envy include: the MOG as “pope” of the church, the “inquisition” (see the next to last blog post), the concept of “sacred” music, and the IFB church being the only “true” church.

  30. According to my side-bar ad, I can meet Ebony Singles in my area? Is that just a coincidence?

    1. Yeah. Mine says “Enter to win Free Laser Hair Removal!”

      I’m sure the good ol’ Bro would see that as a sin. . .because everyone knows Free laser Hair Removal leads to tattoos, which leads to card playing, which leads to pool, which leads to beer, which leads to sex, which leads to SMOKING.

    2. Mine is an invitation to earn a Bible degree. I believe I’ll just wait until I can get a Basement Bible College to give me one. Why waste time “larnin'” when I can be out “ministrin'”.

      1. Mine’s for a Boost Mobile phone and if I type in the word “fiesta”, I get a 15% savings in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

    4. Mine just says, “20% off on Father’s Day cards.”
      I guess I’m not as hip as y’all.

    8. Mine is a boring ad for a book by Kay Warren called choose joy. Waaaah. I want an ebony singles ad.

  31. Wow. He has amazing arms to be able to pat himself on the back so vigorously.

  32. Is the picture color distorted or is he really wearing a baby/powder-blue coat? Doesn’t that fall into the category of “that which pertaineth to a woman”? By OT law, shouldn’t he be stoned for that?

    1. That is the same color as the tuxedo I wore for my prom. Back in 197something or other. :mrgreen:

      1. Scorpio – you saying that brings back memories. My Dad had a powder-blue Cadillac and matching leisure suit back in 1978 (to “match his eyes”)…I think he thought he wanted-to-be/was a fundy pimp. Our wardrobes (and car selections) got exponentially better after we left fundydom.

    2. To me, it looks more like the shade of blue that they use in the vinyl that they make bounce castles out of.

  33. During his rambling I couldn’t help but think of that Simpson episode (which we couldn’t watch in Fundy land) where the singer sings the national anthem for like 10 minutes and the people fall asleep. In this case, the guy asked people to stand to read the bible and he rambles on. Those poor people

  34. With apologies to Stephen Bishop:

    Down in the Southern states
    They got a Babtist preacher
    Keeps you standin’
    Till you break yer back
    Brother Stinnett, he’s in love with his voice
    Opens up the Word but before he begins,

    On and on
    He just keeps on rambling
    He talks and talks
    while they stand there dying
    On and on, On and on, On and on . . .

    1. Well, this was meant to go under the comments above, but I was provi-George-ally hindered.

    2. Thanks for the Links… Nat “King” Cole is soooo smooth! Also, don’t forget Steve Martin’s banjo-tune, “A Ramb’lin’ Kind of Guy” from his stand-up days. I love the way he syllabicates the final word of the song;”Raaaaaammmmm………Blinnnnnnn!”

    3. Whenever someone on this blog mentions “CCM,” I have to double-check the initials, because Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) is the first thing to come to mind.

  37. I can’t. I just can’t. As soon as an IFB preacher starts rambling I twitch and get a little nauseous. They have a distinctive style that immediately triggers my innate flight or fight response. Turned it off after 15 seconds.

  38. Background – Stinnett is a member of Concord Baptist in Fairmount Georgia (Sammy Allen’s church). That’s right…….. Sammy Allen is this guys pastor! Stinnet’s son in law is the choir director at Sammy Allen’s Church and camp meeting and Stinnett’s daughter is Sammy Allen’s piano player. Hopefully this ads some insight.

    This is also the same guy that had the offering monies threw in his face at Faith Baptist Camp by Phil Kidd, after one of Kidds pissed off tirades (sermon) a few years ago.

    1. Is that the same sin-hating Phil Kidd who preaches against women wearing make-up while his wife is painted up like a two dollar hooker.

      Roger that, 10-4 good buddy.

  40. why would a person waste their time and suffer through this nonsense. This is what fundamentalists tell their sheeple that their holy scripture demands them to “assemble” for. This is what they pass off as worshiping an almighty creator god. This is nothing more than low quality religious propaganda. I was forced to endure these types of “church services” as a child, never again.
    Its hard to comprehend why any logical adult would actually think this is something that they must attend. Delusional is the only answer I can think of at the moment. 🙄

  41. So, wait a minute, he’s doing this when he’s supposed to be reading a Bible passage?

    And nobody in the congregation is willing to say, “Pastor, aren’t we supposed to be listening to the Bible passage right now?”

    And nobody is concerned that instead of just being rude and prideful he might be, I dunno, suffering from early dementia, or possibly drunk?

    If this is an example of a Real True Christian church service, I’m happier than ever to live in the wishy-washy mainstream.

  42. Ugh, my previous church always had us stand during the 20 minute long prayers. I have orthopedic issues, so standing still for that long was not possible for me. But sitting down in the middle of a prayer while everyone else was standing always seemed so awkward to me.

    On an unrelated note,”Stinnet Ballew” is an absolutely amazing name!

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