I’m not making this shit up. Which is insane.
So there’s this rather large church here in town. It started way way small. 20ish people.
When I was there it was around 5-800, now it’s something like 14-15k worth of folks from all sorts of walks, or not walks of life.
Stupid walkys. People with movey legs and stuff.
It’s kind of funny to think about, all the growth, and the unknowing-y folks. Because they totally were one domination, then kind of not, but still mostly that…and no one knew it, or didn’t believe it anyway. I mean it said it outright on their website for a long time. No one knew they liked that hellfire or the brimstone shit.
Yeah yell at people! But who doesn’t love a fire breathing god…?
Yeah anyway. Mostly hipster-ish folks or their wannabes, flooded this place. Loud music and bright lights carried them in. Sundays turned in to a frenzy of J-Crew, boat shoes, and jean jackets with arms rolled so tight you could be sure someone would pass out before the end of a service from blood loss.
Nah that was Jesus knocking them down. Because. Sin or something.
HEALED! CLEANEDNESSEDED! WHITE AS SNOW! SOMETHING!
Even 40 somethings dads risked it all on Sundays. JEANS AND TENNIS SHOES AT CHURCH! HOLY MOTHER MARY.
Hell even a very interesting group of folks started showing up recently, and being accepted. Which I like the idea of. But if they watched some on the old sermons on tape….they’d lose their shit. Evolution of tithing.
What these folks have money too?
But this church does do some super selectively amazing things for some people and the rest just feel all warm and fuzzy from said select acts. So… I don’t hate the church or church or religion…so I’ll stop ranting about misconstrueties.
Anyways.
When I was there it was a first for me. Being excited to be at church. Being at a church regularly. Volunteering at a church constantly, 10-15 hours each weekend, and randomly throughout the week.
I signed myself up for this. No one else pressured me to.
I’d wake up Sunday morning around 4 AM and head to the site where service was held. Truckloads and vans full of audio video equipment had to be unloaded, setup, configured, and tested. Quickly.
The amount of audio video equipment we used was pretty impressive. So impressive in fact that at some point someone at the site we used informed the church they were on their own for power in the auditorium.
Which is where the jesus’n took place.
Probably had something to do with blowing circuits or overloading them or some fancy eeeeelectrician stuffs.
Oh noes?
Nope.
LETS BUY GASOLINE POWERED GENERATORS. THEN CONNECT ALL THIS EQUIPMENT TO THEM.
This wasn’t my idea. Connecting amazingly expensive equipment to something that generates power and surges constantly. With no UPS.
Anyways…
It somehow quickly became my job to make sure these generators were full of that brownish liquid gold, before each of the services.
Hmm ok fine…Now I smell of burny things and gasoline all day at church. That’s soo breath of Jehovah-y. Seems legit.
Doth kindle it….Get it…brimstone? Maybe….?
So there’s one dude who calls all the shots in the auditorium, the production lead, he’d bring these huge containers of gas in to use in the refueling process.
One this particular morning he brought them in, empty.
“Go buy more fricken gas!” …This guy loved the word “fricken”. I guess because he wasn’t supposed to say fuck?
Fricken is almost cursing! Excitement! Fringe!
I can’t, I rode my motorcycle.
“Take my fricken truck then, go!”
OK.
This truck had seen better days.
Standard beat up truck. No A/C, no working power anything, no working radio, full of McDonalds food bags, other trash stuffs, bench seat made from stone, complete with the steering wheel from a ship. No really you could turn the wheel a full quarter turn with no response…unregistered, covered in dents….oh and the rear view mirrors would spin in the wind past 40 MPH.
Anyways…
I get to the gas station and start filling up these huge gas containers. One of them had buckled a bit and was trying to implode on itself because it had been sitting outside and heated up. I go to unscrew the lid and it lets out a puff and shoots a really awesome mist of gasoline in to my eyes.
Shaking my first in the air, I rejoice…HOORAY!
I may have not rejoiced or said hooray.
After the initial pain wore off, I call my “boss”…Hey man I got gas in my eyes I’m in a ton of pain and can’t see so great right now. I shouldn’t drive back, so I’m going to need some help.
“WALK IT OFF PANSY, GET BACK HERE OR THE GENE’S ARE GONNA RUN OUT OF FUEL”
…No, I can’t see right now and my eyes won’t stop watering, this is quite painful. I can’t drive like this.
“JUST OPEN YOUR EYES AND WALK AROUND GET SOME AIR AND GET BACK HERE” – Hangs up.
Well…Anyways…
I’m not sure that’s exactly what turned me off from that place, but I definitely didn’t go back much after that. Sure as hell stopped volunteering. I tried years later. Same culture. It was a combination of outright douchery and an overwhelming ambiguous sensationalistic superficialism so thick that you could sell it as a substitute to mayonnaise to Paula Dean.
Spread some on ya’ll.
That and the hug culture there is real wack. It’s beyond the bro hug game. This hug game is like a secret squirrel handshake or some shit.
It goes something like this, these are the minimum requirements…
- Glazed over wide eye endearedness-ness
- Closed mouth look, like an angry puff daddy
- One hand grabbing other persons hand into a ball, other hand out and extended slightly upward
- Once hands are balled into each others, pull hug-eee into you
- Use upright hand to reach over hug-eee’s back, pat twice
- Push hug-eee away from you with the balled up hands
- Stare at him like he/she just dropped the N word. Or he/she shit your favorite pair of Aldo Men’s Distressed Leatherette OR SUEDE, Oxford Dress Shoes.
- Start any conversation, immediately, using the word “Brother”.
Oh and I guess being told to walk off my temporarily blinding injury and concern for my safety or others while driving a 1 ton truck actually full of barrels of gasoline. That could have been a turn off.
I guess I was smote-ted-eded that day. Just another sinner in the hands of an angry god.
How do you walk off temporary blindness anyway?
I sure do miss the free pizza for volunteers though. Totes worth some gas in the eyes…
Narnia?
Well...Anyways 