Church Pet Peeves Take 2

Ooops.

Post deleted.

 

Cell phones!!

People (old people) carrying on conversations during the sermon! I can hear them all the way up to the pulpit. If they weren't my elders, I'd "call their names from the pulpit."

(That was one of my greatest fears as a kid in church - that the preacher wouldcall my name from the pulpit! If that happened, my dad would call my name at home!!)

 

How about people who get trapped in the sanctuary????:laugh:

 

Bobby! That's a good thing.

Think of all the prayer time they can have.

 

I cringe when they make the visitors stand up so we can clap for them.

And double cringe when visitors are present, and the prayer requests are just a smokescreen for gossip.

 

The kids in my class have a hard time early in the year that I don't take prayer requests outloud. I have a journal where they can write them down. That old gossip session starts early. It's hard to train them that God knows the request even if it doesn't get said outloud. I had one little kid (he was smart-alecky about it) that carried on about it all year. It got old. Most accept it in short order.

Sometimes we pass the book around and let those that want to pray over the requests specifically.

 

Blue haired people???

You are talking about our Senior Saints and they are the strongest prayer warriors I know.

Why would that bother anyone?

 

Maybe blue haired teenagers? Most of ours are pretty conservative, but we did have a grown woman with pink and black hair. She looked like a cartoon! She has since changed it to blonde.

love,

Sopranette

 

The one pet peeve which really annoys me wasn't listed. Only a handful of times has it happened to me (and not in my present church).

I'm sitting in the pew listening to the sermon and suddenly directly in front of me (or one or two pew rows ahead) the wife of a couple suddenly decides to start giving her hubby a little backrub. She starts rubbing his shoulders and then all over his back, up and down, left and right. Then they're glancing at each other and smiling and scooting right up against one another, obviously enjoying it and he's got his arm over her shoulders and she her arm over his shoulder and back, rubbing, rubbing away.

This doesn't go on for five or ten seconds but thirty or even sixty seconds. It's extremely distracting to the people behind them and not really the time or place.

I'm thinking 'lady, I realize this may be the first time all week that you've gotten to sit next to your husband and relax, where your not in the car or at the dinner table but PLEASE...save that for when you get home'.

 

I do not think she meant the people under the blue hair just the color of the hair. I also agree with two much affection it can get distracting.

 

We've never had any kind of phone ringing during a service (I don't know what a cell phone is - perhaps the American name for what we call a "mobile" or "mobile phone"?), no one has ever brought a pet to a service, and I don't think we have had animals trapped in the "sanctury", but then, as far as I know, we don't have a sanctuary. I know that in Anglican and Roman Catholic church buildings, the east end of the building, where the "altar" is, is known as a sanctuary, but we don't have an altar, so no "sanctuary" in that sense. Perhaps it has another meaning in the States. Speaking of American English, what are "high fives"?

Limited abilty singers? No, they don't peeve me. They are singing to God, not me, and He looks upon the heart.

Limited ability pianist? Wouldn't bother me, unless that limited pianist knew there was someone better qualified, yet stubbornly refused to hand over the task of accompanying the hymns.


Limited ability preacher? I am one! Seriously though, I recall that Spurgeon was converted under a preacher with extremely limited ability. Here is part of Spurgeon's own account:

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed; but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was, — LOOK UNTO ME, AND BE YE SAVED, ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. (ISAIAH 45:22)

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus: —
“My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” said he, in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Some on ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’

Then the good man followed up his text in this way: — “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!”

​

I am not sure why "people with blue hair" should be included in the poll, unless in a joking way.