I am a youth director and am honestly curious. What would have made Sunday School more fun for you? I want to be able to make it fun for the kids that come to my church (while hopefully they still learn something).
I can relate to little Bug. Thankfully, once I was a teenager, my mother was cool with me not going if I didn't feel like it, but she still wanted me to go if I could.
Now, to answer your question, Curious (hang on, it's a long one).
Sunday School never did anything for me except turn me away from wanting to be there. I was told that most of my friends were going to hell (because they were gay, Jewish, not Christian) and that I wasn't supposed to hang around nonChristians because they might cause me to turn from god. I was also told that things I loved, like classic rock, were sinful and I should be listening to Christian rock instead, because "it's the same thing, but with a god-centred message". When they shunned my brother because he was a scraggle-haired teenage sound technician who asked questions they couldn't answer (or cited, chapter and verse, things that countered what he was being told), well, that was the last straw for me. I had already migrated to not going to Sunday School and just teaching the little ones (god made the world is so much simpler than trying to defend your gay family members every week), so I did my last gig with the children's choir I directed, went to study abroad, and when I came home, never went back to church. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of the people trying to teach me, I couldn't stand the limited world view that they were trying to get me to believe, and I could never straighten out how a religion based on love could shun so many people (Jesus chilled with an unpopular crowd, didn't he? -even the tax man!). Plus, I hated praise music- that didn't really help either.
I don't know how your church runs things, but had I found people who admitted that they didn't know everything, admitted (and talked about) when they made a mistake and didn't condemn us for the same things, accepted that people are people and we are all going to screw up, and didn't shun anyone for self expression…well, that would have been amazing. I didn't need more preachy programs that served only the people in our doors. I wanted a human church that actually followed that love thing Jesus talks about and went out and served the community in a St Francis kind of way- teach the gospel to all the world and, if necessary, use words. Soup kitchens, shelters, park clean ups…anything, would have been nice.
And less praise music. Not everything old is bad or needs to be jazzed up. Sometimes, Victory in Jesus, sang like it's actually a victory song, is all a body needs.
Now, I walk into a church and I feel like I'm going to catch fire or something.
haha the whole church thing sucks for you guys. I'm the daughter of an agnostic and a Pagan. I've been in churches in both New England (dragged by grandparents some Christmases) and Europe (dragged by mom for historical reasons), and I hate the American churches with a passion. They have no soul, no character, and they preach hypocrisy and bigotry. The European ones are nice, though, especially cathedrals like Notre Dame. I've spent hours in Notre Dame just admiring the architecture and soaking up the atmosphere, which smells of ancient stone and faint incense.
We always had "bulletins" with the day's agenda in it and a picture of the church on the front. I would always draw stick figures shooting at each and pushing each other off of the church onto spikes and stuff.
Man, I wish I'd had something to draw with to doodle during church. My mom didn't like me doing anything other than "paying attention". And if I didn't behave, I had to sit in a chair facing the wall when we got home. I hear you on this one, though.
I had memories of falling asleep in church, only to be suddenly woken by the loud, off key, screeching singing of the people in the pews. It was a traumatic experience.
I can't wait until I'm considered old enough to decide not to go to church. (two years) Ive been ferried back and forth between baptist and presbyterian churches, and THEY ALL SMELL A DIFFERENT KIND OF WEIRD.
I actually have an interesting chrurch, complete with our 'Genesis' services (the name of the room they're in), which is headed by our 20-something pastor and full of crazy teenagers. Our church missed the memo that the Lutherans are supposed to be the depressed ones. ^.^
Age 12 – Dad said, "Do you want to go to church with Mom and Grandma, or cut firewood with me?" My thoughtful reply, "Well dad, it's 10 below outside… Let me get my boots."
Too bad. Now I go to a pretty rockin' church, but when I was little I went to a different one. Oh man, it was so boring. I remember that's when my brother taught me to draw a airplane on the bulletin.(I'm an artist now) :3
The first and last time I saw the interior of the church on a school trip behalf of cultural diversity in the fifth grade. But anyway, I understand a little beetle. And there was people kissing a coffin.
Merry meet Potato. The freedoms of a Wiccan childhood were awesome compared to constricted expectations within organized religions. I have no need to spend my life, on my knees, begging for forgiveness for something I did not do.
I use to covertly make origami out of the mandatory 'donation' dollar. Folded in half and then folding the end over makes it square. Swans, cootie catchers, boxes, frogs, over a dozen types of airplanes, rings, roses, cranes… I wish I still remembered how to make them.
I think Jesus would puke if he saw today's churches. If he was alive today do you really think he would be in churches? No, he would be at aa meetings and gay rallies ect. preaching to the people.
I especially hate those t.v preachers who are only really into it for the money.
From the time I was about 7 until I was 18 (once in college, I didn't really go anymore) I would doodle. I would actually bring notebooks and sketchbooks and things to doodle on. I always hated Sunday School too. It was just really boring. We once spent about three months on Paul's trip to Damascus. Once I got to High School my friends and I would do whatever we could to avoid youth group/sunday school. We tended to wander around a lot. We made the folks a Royal Farms a lot of money too. Once I got my job I started working most Sunday mornings too. When I was little, church just bored me, but as I got older, I started being annoyed by it too. They totally erased or changed some of my favorite songs for piece of crap songs that are supposed to be "contemporary," but really they just suck. I used to LOVE Shine Jesus Shine and Amazing Grace.
Honestly, I do not miss it at all. The only redeeming qualities was that it was in the middle of Towson, so it was easy to find good restaurants or a mall or something after church was over, a lax dress code (we wore what we wore to school. Jeans and a t-shirt usually), and I got to see my friends that I only ever saw on Sundays.
Sunday School was horrible, and I always asked questions the teachers didn't now how to answer, so they took to ignoring me for the most part. Most days, church was bad, but once a month the assistant pastor would do the sermon, and that was what kept me from stopping going altogether (until we moved, and it went back to horrid). Her sermons were awesome, and in a way that anyone, even a middle-schooler that I was then, could understand. Also, her brother was gay, and so she was practised at being not even a slight bit offensive to anyone. The main pastor was a bit intolerant, but not her. These days, I got to thinking all religions are right some how (since they share much in common if you look deep enough), and the church here doesn't agree, so I don't go.
And that's why I don't think service should be one-fits-all. The church I grew up in separated us by age – that way, we could relate more to the message. I mean, there's no way a 10 yr old understands what his parents know, or a grandparent to a teenager. It just doesn't work. Granted, I still drew on the bulletins, but that was after service.
It's pretty common with these situations. I used to doodle, too.
The only thing keeping me going to church was my ex-girlfriend (because I only got to see her at church). Back when she was my girlfriend, we would go to the back, where the playground was, and kiss and hag out. We didn't get in trouble because the church members thought it was cute. We were only preteens, so it seemed alright.
But, I had later learned that, because of a church inconvenience, she had stopped attending our church. I knew that she didn't want to let go; nor did I as well. After a while, I stopped attending church,too.
Anyway, most kids don't know why they're at church. You should interview them and help them figure out why their parents want them at church.
Anna – Loved your comment. I was raised Catholic (atheist now) and was always grateful for the priest who said at our confirmation ceremony, “You should only go to church if you get something out of it. You should go because you want to go, because you enjoy the fellowship, because the message of the liturgy has meaning for you. But if it is a burden to you and you are only going out of a sense of obligation…for goodness sakes, don’t go!”
About midway through college when my skepticism and doubt over the supernatural explanations of reality were in full bloom, I just stopped going, and never looked back.
I would lock myself in the bathroom and attempt to negotiate. Sadly my emergence was never worth both my not going to church and not getting my ass kicked for refusing to go. Hell, one time my mom tried to exorcise me with holly water. She swears I’m possessed , just because Ive always hated going to church. You’d think shed realize it had something to do with the screaming and fainting old lady’s but nooooooo. Sorry , I know I’m ranting but I’m quite bitter… and traumatized.
And yea, the problem with church is that they don’t practice what they preach. I mean, what’s the point of loving the next man when, if the next man isn’t Christian or straight, he’s not deserving of their consideration? God gave us free will so we could choose what to believe in, not be His puppets. That’s something that the clergymen insist on not seeing. That’s why I turned my back from Catholicism slowly each day of my upbringing, and the last straw was when a guy who was taking donations for a Catholic TV station said that I would go to Hell just because I didn’t have money to give. Looking back now, I wish I could’ve stayed and let him hear it (reasonably enough).
These days, I say that I’m a simply non-practicing Christian. I tried becoming an Agnostic, but I still believe enough in a God that keeps the universe together. And, while Jesus was way cool, much of the people that came after apparently forgot what his coolness was all about: he loved everyone without distinction (well, except defilers of sacred places, but…).
I used to take pencils, paper and a cuddly toy for my girls when we went to church for when they got bored, and indeed all children get bored. They loved Sunday school and would get all excited about going, as do my grandchildren now. My daughter is now a Sunday school teacher and she loves it.
Church wasn’t so bad. We had padded pews, and sunday school was just colouring in and when I stopped going to sunday school, I got to run round the empty pews and up the big spiral staircases. It was fun. 🙂
My parents wouldn’t let me go to church when I was a kid, so when I finally got my license I was able to choose my own church and sneak there on the weekends. Because I found my own church, I was able to go to one that I found spiritually fulfilling.
I can easily relate. While my Church’s middle-high school Youth Group is actually pretty nice, and I do consider my self a Christian, the sermons were just prosaic. No matter how hard I tried to pay attention, my ADHD would just slip into something else. And I found the Sunday School for Elementary-schoolers too patronizing to be enlightening or enjoyable
Discussion (71) ¬
Wow, flashback. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was fun to put the envelopes back with all the doodles on them.
The only thing that made it worse was sunday school.
I am a youth director and am honestly curious. What would have made Sunday School more fun for you? I want to be able to make it fun for the kids that come to my church (while hopefully they still learn something).
I can relate to little Bug. Thankfully, once I was a teenager, my mother was cool with me not going if I didn't feel like it, but she still wanted me to go if I could.
Now, to answer your question, Curious (hang on, it's a long one).
Sunday School never did anything for me except turn me away from wanting to be there. I was told that most of my friends were going to hell (because they were gay, Jewish, not Christian) and that I wasn't supposed to hang around nonChristians because they might cause me to turn from god. I was also told that things I loved, like classic rock, were sinful and I should be listening to Christian rock instead, because "it's the same thing, but with a god-centred message". When they shunned my brother because he was a scraggle-haired teenage sound technician who asked questions they couldn't answer (or cited, chapter and verse, things that countered what he was being told), well, that was the last straw for me. I had already migrated to not going to Sunday School and just teaching the little ones (god made the world is so much simpler than trying to defend your gay family members every week), so I did my last gig with the children's choir I directed, went to study abroad, and when I came home, never went back to church. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of the people trying to teach me, I couldn't stand the limited world view that they were trying to get me to believe, and I could never straighten out how a religion based on love could shun so many people (Jesus chilled with an unpopular crowd, didn't he? -even the tax man!). Plus, I hated praise music- that didn't really help either.
I don't know how your church runs things, but had I found people who admitted that they didn't know everything, admitted (and talked about) when they made a mistake and didn't condemn us for the same things, accepted that people are people and we are all going to screw up, and didn't shun anyone for self expression…well, that would have been amazing. I didn't need more preachy programs that served only the people in our doors. I wanted a human church that actually followed that love thing Jesus talks about and went out and served the community in a St Francis kind of way- teach the gospel to all the world and, if necessary, use words. Soup kitchens, shelters, park clean ups…anything, would have been nice.
And less praise music. Not everything old is bad or needs to be jazzed up. Sometimes, Victory in Jesus, sang like it's actually a victory song, is all a body needs.
Now, I walk into a church and I feel like I'm going to catch fire or something.
My god, I don't think I've even been able to use the phrase "TL;DR" with such certainty and force.
ditto
@Dr. Sakuya
When people say TL;DR they REALLY mean MR;CR
(Mentally retarded;Cant read)
Anna, it sounds like you would have loved the church I grew up in. (Also, I agree: less praise music. Yuck.)
haha the whole church thing sucks for you guys. I'm the daughter of an agnostic and a Pagan. I've been in churches in both New England (dragged by grandparents some Christmases) and Europe (dragged by mom for historical reasons), and I hate the American churches with a passion. They have no soul, no character, and they preach hypocrisy and bigotry. The European ones are nice, though, especially cathedrals like Notre Dame. I've spent hours in Notre Dame just admiring the architecture and soaking up the atmosphere, which smells of ancient stone and faint incense.
also, didn't mean to post this here. Meant to post it at the end. Sorry. 😛
I can't believe people tl;dr a short couple of paragraphs.
For what it's worth, I read your statement, and I believe you gave some good advice.
Dear god.. did you just tell us your life story?? O___O'
Seriusly this is like.. the LONGEST comment I have EVER seen….
tl;dr
*applause* Very well said; you are awesome. And yeah the unmitigated bigotry and hypocrisy in American churches is enough to make anyone nauseous.
Because nothing says “open minded” like calling huge groups of strangers “bigoted”.
if the shoe fits, Swagner
We always had "bulletins" with the day's agenda in it and a picture of the church on the front. I would always draw stick figures shooting at each and pushing each other off of the church onto spikes and stuff.
Man, I wish I'd had something to draw with to doodle during church. My mom didn't like me doing anything other than "paying attention". And if I didn't behave, I had to sit in a chair facing the wall when we got home. I hear you on this one, though.
Church was so boring, I stopped going in recent years. But there were a few rare occasions I would go.
Most of the time, I'm sitting at home on my ass.
Little Bug looks awfully cute in his Sunday best. Well … as cute as a hell-raising heathen can look.
Did you have padded pews or not padded pews? That was the real deal breaker.
There are PADDED pews?
This is definitely true more often than not. Especially for kids. I also doodled on the envelopes. That was a saving grace for childhood.
Ah church… I get dragged on Easter and Christmas, but other than that, I can mostly get out of it…
I had memories of falling asleep in church, only to be suddenly woken by the loud, off key, screeching singing of the people in the pews. It was a traumatic experience.
I can't wait until I'm considered old enough to decide not to go to church. (two years) Ive been ferried back and forth between baptist and presbyterian churches, and THEY ALL SMELL A DIFFERENT KIND OF WEIRD.
This is painfully true. I would go to church with my friends and would doodle all over the envelopes.
Augh.
I actually have an interesting chrurch, complete with our 'Genesis' services (the name of the room they're in), which is headed by our 20-something pastor and full of crazy teenagers. Our church missed the memo that the Lutherans are supposed to be the depressed ones. ^.^
I still doodle all over the bulletins, though.
Yay Lutherans! (I am one too).
I absolutely love the irony of the first panel, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud at work
Did you have padded pews or not padded pews? That was the real deal breaker.
I love the first panel – perfect!
Age 12 – Dad said, "Do you want to go to church with Mom and Grandma, or cut firewood with me?" My thoughtful reply, "Well dad, it's 10 below outside… Let me get my boots."
Too bad. Now I go to a pretty rockin' church, but when I was little I went to a different one. Oh man, it was so boring. I remember that's when my brother taught me to draw a airplane on the bulletin.(I'm an artist now) :3
"Help me, Jesus!"
How deliciously ironic.
this needs to be a bumper sticker.
The first and last time I saw the interior of the church on a school trip behalf of cultural diversity in the fifth grade. But anyway, I understand a little beetle. And there was people kissing a coffin.
Haha, as soon as I step inside the church my mind goes on a comma for the hour 1/2 that the mass goes on. It's amazing. No other place can do that.
never had this problem i was raised by wiccans
Merry meet Potato. The freedoms of a Wiccan childhood were awesome compared to constricted expectations within organized religions. I have no need to spend my life, on my knees, begging for forgiveness for something I did not do.
Way to go bug.
lol I love this one. 🙂
I use to covertly make origami out of the mandatory 'donation' dollar. Folded in half and then folding the end over makes it square. Swans, cootie catchers, boxes, frogs, over a dozen types of airplanes, rings, roses, cranes… I wish I still remembered how to make them.
I think Jesus would puke if he saw today's churches. If he was alive today do you really think he would be in churches? No, he would be at aa meetings and gay rallies ect. preaching to the people.
I especially hate those t.v preachers who are only really into it for the money.
I used to draw castles on the back of the envelopes. Then, if it still hadn't finished, I'd draw guys with bows/arrows up there
From the time I was about 7 until I was 18 (once in college, I didn't really go anymore) I would doodle. I would actually bring notebooks and sketchbooks and things to doodle on. I always hated Sunday School too. It was just really boring. We once spent about three months on Paul's trip to Damascus. Once I got to High School my friends and I would do whatever we could to avoid youth group/sunday school. We tended to wander around a lot. We made the folks a Royal Farms a lot of money too. Once I got my job I started working most Sunday mornings too. When I was little, church just bored me, but as I got older, I started being annoyed by it too. They totally erased or changed some of my favorite songs for piece of crap songs that are supposed to be "contemporary," but really they just suck. I used to LOVE Shine Jesus Shine and Amazing Grace.
Honestly, I do not miss it at all. The only redeeming qualities was that it was in the middle of Towson, so it was easy to find good restaurants or a mall or something after church was over, a lax dress code (we wore what we wore to school. Jeans and a t-shirt usually), and I got to see my friends that I only ever saw on Sundays.
Also, the game room was cool. I was the Air Hockey Master and I learned to play pool there.
Sunday School was horrible, and I always asked questions the teachers didn't now how to answer, so they took to ignoring me for the most part. Most days, church was bad, but once a month the assistant pastor would do the sermon, and that was what kept me from stopping going altogether (until we moved, and it went back to horrid). Her sermons were awesome, and in a way that anyone, even a middle-schooler that I was then, could understand. Also, her brother was gay, and so she was practised at being not even a slight bit offensive to anyone. The main pastor was a bit intolerant, but not her. These days, I got to thinking all religions are right some how (since they share much in common if you look deep enough), and the church here doesn't agree, so I don't go.
>_>
And that's why I don't think service should be one-fits-all. The church I grew up in separated us by age – that way, we could relate more to the message. I mean, there's no way a 10 yr old understands what his parents know, or a grandparent to a teenager. It just doesn't work. Granted, I still drew on the bulletins, but that was after service.
Yeah, I find it kind of hard to pay attention during sermons at my church, too. I don't find it BORING per se, but it's kind of hard to keep focused.
Panel three killed me, i love these comics
Yay Judaism! I get a free pass. >:D
3 godzillas were hooping around when batman burst from the shade hit 1 with a bat grenade all 3 got pissed and began to attack and won
It's pretty common with these situations. I used to doodle, too.
The only thing keeping me going to church was my ex-girlfriend (because I only got to see her at church). Back when she was my girlfriend, we would go to the back, where the playground was, and kiss and hag out. We didn't get in trouble because the church members thought it was cute. We were only preteens, so it seemed alright.
But, I had later learned that, because of a church inconvenience, she had stopped attending our church. I knew that she didn't want to let go; nor did I as well. After a while, I stopped attending church,too.
Anyway, most kids don't know why they're at church. You should interview them and help them figure out why their parents want them at church.
Sorry for the story. I just got emotional.
I'm sorry. In the second paragraph I meant "hang" out, not "hag".
I thought you were British or something and was about to ask what hag means.
American churches are SO hateful
Anna – Loved your comment. I was raised Catholic (atheist now) and was always grateful for the priest who said at our confirmation ceremony, “You should only go to church if you get something out of it. You should go because you want to go, because you enjoy the fellowship, because the message of the liturgy has meaning for you. But if it is a burden to you and you are only going out of a sense of obligation…for goodness sakes, don’t go!”
About midway through college when my skepticism and doubt over the supernatural explanations of reality were in full bloom, I just stopped going, and never looked back.
Thank you, Father O’Donnell.
Love the first panel
I would lock myself in the bathroom and attempt to negotiate. Sadly my emergence was never worth both my not going to church and not getting my ass kicked for refusing to go. Hell, one time my mom tried to exorcise me with holly water. She swears I’m possessed , just because Ive always hated going to church. You’d think shed realize it had something to do with the screaming and fainting old lady’s but nooooooo. Sorry , I know I’m ranting but I’m quite bitter… and traumatized.
This comic is brilliant. Plain and simple
love the ink in the second panel.also hate church
One bit of advice; “Veggie Tales” was the greatest thing to happen to Christianity since Jesus H. Christ.
Well, Stryper came before.
And yea, the problem with church is that they don’t practice what they preach. I mean, what’s the point of loving the next man when, if the next man isn’t Christian or straight, he’s not deserving of their consideration? God gave us free will so we could choose what to believe in, not be His puppets. That’s something that the clergymen insist on not seeing. That’s why I turned my back from Catholicism slowly each day of my upbringing, and the last straw was when a guy who was taking donations for a Catholic TV station said that I would go to Hell just because I didn’t have money to give. Looking back now, I wish I could’ve stayed and let him hear it (reasonably enough).
These days, I say that I’m a simply non-practicing Christian. I tried becoming an Agnostic, but I still believe enough in a God that keeps the universe together. And, while Jesus was way cool, much of the people that came after apparently forgot what his coolness was all about: he loved everyone without distinction (well, except defilers of sacred places, but…).
I used to take pencils, paper and a cuddly toy for my girls when we went to church for when they got bored, and indeed all children get bored. They loved Sunday school and would get all excited about going, as do my grandchildren now. My daughter is now a Sunday school teacher and she loves it.
Church wasn’t so bad. We had padded pews, and sunday school was just colouring in and when I stopped going to sunday school, I got to run round the empty pews and up the big spiral staircases. It was fun. 🙂
My parents wouldn’t let me go to church when I was a kid, so when I finally got my license I was able to choose my own church and sneak there on the weekends. Because I found my own church, I was able to go to one that I found spiritually fulfilling.
I can easily relate. While my Church’s middle-high school Youth Group is actually pretty nice, and I do consider my self a Christian, the sermons were just prosaic. No matter how hard I tried to pay attention, my ADHD would just slip into something else. And I found the Sunday School for Elementary-schoolers too patronizing to be enlightening or enjoyable