JinJer 47: Sparking J-O-Y

[Bad Wolf]

Episcopal here. We have a choice of wine or grape juice, bread or gluten free crackers. We stand in a big horseshoe shape around the altar. Some people sip from the chalice, and some dip the bread in it.  We use grape juice in addition to the wine because we have a lot of people in recovery. We're not the standard.

I visited a mega church in Riverside, CA. It was interesting, but I couldn't figure out if I was part of a congregation, or just an audience.

[Jinder Roles]

I’ll never forget the time I went to a Lutheran church in Palm Dessert and they gave you a choice of red, white or sparkling wine for communion. 

Attended Baptist and non-denomination churches all over the Caribbean and in the U.S. The pulpit is always in the centre. 

 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

12 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I've noticed a trend that many of the non-denominational churches in my area are really baptist churches that drop the baptist. I guess they think it is easier to draw people in with names like Life Church, Revelation Church, The Vision Church instead of Life Baptist Church or Vision Baptist church. 

We even have some churches here that drop the word "church" from their name. "Hill City", "The Summit", "The Pursuit", and "The Journey" are 4 I found in Google maps. The only one I even know a little bit about is The Journey, because it came up on a list of Foursquare Churches when I was curious if we had any here. I find it silly at best, and potentially deceitful, when churches try to hide their beliefs from potential members.

[theotherelise]

Maybe it's because I'm from the mid-west, but our non-denom churches around here seem to flow from a lot of different persuasions. The non-denom I grew up in was of a charismatic persuasion. The one I'm at now has a pinch of Calvinism (not my fave unfortunately) and then there are certainly some with baptist tendencies. 

A big thing for me in finding a church was how the pastor handled disagreements on theology. It's one thing to say "this is what we believe is the correct interpretation" and another to say "if you interpret any of this differently you're wrong and you need to change/shut-up." 

[Sullie06]

I was raised Roman Catholic and our church was quite old. We had the Pulpit off to the side design.

We did wine and everyone drank from the same cup. I believe they still do. I’m Agnostic now and haven’t been to mass in quite some time. 

For communion the priest would come down off the alter with the wafers and wine, we wouldn’t walk up to the alter just to the beginning of the row

5 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

We even have some churches here that drop the word "church" from their name. "Hill City", "The Summit", "The Pursuit", and "The Journey" are 4 I found in Google maps. The only one I even know a little bit about is The Journey, because it came up on a list of Foursquare Churches when I was curious if we had any here. I find it silly at best, and potentially deceitful, when churches try to hide their beliefs from potential members.

We have one here that’s just called Twin Rivers. It’s weird because they don’t even have a “home”. They just hold mass around town in different reception halls or gyms 

[libgirl2]

7 minutes ago, Sullie06 said:

I was raised Roman Catholic and our church was quite old. We had the Pulpit off to the side design.

We did wine and everyone drank from the same cup. I believe they still do. I’m Agnostic now and haven’t been to mass in quite some time. 

For communion the priest would come down off the alter with the wafers and wine, we wouldn’t walk up to the alter just to the beginning of the row

We have one here that’s just called Twin Rivers. It’s weird because they don’t even have a “home”. They just hold mass around town in different reception halls or gyms 

That is a lovely church. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I spent over 10 years (by choice) in a nondenominational evangelical free church (what ever the fuck that means).  This was my decent into fundy light circles. There were a few die hard, full on fundy families that attended, they all home schooled their children, to the point they wouldn't even allow the children in Sunday School (which I taught). 

Having been raised Catholic, by toxic racist parents turned me off the Catholic church, and then finding out about all the alter boy diddling, done with the blessing of the Vatican (I mean if they weren't firing these guys just moving them around that means they were OK with IMO) REALLY turned me off to it.  But my issue isn't just with the RC church, it is organized religion all together. Christians are the worst, and they've made religion into something disgusting.  My Aunt informed my mother, "that she prays every day at mass for democrats to see the error of their ways and rejoin the Christian faith by returning to the republican party." I'm not even fucking kidding about this. This is where my rantings about Christianity having turned into republicanism come from, dealing with these people. It is a freaking nightmare. Thank goodness they live 600 miles away, my parents are only SLIGHTLY more sane than this, but only slightly. 

[Satan'sFortress]

I was Roman Catholic for about 20 years---church every Sunday + holy days.  I never once went to a church that served wine or grape juice.  The priest drank the wine & the rest of us just got  the bread. It is interesting to me . . . this was a church in Massachusetts and one in Texas, plus any others that we went to on vacation.  This would have been late 60s through the late 80s.  Is that untypical? Just curious.

[Glasgowghirl]

1 hour ago, Satan'sFortress said:

I was Roman Catholic for about 20 years---church every Sunday + holy days.  I never once went to a church that served wine or grape juice.  The priest drank the wine & the rest of us just got  the bread. It is interesting to me . . . this was a church in Massachusetts and one in Texas, plus any others that we went to on vacation.  This would have been late 60s through the late 80s.  Is that untypical? Just curious.

Same here, never had wine. I don't know if any Catholic Churches here give out wine. I stopped going to mass regularly after my confirmation, 20 years ago. After that I only went with the school or if their was a family occasion.

[LiterallyBananas]

On 2/5/2019 at 1:15 PM, Cat Damon said:

I went to school in the Midwest in the 90s and the only medical tests/ procedures we ever had at school were those three tests. I'm not sure how it is now but we never would have had vaccinations- my grade school or high school didn't even have a nurse, we just had a room with a cot in it behind the receptionist's office in case someone got sick and had to wait to get picked up.

Midwestern school child around the same time. When the hep B vaccine came out I had all 3 vaccinations at school, IIRC.

After one of them we went on a field trip to the farm where my 4th grade teacher grew up. We were told to yell "Cowpie!" if we saw cow poop, to help avoid stepping it it. Pretty sure we practiced cowpie-ing to and from the nurses' office.

[libgirl2]

We only had wine on special occasions. Most of our all school masses were Host only. 

[OreoMidnight]

Roman Catholic in the Midwest USA. We have wine and communion wafers at every mass. The wine is in a shared chalice. The priest or extraordinary minister wipes the cup after each person. However, during flu season they sometimes decide not to have wine. It is mostly older people who take wine. It is not required that we do. 

[SportsgalAnnie]

Methodist

Grape juice and a loaf of bread

[PennySycamore]

@Satan'sFortress and @Glasgowghirl,  back before Vatican II, it was almost unheard of for the congregation to partake of the cup.  Usually, the priest consumed the whole thing and the faithful just got the consecrated Host.  At least by the mid-70s, the Eucharist began to be offered to the laity under both species, bread and wine.  It was not necessary to receive both though in order to be considered to have received communion.  The faithful might sip from the chalice or they might dip their bread in the wine.  That practice is called intinction.  The faithful had in some parishes the option of receiving the bread in their hands or one the tongue and the bread might actually be something we recognize as bread and not just communion wafers.  Some of this may have changed in the past twenty years.  It also became okay in the 80s for priests to use grape juice if they struggled with alcohol.  I know that one of our parish priests was in recovery.  ETA:  Another change of Vatican II was that the communion rail went away and the people received communion standing up as befits their dignity in Christ.  (Or something like that.)  Catholics receive communion, btw.  Most Protestants talk about taking communion.  

There's a town in the Czech Republic which bakes these wafers that are like two communion wafers with creme filling in between.  Those wafers are delicious!

 

[MarbleRainbow]

15 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

We even have some churches here that drop the word "church" from their name. "Hill City", "The Summit", "The Pursuit", and "The Journey" are 4 I found in Google maps. The only one I even know a little bit about is The Journey, because it came up on a list of Foursquare Churches when I was curious if we had any here. I find it silly at best, and potentially deceitful, when churches try to hide their beliefs from potential members.

At my last church the pastor really didn't want "church" listed on the signage or t-shirts they had made. He thought it would spark more conversations if people had to ask what "Antioch Community" was. ? Yeah, if there's a group of people all wearing the same shirt that says Antioch Community doing some kind of service project, it's pretty likely people can figure out it's a church. It just bothered me for some reason that he didn't want "Church" to be listed - people are just going to read that as trying to hide something or being coy. It doesn't engage people, they just aren't going to ask. 

[PainfullyAware]

As a kid I went to a progressive mainline protestant church and we passed along wafers, then stood in line to dip it them in grape juice, in a chalice held by the minister. Never wine or real bread, which always confused me as a kid (isn't that what Jesus says to represent his blood and body? I was very literal as a child- not about the bible just in general).

[zygote373]

Ugh, Jinger is using the Roloff’s #beating50percent hashtag in her Valentine’s Day post. It’s in her stories too. I wonder if she got paid for it. Can’t imagine she would know or care about it otherwise, and Auj and Jer left LPBW so TLC probably isn’t behind it. 

If they did pay for it, it totally worked because everyone is asking what it means in the comments. Sigh.

 

Spoiler

 

[Adrienne83]

5 minutes ago, zygote373 said:

Ugh, Jinger is using the Roloff’s #beating50percent hashtag in her Valentine’s Day post. It’s in her stories too. I wonder if she got paid for it. Can’t imagine she would know or care about it otherwise, and Auj and Jer left LPBW so TLC probably isn’t behind it. 

If they did pay for it, it totally worked because everyone is asking what it means in the comments. Sigh.

 

  Hide contents

 

What does it mean?

[zygote373]

7 minutes ago, Adrienne83 said:

What does it mean?

It’s a business Audrey and Jeremy Roloff started to encourage biblical marriage. Apparently if you follow all the rules they came up with before they’d even been married a year, you’ll beat the 50-percent-of-marriages-end-in-divorce statistic and stay married forever.

There’s much more discussion on their thread over in the reality tv section which I would link to if I weren’t on mobile, but Audrey and Jeremy are almost as fundie as the Duggars. They’re just more glamorous about it. And insufferable fame whores.

[Adrienne83]

Just now, zygote373 said:

It’s a business Audrey and Jeremy Roloff started to encourage biblical marriage. Apparently if you follow all the rules they came up with before they’d even been married a year, you’ll beat the 50-percent-of-marriages-end-in-divorce statistic and stay married forever.

There’s much more discussion on their thread over in the reality tv section which I would link to if I weren’t on mobile, but Audrey and Jeremy are almost as fundie as the Duggars. They’re just more glamorous about it. And insufferable fame whores.

Ah. Thank you. ? It's obviously not for me, since I'm divorced. I'm sure that makes me evil to them, since my husband decided he didn't want a wife and family anymore and surprised me with it. I'm sure whatever they're spreading will prevent that from happening to anyone else. ?

[singsingsing]

I’m honestly disgusted by that hashtag. It’s like spitting on everyone who’s gone through a painful divorce. It’s also laughable when you’ve been married a grand total of two years. It also kind of implies that their marriage is at risk of ending and they’re having to actively attempt to keep it together.

And I mean, like, that’s how you want to define your marriage? By the fact that you’re not divorced? Really?

[Anna Bolinas]

I never knew until I started visiting this forum that Jeremy Roloff, of all people, was fundie, because I haven't watched LPBW in years, but you truly learn something new every day.

Also his parents are divorced, so like...I wonder if he looks down on them for that.

[StraightOuttaArkansas]

From across the pond: I am RC in Belfast (fun fun). The church building itself is rather old, but not so much. We have one pulpit off to the left side where the readings are done and on the right is a chair and microphone that the priest prays from and does the profession of faith. Homily is done from the pulpit. Communion is Host only except for the members who help distribute. They come up first next to the alter and receive both after the priest then take the Host to distribute on either side of the priest (helps it move quicker). When we were on vacation in AR this past summer, we attend to different RC churches, both rather modern looking. They both did wine and Host for the whole congregation. My son said the wine was horrible (he is 14). I didn't partake, nor did hubby as I am waiting to *hopefully* be granted an annulment and as such cannot have communion right now (yes I hate this and disagree with it, but I chose to convert and 'thems the rulz')

I did grow up super SBC and communion was very very quiet/sad/almost depressing and theatrical, took the whole service, no one mentioned that you shouldn't take it if you don't feel in the right place (found that out as an adult at my non-denom that was founded by and slanted toward the SBC in Europe). I actually hated communion Sundays (felt random, but I was also only there on the weekends my dad had us, he is such a fundie now), ironic since honestly I miss communion now. I DO NOT miss the SBC and a lot the hate they preach. I also seem to attend very liberal RC churches apparently (not on purpose, the one now is the only one on our side of the city, so no choice really).

[zygote373]

5 hours ago, Anna Bolinas said:

I never knew until I started visiting this forum that Jeremy Roloff, of all people, was fundie, because I haven't watched LPBW in years, but you truly learn something new every day.

Also his parents are divorced, so like...I wonder if he looks down on them for that.

Indeed he does! Jeremy and Audrey clearly looked down on them for years after they separated despite how unhappy they obviously were. He kept giving talking heads about hoping they would reconcile long after they’d moved on. He was also really weird about it when they started dating new people. 

[front hugs > duggs]

1- In my reform Jewish temple growing up, all the wine! and grape juice for children.

2- I had a college roommate who said her parents would never approve of her marrying someone with divorced parents. Not because of religion, just because it was beneath her. She willingly disclosed this to me knowing full well my parents were divorced. 

We didn't get along very well.