Seriously Steve 2: She Was a Woman, So She Probably F*cked Up Somewhere

[Bethy]

1 hour ago, anjulibai said:

Leaving their church was about a lot of things, but a big one was that Steve didn't like the criticism he was getting from the church leaders and men. As I recall, they even tried to have a talk with him about his extremism, which included hid issues with female clothing and youth groups. Basically, Steve was being a judgmental ass, people pointed it out to him, and he didn't like it. He didn't think they had a right to have authority over him.

Where is this documented? I don't doubt it sounds like Steve, but I haven't read it myself. Is it in a Corner someplace?

[anjulibai]

1 hour ago, Bethy said:

Where is this documented? I don't doubt it sounds like Steve, but I haven't read it myself. Is it in a Corner someplace?

I don't specifically recall, but maybe a Corner, probably a book. I've been following the Maxwells since Abigail was a baby, a lot has come up, but I do remember reading something he wrote about the subject. 

[allyisyourpally5]

I’m trying to picture how I would react, if I was a woman in the Women’s Groip at the church, and a member said, maybe tearfully, that this will be her last meeting because her dad has had it laid on his heart to begin church elsewhere and she must go with him and can’t be a part of the group anymore. 
I honestly think I would be very concerned and puzzled. I deal with safeguarding of adults in my career sometimes and they can be just as vulnerable as children. I would definitely be dropping her my cell number and trying to keep in touch. 
 

I hope if she is indeed part of a group like that that she has people looking out for her. I would be interested to see just what Sarah has observed. The conversations I have been part of in church groups are just as “bad” and funny and rude and “sinful” as any other. We’ve all

hoked that if we didn’t shut up God will probably send lightening to strike on the church.....

That’s another thing actually - at my church I grew up at, there was a bit of a long running joke about a list of mistakes people have made during a readings and prayers. Basically when someone has completely mispronounced something, or skipped a line and changed the whole meaning of the chapter, misread a commandment, bulletin errors and such.  Or just essentially a balls up that’s made the congregation laugh out loud. If the person was upset about their mistake, it was left alone. If they (and to be honest most did) could laugh after and find it funny, the minister kept track of them all in a note book and read them all back to us at the end of each year. Always made me laugh. A classic was when someone mispronounced Pontius Pilate (as in Pilate pronounced like the exercise class) 

Im just trying to imagine Steve’s face at someone reading the Bible wrong....

 

[SPHASH]

I wonder if the Maxgrands are allowed to be in the kid activities 

Edited January 17, 2021 by SPHASH

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I really hoped Steve would find something new to talk about, but he's basically on the same track. 

This week's sermon is Committed to Training Our Children. It's basically about teaching kids self-control and being good in church. 

Quote

There are times to sit still and be attentive (church) and times to be active.

This is the heart of the matter. It's a continuation of last week. 

I agree it's good to learn self-control, but I also believe children are going to be children, especially the very young.

Quote

 To submit to boundaries and structure is critical for life. The flesh wants freedom and nothing external telling it what to do. However, we are bought with a price. All of our time and our whole life is owned by our God. His yoke is easy for the obedient but not for the rebel. There are times to sit still and be attentive (church) and times to be active. Each must learn to rule over himself in order to submit to the One Who owns us.  

The last sentence strikes me as creepy for reasons I'm not sure.

Then he advertises Managers of Their Homes and Redeeming the Time. 

STEVE! Find something else to talk about! This is week 5! Enough!  

[Coconut Flan]

2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

This week's sermon is Committed to Training Our Children. It's basically about teaching kids self-control and being good in church. 

I wonder whose kid or kids at the new church is/are driving Steve batty.

[fundiefan]

14 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

I wonder whose kid or kids at the new church is/are driving Steve batty.

Every child who doesn't behave as he thinks they should. 

[Jana814]

57 minutes ago, fundiefan said:

Every child who doesn't behave as he thinks they should. 

Exactly!  I think their kids behaved in church & listen carefully because if they didn’t Steve would be mad & scream at them when they got home. 

[usmcmom]

*raises hand* I have a question. 
 

When Steve is at church, why is he concentrating on the kids around him instead of on the sermon, the hymns and the prayers?  It seems to me that if Steve’s heart was in a true state of worship, he’d know nothing about how others behaved in church services. 
 

Maybe Steve’s main goal in attending a “real” church is to sit in judgment of others and not to...you know...actually worship God.  

[ClareDeLune]

15 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

I wonder whose kid or kids at the new church is/are driving Steve batty.

He might be upset with the way his children are bringing up his grandchildren?

[Jana814]

44 minutes ago, ClareDeLune said:

He might be upset with the way his children are bringing up his grandchildren?

I think at least Christopher & Anna-Marie are raising their children like Steve & Teri raised theirs. 

[fundiefan]

I think it's just Steve being Steve, with a little push from being in a real church and seeing people regularly who are not part of his cult (family) or dog & pony show. He's just one of the masses in the church with no authority. He sees kids behave differently than he likes, but has no outlet for it and no control over it, so he whines in his emails to anyone still stupid enough to receive them. 

[Bethy]

On 1/21/2021 at 10:22 AM, Jana814 said:

I think at least Christopher & Anna-Marie are raising their children like Steve & Teri raised theirs. 

Yes. It's clear to see that Nate and Mel have not cut off all relatives who think differently than them, it's actual fact that Joe moved his family out of the compound and likely conjecture that he took on a mortgage and put them in an area with more social opportunities for the kids, and we know Chelsy's makeup and pants don't jive with the fathership's dynamic, but if anything, Christopher and Anna have taken a even a harder turn than the original Maxes with the matching frumpers and extra-strict homeschool curriculum - and it's all from day 1. Christopher's sons won't have a memory of playing on a little league team and then getting yanked out. Their daughters won't ever have been uncomfortable at a sleepover with their peers. The non-reversals have memories of quasi-normal but Christopher's kids don't and won't.

A small part of me hoped Christopher and Anna would shed some of the strict trappings after her cancer battle - like, they might realize that they weren't currying any extra favor with God since crappy things happened to them just like everybody else in the pants-wearing, sports-playing, beast-watching world, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

[crawfishgirl]

Reading through these posts on children in church made me remember an incident that I witnessed many years ago.  I was attending a small church at the time.  I was at a service on a Sunday morning. and there was a fussy baby in the room.  I was listening to the sermon, so I barely noticed the noise.  At one point, the mother stood up to take the baby out of the service.  The minister stopped the service and started talking directly to the mother, saying that she was glad that she was removing the baby from the service because the noise was distracting her.  The mother seemed embarrassed, and I felt horrible for her. It thought it was unnecessary and rude for the minister to say that in front of the entire congregation, especially since the mother was already in the process of taking the baby out.  

I stopped attending the church shortly afterwards.  The minister was becoming grouchy and made a few other comments during services that I thought were unnecessary, such as talking about a counseling session that she had recently given.  She mentioned a few details that I thought were inappropriate and showed a lack of empathy and compassion, and were possibly a breach of confidentiality.  Shortly after I left, the minister was asked to step down from her position.  The church closed not long afterwards.

Edited January 23, 2021 by crawfishgirl
Corrected a typo

[Tatar-tot]

On 1/20/2021 at 6:26 PM, Coconut Flan said:

I wonder whose kid or kids at the new church is/are driving Steve batty.

Steve needs a dog.  You train DOGS.  You TEACH children.

[Hane]

9 hours ago, fundiefan said:

I think it's just Steve being Steve, with a little push from being in a real church and seeing people regularly who are not part of his cult (family) or dog & pony show. He's just one of the masses in the church with no authority. He sees kids behave differently than he likes, but has no outlet for it and no control over it, so he whines in his emails to anyone still stupid enough to receive them. 

Steve is reminding me of a crotchety lifelong bachelor who was one of the unofficial “patriarchs” of my former parish. He used to gripe about how “easy” young parents have it nowadays because they have the “luxury” of taking their little kids to Christmas Eve mass instead of forcing them to leave behind their toys and get dressed up for mass on Christmas morning. (It was an open secret that he “anonymously” donated an elaborate pipe organ worth $100,000 to the church, and then was all irritated when people didn’t have a simultaneous orgasm over his largesse.)

[Caroline]

On 1/20/2021 at 4:02 PM, Bluebirdbluebell said:

and be attentive (church) and times to be active. Each must learn to rule over himself in order to submit to the One Who owns us.  

What a horrible world view.  They're just slaves to some unseen entity who owns them!  Why would anyone sign up for that (unless they had not choice because they'd been born into it)?

[Bethy]

20 hours ago, crawfishgirl said:

Reading through these posts on children in church made me remember an incident that I witnessed many years ago.  I was attending a small church at the time.  I was at a service on a Sunday morning. and there was a fussy baby in the room.  I was listening to the sermon, so I barely noticed the noise.  At one point, the mother stood up to take the baby out of the service.  The minister stopped the service and started talking directly to the mother, saying that she was glad that she was removing the baby from the service because the noise was distracting her.  The mother seemed embarrassed, and I felt horrible for her. It thought it was unnecessary and rude for the minister to say that in front of the entire congregation, especially since the mother was already in the process of taking the baby out.  

I stopped attending the church shortly afterwards.  The minister was becoming grouchy and made a few other comments during services that I thought were unnecessary, such as talking about a counseling session that she had recently given.  She mentioned a few details that I thought were inappropriate and showed a lack of empathy and compassion, and were possibly a breach of confidentiality.  Shortly after I left, the minister was asked to step down from her position.  The church closed not long afterwards.

As a mom for whom the noisy newborn days aren't so long ago that I don't remember, this story fills me with absolute rage. It's embarrassing enough to have your baby crank up in church, more so when you finally realize that yeah, I've gotta get up and walk out in front of everybody, and to then get scolded by the minister because she was "distracted" by the baby? I hope the mom never went back to that church. I'm glad to hear the minister had some consequences for those inappropriate and unkind actions.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Well, I give him this; his blog post "Blah Blah Blah" is one of his better posts and is much better post than the last few weeks' post. 

This post is about setting your priorities and making sure you follow through. 

I like that he even uses himself as his negative example. 

[fundiefan]

3 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Well, I give him this; his blog post "Blah Blah Blah" is one of his better posts and is much better post than the last few weeks' post. 

This post is about setting your priorities and making sure you follow through. 

I like that he even uses himself as his negative example. 

I don't fully get his point. I know he's trying to make one but as usual, he has a convoluted path & never truly gets to the end.

[MamaJunebug]

On 1/6/2021 at 1:16 PM, SPHASH said:

I wouldn't let any Maxwell adult or child anywhere near a loved one.  Here is Chris making Josh pray.  Notice how his cereal bowl is away from him so he can't reach it.  If they don't let him eat without praying beforehand that is child abuse right there.

 

Late to the party. As an old-style Lutheran family, our pre-meal grace was:

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,

And let this food, to us, be blessed.

Ahhhh-men!

Devotional, respectful, bouncy, brief and sincere! The first time I visited my ex's Southern Baptist family and the grace rambled allllllll over the place with lots of "justs" and "oh, Lords" I thought I'd die of embarrassment at the way i couldn't stop rolling my eyes.

BTW, we also had a closing prayer before we got up from the table.

O Give thanks unto the Lord

For He is good, and His mercy endureth forever.

Aaayyy men!

I know Catholics who have a "for the gifts we are about to receive...." grace and that's fine too. Imagine Chris really getting on a roll and saying "grace" for 35, 40 seconds .... poor Maxgrands. LOL

On 1/6/2021 at 3:07 PM, kpmom said:

Did they ever say why they moved from the nursing home to a retirement community?

They had been at that nursing home for quite awhile, as I recall.  A few residents even came to Susannah's funeral, and they gave Melanie a surprise baby shower after she had Abby.

It seems they had grown close to some of the residents there.

I guess we'll never know for sure, but is it possible they were asked to leave?

Maybe Steve felt the family were being too corrupted by the non-Maxwells at a nursing home.  Surprise? baby party? Was it Steve-sanctioned? I can imagine the exit was swift thereafter.

[kpmom]

11 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

Maybe Steve felt the family were being too corrupted by the non-Maxwells at a nursing home.  Surprise? baby party? Was it Steve-sanctioned? I can imagine the exit was swift thereafter.

It sounds like Melanie and Nathan were really touched by it.

Here's the link, scroll down to the entry called 'Widow's Mite" and they talk about the baby shower there.

https://blog.titus2.com/2008/07/

[MamaJunebug]

On 1/17/2021 at 7:36 AM, Jana814 said:

If someone forgot their Bible I honestly think Steve would throw the biggest fit it could be heard all over Kansas. 

It may or may not have been part of their shtik, but at their presentation in mid-Missouri a few years ago, Steve turned to pick up his prop Bible and IT WAS GONE! Things shut down *immediately* while a full-on search was implemented! Sarah appeared nervously at a side door, looking worried, her multiple cameras dangling from her neck, the audience began murmuring nervously ... finally, the really smart-aleck one, Joseph?, appeared with a cheesy-big grin, holding the Bible aloft, carried it to his dad, and there was a relieved, subdued cheer from the audience.

Meanwhile, centerstage, Steve and Teri just kind of stood there. 

My ex- was an engineer and fit-throwing was his specialty. I hadn't thought about it with Steve before but it makes perfect sense.

 

On 1/23/2021 at 2:22 PM, Tatar-tot said:

Steve needs a dog.  You train DOGS.  You TEACH children.

But no dog deserves Steve.

[Nothing if not critical]

21 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

As an old-style Lutheran family, our pre-meal grace was:
 

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,

And let this food, to us, be blessed.

Ahhhh-men!

Had to smile at this, because it's pretty much an exact translation of my family's very Catholic South German pre-meal grace. 
Agree that it has the advantage of being short and to the point :).

Edited January 28, 2021 by Nothing if not critical

[Bajovane]

47 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

 

I know Catholics who have a "for the gifts we are about to receive...." grace and that's fine too. Imagine Chris really getting on a roll and saying "grace" for 35, 40 seconds .... poor Maxgrands. LOL

Maybe Steve felt the family were being too corrupted by the non-Maxwells at a nursing home.  Surprise? baby party? Was it Steve-sanctioned? I can imagine the exit was swift thereafter.

My aunt used to say that prayer so fast it was practically one word!