Church holds mock kidnapping of youth group

[jjmennonite]

Slightly off topic - my cousin's son's AOG youth group went to a shopping mall during non-shopping hours, were playing some sort of 'where's Waldo' hide and seek game which required them to hide, and the boy was mugged. God did not protect them from the abject stupidity of their leaders sending them alone to unpopulated parts of a high crime shopping mall (WEM, for Albertans who are familiar with its reputation)

Miss September, I remember many late nights as a child, when the holy spirit 'fell like rain' . My parents migrated from Mennonite to AOG. YUCK.

[NurseNell]

Their website is no longer available.

[Kitty]

Their website is no longer available.

It'll be back under a different URL pretty soon. They probably got way too much traffic to the site that they didn't want, plus phone calls, visits, emails...

Fucking cowards.

Putting anyone in a situation where they have every reason to be terrified, for your own amusement, is wrong. It's sick, disgusting, sadistic, evil.

[holierthanyou]

[Austin]

I've seen some of the most asinine things ever take place in the context of church youth groups. I am so glad my sons' church has a strict policy against anything like this, and the youth group leaders are actually mature adults. One of my sons has some mild anxiety issues, and if he had been grabbed up like that in the seventh grade like a previous poster, it would have difficult for him to recover his equilibrium. Seriously difficult. That is so not funny.

[DistantStar]

Do fundy Christians have a poorly developed sense of humour? Do they think terrifying people is ok as long as you say "just kidding!" at the end. Personally? I detest any kind of practical joke. Particularly one that makes you feel foolish for being rightfully terrified.

I can already hear them saying, "You're oversensitive! Toughen up!" Bull.

I hate mean-spirited "jokes." As far as this supposedly being preparation for something in a dangerous country -- perhaps you should NOT GO THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE and then no scary shit will go down! Or at least not go there being all fundy preachy and actually help people and keep your religion to yourself unless you're asked, and even then, don't try to convert them!

[knitwit]

This is unbelievable. Hell, even Special Forces members doing SERE training about how to resist interrogation know it's not freaking real and obviously the military still thinks that training works. If they absolutely feel they have to do this, how about getting parents' permission and telling the parents AND the kids what will happen, only don't tell the kids exactly when?

Or even better, don't send teenagers on missionary trips where this is even a concern for God's sake.

[melk]

If the victim isn't aware ahead of time, it's not a mock kidnapping. It's just kidnapping.