Unspoken prayer requests are a staple of any fundamentalist prayer meeting. Far from being a simple acknowledgment of an private and personal need, “unspokens” have a variety of classifications.

The All Inclusive This is the most common form of the unspoken request. This call for a show of hands often comes at the end of time for spoken prayer requests, but can also come at any time before someone prays. (Bro. Dwight will now bless the food, are there any unspoken prayer requests out there?) If a person can’t think of a specific unspoken request it’s best just to raise a hand anyway in case they think of one later that they needed covered. This call for unspoken requests may also be accompanied by calls for responses from anyone who has unsaved loved ones, knows someone sick, is wearing a red sweater, etc.

The Guessing Game These are unsolicited unspoken requests given in midst of a call for prayer requests. They are often stated in the form of “I have a very special and important unspoken request.” The game for the audience is to try to guess what the person’s unspoken request might be by counting the number of adjectives used to describe it. Bonus points are awarded to the person with the most creative answer in the after-church unspoken request phone chain.

The Spoken Unspoken There are also the quasi-unspoken requests which go something like “I have an unspoken request that I really can’t talk about that involves my sister. I can’t say a lot but her marriage is having some trouble…and without giving a lot of details there’s also a Bolivan chef named Roberto involved and his three adopted kids and their second grade teacher.” The air is filled with the sound of pencils scribbling furiously on prayer request sheets around the room. Who knew that the unspoken could say so much?

(thanks to mark for the unspoken suggestion)

Here, Jim Schettler former pastor at Pensacola Christian College explains why Western Music of a particular style is more acceptable to God than the ‘awful’ music from other cultures.

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It’s a shame we don’t have recordings of the songs of the Old Testament. I have a feeling this preacher might be in for a shock.

Every few weeks, the congregations of most fundamentalists churches range themselves in dread array and enter the fiercest kind of battle: the church business meeting. One wonders if these events are what Paul had in mind when he called Christians to fight the good fight…

Summary of the minutes from the monthly business meeting of the Faithful Hearers and Doers Baptist Church.

Pastor Hiembaugh opened with prayer for wisdom, strength, and to the grace to avoid “what happened last time.”

Old Business:

- The committee charged with reducing the electrical costs in the church building reported that they been standing outside the bathrooms after services and reminding people to turn out the lights as they leave. Mr. Tom Brown objected that this might create the wrong impression with visitors but was quickly shouted down by Deacon Holstein who opined that anyone who couldn’t follow a few simple posted rules weren’t the kind of people we wanted around this church anyway. After another thirty minutes of discussion, the matter was tabled until next month.

- The committee who has been working on finding new music for the choir reports that they have managed to photocopy enough sheets for the Easter cantata. Questions from several members about copyright infringement were answered by the pastor with a quotation about ‘eating shewbread.’ This business is tabled as well.

New Business

- The nominations for church officers are read into the record. They are voted in unanimously without discussion making this the twenty-seventh straight year without changes to the officers.

- The new budget is brought to the table and Mrs. Brewbaker brings up that the assistant pastor has not had a raise in five years and Deacon Holstein reminds her that he also hasn’t increased his office hours in ten years either and has missed ten days of work this year due to being deathly ill and by gum that any employee of his would be lucky to have a job at all much less a raise. Mrs. Brewbaker decides to withdraw the matter. The budget is passed unanimously without further discussion.

Pastor Hiembaugh closed in prayer and thanked God for the opportunity to meet together and do His work. What of God’s work got done in tonight’s meeting was unspecified.

(I would thank stan for the reminder about the joys of church business meetings if they weren’t so painful that thinking about them makes me want to tear out my own eyeballs.)

For most of people, airplanes are uncomfortable transportation devices intended to get them quickly from point A to point B — hopefully with same number of bags, children, and pets they started out with. For fundamentalist preachers and evangelists, however, airplanes are the perfect location to gather unto themselves stories of in-flight evangelism.

Somehow, even on international flights the speaker always ends up next to an interesting character who speaks English, is not sleeping, and is willing to talk at length about religion to a perfect stranger. To anyone who has ever flown this is nothing short of miraculous. By the end of the flight the evangelist has inevitably shocked and awed the listener with his speaking prowess and the have decided to question the very roots of their belief in atheism/Buddhism/Home Shopping Network or whatever their creed may happen to be.

With the amazing rate of success on these flights, it would seem that a full-time missionary movement that does nothing but spread the gospel on aircraft should have emerged by this time. There could even be special classes added to Bible college curriculum to teach such missions. For example, someone may want to point out that in these turbulent times it may be imprudent to make your pre-flight introductions by saying “If you were to die today…”

One has to wonder if this fundamentalist preacher has ever heard the term “ethnocentric.”

In fundy churches, the most common type of traveling musical family is the missionary family. The traveling family musical act is a mainstay of the fundamentalist missionary endeavor. If a missionary is to be a success on deputation and furlough he or his family must sing, play an instrument, and be able to quote John 3:16 in a foreign language. As a reward for doing these things (and not necessarily for doing them well) the missionary is then allowed to sell tapes and CDs of his family’s musical feats on the back table after the service.

There is another type of musical family that is modeled more along the lines of the von Trapp family. These are families with large numbers of children who consider traveling and performing to be their mission. It’s not easy get this act going for the simple reason that it requires having a large family. Two musical kids are hardly worth driving to see unless they’re really exceptional but by the time you’re up to seven musical children it’s a phenomenon, and twelve children barely have to have any musical talent at all to attract a crowd.

There are other costs to be considered too. Matching outfits for all those kids don’t come cheap. Not to mention the cost of transporting them from place to place. Thankfully, people are usually generous with their love offerings to musical acts.

In fact, missionaries are often thrilled to find out that a “big name” in the family musician trade is going to be present that week for the simple fact that they help boost the offerings. Man shall not live by flute solos alone.

Be sure to stop by the display table in the back.

(thanks to Don for bringing back many memories for this post.)

Somewhere in a fundamentalist church a guest speaker is wrapping up his thunderous sermon. He swigs a last sip of water from the cup on the pulpit and invites the pastor back to the so he can “draw the net” with the invitation.

The pastor thanks the speaker grandly for his wonderful message and then says the fateful words “I just want to talk for a minute and add a few things to what our brother said.” An audible groan goes through the congregation because they know full well that at this point begins the phenomenon of the second sermon which could last any length of time regardless of how long the first sermon was. Fundamentalists preachers are not slaves to any man’s clock.

A variation on the second sermon may also come in the form of the closing prayer. Some pastors who have missed the chance to preach themselves in a service have been known to insert a full three points into the closing prayer complete with alliteration. Hopefully nobody was hoping to see the kickoff of a football game or beat the rush to the local buffet for lunch.

(many thanks to stan for the suggestion)

“Please bow your heads and close your eyes.”

For all of their bluster, fundamentalists are a private bunch when it comes to something as dearly personal as raising ones hand to give a non-specific response at the end of a sermon on a generic topic. There have to be some boundaries of personal space after all.

The anonymous hand-raising also gives the speaker the chance to speak “evangelistically” about the number of respondents. Not that most pastors would out and out lie but they might just claim to “see hands all over his room” when in fact exactly three people out two hundred have raised their hand and one of them is only eighteen months old.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Unless you’re making a decision at the end of the service. Then the protocol is “every head bowed, every eye closed, nobody looking around.”

For those folks who just consider the Christian flag to be too ecumenical there is now the Baptist Flag

There’s even a pledge to it:

I pledge allegiance to the Baptist Flag, And to the Faith once delivered unto the Saints. I will ever remain faithful to the tie that binds us together, The Book, the Blood, and the Blessed Hope of our Lord’s soon coming.

Onward, Baptist Soldiers!

(Buy your own for the low, low price of $57.00)

Today marks post #100 on this blog. Thanks to everyone who has had an encouraging word for me as I write these little bits of nonsense.

If you have suggestions for topics you’d like to see written about on here, send them along to stuffundieslike@gmail.com and I’ll be sure to put them on my list of ideas.

Also feel free to send pictures, cards, letter, large sacks filled with small unmarked bills, or whatever.

There’s still so much more to talk about. Onwards…