Sermons

Context

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Members of The King James Independent Baptist Church of Moose Jaw, SD were given a special treat this past Sunday when their pastor, Dunbarr Lampenilli performed a classic bit of fast-talking hijinks.

“The pastor just started yelling and got all red in the face,” reported long-time member Ellen Dunstead, “We’ve never seen him like that before. We thought maybe he was having some kind of a stroke because we could barely understand him.”

As it turns out, however, the pastor was actually pulling a prank on the unsuspecting members who attended church that morning. After performing a long-winded rant in which the pastor chastised multiple members by name for their sins, told self-promoting stories, and told racist jokes the pastor then spread his arms and yelled “GOTCHA!!!!”

“It was just the funniest and most unexpected thing we’ve ever seen in our little church,” Said Dennis Hammerbottom, the church’s head deacon, bus driver, and printing press operator. “He really had us going there for a while but it turned out that we just really had it all wrong.”

When we finally caught up to Rev. Lampenilli in his office on Monday afternoon he was almost overcome with mirth. “They thought I was serious!” he said, wiping his eyes. “I did this entire bit on how wine in the New Testament was non-alcoholic and they sat there and thought I had honestly lost my mind.”

Don’t hold your breath for a repeat performance, however. “It’s not the kind of thing I’ll probably ever do again,” Lampenilli admits, “if somebody had been taping the service with a video camera who KNOWS what kind of impression that might have made on YouTube. Context is so important and if they didn’t see my big gotcha moment at the end they might think I was actually the worst pastor they had ever seen.”

According to the church bulletin, next Sunday KJIBC will be trading in their gags for the book of Galatians and getting back to the exegetical study they’ve been working through all year. “I certainly wouldn’t want a service like that every week, ” Deacon Hammerbottom admitted, “I don’t know who possibly could.”

50 thoughts on “Context”

  3. I guess Darrell just edits the videos he posts to remove the “gotchas” or “just kiddings”.

    1. Maybe the “Gotcha” came after the camera went off? Or maybe it was how he started the next sermon?

    2. That recent one where John Hamblin yells about how the wine in the Bible was non-alcoholic HAS to have a “just kidding” in there somewhere.

      … Doesn’t it?

  4. I think he just got us. There is no Moose, SD. Moose Jaw is in Saskatchewan! And the names sound fishy!

      2. The leader of the Catholic Church in the Phillipines was a Cardinal Sin. And the was a preacher in Belfast, called Reverend Pagan….

        1. My son used to get medical specialist appointments sent out signed by a Dr. Slaughter.

        2. One of the major early contributors to a Baptist hospital in Dallas was a Colonel Slaughter.
          In gratitude, some Baptists wanted to name the facility “Slaughter Hospital.” Upon reflection, they named it Baylor Hospital instead.

          (It still exists and is now a huge complex called the Baylor University Medical Center. I used to live a few blocks from its campus.)

  6. Yes, the story does sound fishy. A KJB preacher doing a methodical, exegetical study through an entire book of Scripture? That would be a first! Just ask Deacon Hammerbottom, or his cousins, the Bracegirdles of Hardbottle, SD.

    2. Not every IFB pastor preaches topically, politically, or their own opinion. I’ve been going through the book of John on Wednesday nights and Matthew on Sunday nights with our folks. There are a few other pastors in this area that preach systematically through the scriptures as well. Galatians is a great study too! Unfortunately there are only three services per week…

      2. Funny how one service a week (as the norm) was good enough for the apostles and the early church under persecution.

  8. Which highlights that the ONLY appropriate context for what passes for preaching in many IFB churches is a practical joke – on a one time only basis.

  9. It seems odd to replace a service with a prank. I guess I can get past that, I’m very confused by throwing in some racist jokes just to add to the effect.

    1. BTW, I guess I should ask is this for real, and not parody? Is there a link to the newspaper/story?

        1. 😳

          That’s what I get for not following the comments on the tantrum video the other day.

    1. A better gotcha would have been, “First, I will confess my sins and ask your forgiveness. Then we’re going to read all the way through the book of Acts. Next week, Romans. The week following, all of Paul’s epistles. I also need someone to drive me over to Mrs. Dover’s home so that I can paint her house, it needs done and she’s terribly ill.”
      The church would have stood to walk out… and he yells “Gotcha! All we’ll do is pick out a couple verses and I’ll talk about brother Darrell not sharing his $500 lottery winnings.”

  11. Yep, parody, but very cleverly done. 😀

    I followed this link from Facebook and it did some weirdness. It should the post in mobile site format. However, when I go to http://www.stufffundieslike.com the post doesn’t show up for some reason. Weird.

    1. OK, now it shows up, but if I click on the comments it takes me back to the mobile version.

  12. Ah, that explains the hissy fit a few days ago — the video was cut before the “GOTCHA!”

        1. I’m hurt. I’m devastated. I’m sad.

          I’m going to go weep gently into my pillow now. 😆

  14. The real “gotcha” is that Standridge and his ilk could say that to their congregations, and would then be met with the blank stares of confusion. They’ve been “got” for so long, they wouldn’t know how to think or act without instruction.

    I’m so happy to be free of that, because I was there. I still have family and friends on the other side of the Fundy Curtain, and the discussions mirror those of yesterday. Happily, we have been able to “leave them at the door”, for the most part, and still be a family that enjoys being around each other.

  17. One church member (Ms. Hardy) told us that Jim Standridge’s comments were taken out of context, while the member posting on YouTube insists they were not and defended his pastor’s actions.

    In their desperate attempts to stand up for their mannogid they can’t seem to get their stories straight.

    1. That Earl/Happy88888 fellow on YouTube said Jim Standridge’s has been at the church for 25 years and has been acting like this the whole time. :-/

  19. Well, even if there were a “Gotcha” at the end, telling racist jokes is still wrong, publicly exposing peoples’ private lives is wrong, tattling confidential information is wrong.

    No matter what. The Gotcha doesn’t matter.

    Context is important. But it isn’t everything. A lie told in the middle of a lot of true statements is still a lie, even “in context.” A nurse who comes in to comfort a patient, fix the sheets, gives the patient their medicine and then injects them lovingly with a poison is still a murderer, despite the loving context. A wife who poisons her husband’s coffee and has caring conversation with him over a well-prepared dinner is still trying to commit murder.

    This pastor “killed” one of his congregants. That person he maligned as not being worth 15 cents is no longer a part of the congregation.

    1. Actually, the pastor liberated that man from oppression, although the force he used to extract him may have left some bruises.

      I just hope the rest of the congregation will realize they can follow the trail their brother has blazed out of that dungeon.

  20. I’m sorry, what is everyone talking about here?

    I am so confused. It really seems to me that some people are either posting in the wrong place, or taking a bit of well-written satire too seriously.

    1. Either I’m getting worse at writing this stuff or getting a lot better. I’m not sure which.

    2. A lot of people didn’t understand that this was satire in the first place, I think. Given Standbridge’s recent rant, it’s not really surprising.

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