Craziest church experiences

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Bro Blue

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What is some memorable moments that you have experienced in your church or churches you've visited?

Mine was experiencing a watch night service for the first time. Never saw such goofiness at a church before.
 
When the insane ex-husband of the church secretary tried to disrupt the service and assault his ex-wife in a church where I was interim pastor.
 
I had been given a "heads up" that it might happen, so I had three men ready, all off-duty police officers ready, and the organist ready.
When he rushed down the aisle, I said, "Let's stand and sing number 657, "A Mighty Fortress." The organist pulled out all the stops and the congregation (around 350 people) sang at the top of their lungs. The police escorted him out and called for a squad car to take him in for violating a restraining order.
That happened during the hymn. After which I finished the sermon and the service.
 
Having the church furnace go out in rural Alaska for January and February. Average temperature of -7 Fahrenheit.
 
We had a guest one Sunday, and the evangelist crept up the aisle behind her and crashed a pr of cymbals, apparently to praise the Lord?  She was mortified.
Currently, she doesn't acknowledge God in her life. the craziness of IFBX prolly didn't help.
 
Bro Blue asked:

What is some memorable moments that you have experienced in your church or churches you've visited?

All to do with our new building.

It was our first baptism service that we found out the heater for the baptistry wasn't working. The baptisms were considerably more vocal than usual.

About a year ago, we evacuated the building and cancelled services for the morning because of a suspected gas leak. It turned out to be some residual chemicals burning off some new fixtures.

Three weeks ago, a little kid pulled a fire alarm, with the predictable results. -15-degree weather just made the parking lot that much more entertaining. This time, at least, services went on as scheduled (if a few minutes late) once the FD gave the all-clear.
 
For craziest experience in a church where I wasn't serving as pastor, I was a spectator (not participant) at a service where people were chanting to an image, claiming it was Christ.

It was disgusting and bizarre. Really disturbing.
 
What is some memorable moments that you have experienced in your church or churches you've visited?
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When I was married to my first wife, we attended a pentecostal church (even though I was baptist at the time). One Sunday morning, she's not feeling well, but insists I go on and go ahead to church without her, so off I went.

I noticed, once the service got started, that the singing was more spirited (no pun intended) than usual, and the pastors (the church was taught by a husband/wife pastor "team") were whipping the folks into quite a frenzy, while I was getting more uncomfortable by the minute. Mrs. pastor grabs the microphone and shouts at the top of her voice, "we're gonna have a Holy Ghost fit!" And with that, the place goes (in my opinion anyway) absolutely nuts. People running all around the place; shouting nonsense (probably they thought they were speaking (shouting?) in tongues; and generally (once again in my opinion) making complete fools out of themselves.

Well, I had had enough. I gathered up jacket and bible and hightailed it out of there as quick as I could. I can remember a couple of the ushers giving me a "why are you leaving?" type of look, but I didn't care. I just needed to get out of that place. That was the last time I ever stepped foot in any kind of charismatic church.

Not saying all charismatics are kooky, but that bunch in Petersburg Indiana sure were (and probably still are LOL).
 
Bro Blue said:
What is some memorable moments that you have experienced in your church or churches you've visited?

Mine was experiencing a watch night service for the first time. Never saw such goofiness at a church before.
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An alter call when there were about 14 people in the church, and a 9 year old boy walked down the aisle. I was asked to take him aside and deal with himm. I truly believe he came to know Christ.  In my estimation, he had already come to faith in the wonderful Jesus before he ever came down the aisle, but in that particular church type, they were taught that coming down the aisle was the normal way to come to Christ.  I visited that church about 5 times a year, being a close friend of the minister,
 
A friend from school travels with a Quartet that was singing in a nearby "Emergent Church".  I went to go hear them sing. The pastor's message centered around the brand new life-size bronze statue of Jesus they had just installed in the front courtyard.  It had been commissioned to some well-known artist and cost a couple hundred thousand dollars.

The pastor encouraged everyone who was burdened, heavy hearted, and in need of the touch of Christ to exit during the closing song, go out to the courtyard, kneel down, take the hand of Jesus, look up into his eyes and give your sorrows to him.

Everyone stood, the praise band sang one of those soft choruses that repeats the same seven words eleven times, and they sang and sang and sang, as scores of people went out weeping to line up at their Jesus statue, take his hand, pray and come back in to the service, where they stood swaying and weeping.

Needless to say, I got out of that idolatrous place without even greeting my friend.
 
Wisdoms Friend said:
A friend from school travels with a Quartet that was singing in a nearby "Emergent Church".  I went to go hear them sing. The pastor's message centered around the brand new life-size bronze statue of Jesus they had just installed in the front courtyard.  It had been commissioned to some well-known artist and cost a couple hundred thousand dollars.

The pastor encouraged everyone who was burdened, heavy hearted, and in need of the touch of Christ to exit during the closing song, go out to the courtyard, kneel down, take the hand of Jesus, look up into his eyes and give your sorrows to him.

Everyone stood, the praise band sang one of those soft choruses that repeats the same seven words eleven times, and they sang and sang and sang, as scores of people went out weeping to line up at their Jesus statue, take his hand, pray and come back in to the service, where they stood swaying and weeping.

Needless to say, I got out of that idolatrous place without even greeting my friend.
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That would be creepy.
 
Wisdoms Friend said:
A friend from school travels with a Quartet that was singing in a nearby "Emergent Church".  I went to go hear them sing. The pastor's message centered around the brand new life-size bronze statue of Jesus they had just installed in the front courtyard.  It had been commissioned to some well-known artist and cost a couple hundred thousand dollars.

The pastor encouraged everyone who was burdened, heavy hearted, and in need of the touch of Christ to exit during the closing song, go out to the courtyard, kneel down, take the hand of Jesus, look up into his eyes and give your sorrows to him.

Everyone stood, the praise band sang one of those soft choruses that repeats the same seven words eleven times, and they sang and sang and sang, as scores of people went out weeping to line up at their Jesus statue, take his hand, pray and come back in to the service, where they stood swaying and weeping.

Needless to say, I got out of that idolatrous place without even greeting my friend.



That would be quite strange. Sad that the idolatry would be so blatant.
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Bro Blue said:
Wisdoms Friend said:
A friend from school travels with a Quartet that was singing in a nearby "Emergent Church".  I went to go hear them sing. The pastor's message centered around the brand new life-size bronze statue of Jesus they had just installed in the front courtyard.  It had been commissioned to some well-known artist and cost a couple hundred thousand dollars.

The pastor encouraged everyone who was burdened, heavy hearted, and in need of the touch of Christ to exit during the closing song, go out to the courtyard, kneel down, take the hand of Jesus, look up into his eyes and give your sorrows to him.

Everyone stood, the praise band sang one of those soft choruses that repeats the same seven words eleven times, and they sang and sang and sang, as scores of people went out weeping to line up at their Jesus statue, take his hand, pray and come back in to the service, where they stood swaying and weeping.

Needless to say, I got out of that idolatrous place without even greeting my friend.



That would be quite strange. Sad that the idolatry would be so blatant.
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It is interesting isn't it, that the emergent church has, as one of their practices, the use of statues.  Now they do not like to be pigeon-holed, and you can barely get them to define what they believe.  However, I am guessing, from what little I know of them, that if you said "That violated the second commandment," they would say, "we are not bound by the Old Testament Commandments."  Not that they are any kind of dispensationalists, but they do not like rules at all.
 
Not the most physically crazy thing that's happened, but imo, it was pretty crazy.

The church I was going to had a visiting preacher that was supposed to be the pastor's good friend or best friend or whatever. He was speaking, asked if there were any Jews in the building, I didn't raise my hand, and he proceeded with an offensive, racist joke.

There was a dinner after the service and I thought "if I go to him quietly and just voice it, maybe he'll see that it wasn't appropriate."

So I did so, with no intention of any type of scene, but HE created one. He turned half purple and yelled that he had asked if anyone there was Jewish and that I should have raised my hand and it was just a joke and blah blah blah. I was pretty shocked, everyone stopped and was staring so I didn't even respond, just walked away and left him sitting there foaming over his potluck dinner. I can still see exactly what he looked like...the red face, the anger, the hatred written all over his face. Very sad. 

Since I had been "recruited" for membership and had still been checking it out, I felt no need to return.

 
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