i grew up in a home where both my parents are pastors. no seriously. i know you can't tell from how i turned out but we did have quite a strict christian upbringing complete with praying every morning and what not. so from early on, it was made very clear to us that we must respect every one and treat them fairly. we must show extra care to the elderly and the physically disadvantaged,and above all, be extra considerate for born again christians.
by consideration i mean, you know, that they can do no wrong. as soon as someone started a speech with "greetings" and ended it with "God bless you", i was expected to bowl over and die. literally. i mean, my dad used to treat members of the church as if they were this distinct species that were not subject to the rules that applied to other common folk, and i detested it. detested it but had to live with it, and slowly come to terms with the fact that whatever a born again christian says or does is spirit led. so yes, we were not allowed to laugh when an obese christian sister came to visit and the chair creaked as she sat down...we were not allowed to grin when a brother sings "hai av hay reason to praise the Lord and oliness his the key". One time during prayer with a visiting brethren, we heard a loud fart that coincided with our Amen, and my sister and I had to kneel and bury our heads in the sofa so we could laugh our heads off...even then, we still got in trouble.
so yeah, you can imagine the conflict i now face in my new church as the vice president of the youth fellowship (yes, i can't say it enough). and so the other day we were talking and a brother was saying how the sisters seem to prefer to date and marry outside of the parish. naturally, a sister there said it was just that the brothers in the church were not up to the taste of the sisters. of course we all laughed it off as balderdash but i perfectly understood what she meant.
my church is smack in the middle of town and so no excuses can be made. One of the brethren was at my place three sundays ago, he just branched to visit when i didn't attend bible study on a tuesday. lets just say, i was sincerely grateful that my parlour is large. i sat as far away from him as possible, put on the whirlwind fan and went inside to spray some perfume on myself, to no avail. i'm not sure anyone since creation has quite smelt that pungent before and i saw it as my responsibility to, you know, bring up the topic. so i asked him what perfume he uses, he said, he used to use calvin klein but that its been a while since he bought it because he can't find that exact one that he loved so much. so i said, "o i use roll on instead, i find it lasts longer than perfume". he says "whats that?". so i go in and bring him the spare one i had and said he could keep it and let me know if he likes it.
to cut the long story short, yesterday, he dropped by and was again reeking like he ran in the last olymipcs and hadn't showered since. so naturally, i say "how did you find the roll on?" with a smile on my face, and he says he'd stopped using it. "Why"?, he says, "ti'n ba fi si abia mi, oma'n ta mi. ti'm ba de fi s'ori aso mi, oma'n stain e". (translated: "when i put it in my armpit, it stings, and when i put it on my clothes, it stains it). I. GIVE. UP.
i think that christians have generally come to expect that the world will judge them with a lower standard. that life will cut them some slack because they are born again. that being a christian absolves you from any need to look good, smell nice and fit in. well, unfortunately, it doesn't. illiteracy does though. and thats what i told my brethren in church. that the sisters will continue to run to "city of david" (thats a super modern parish in lekki) brothers if we do not up our game and that while we are at it, can they stop wearing silly patterned glossy chinese ties on triple coloured shirts on brown trousers to sunday service?
i think at some point, i will have to organize a marriageable men's seminar in my church where we'll discuss "revamping the christian male" but then the inevitable question will be: "if thy methods are so successful brother Orok, why remaineth thou unmarried?" to which my response shall be "if thou mindeth thine own business brother akin, the world would be a much safer place, and smell nicer too".
thats another issue for another day. see y'all around peeps.
by consideration i mean, you know, that they can do no wrong. as soon as someone started a speech with "greetings" and ended it with "God bless you", i was expected to bowl over and die. literally. i mean, my dad used to treat members of the church as if they were this distinct species that were not subject to the rules that applied to other common folk, and i detested it. detested it but had to live with it, and slowly come to terms with the fact that whatever a born again christian says or does is spirit led. so yes, we were not allowed to laugh when an obese christian sister came to visit and the chair creaked as she sat down...we were not allowed to grin when a brother sings "hai av hay reason to praise the Lord and oliness his the key". One time during prayer with a visiting brethren, we heard a loud fart that coincided with our Amen, and my sister and I had to kneel and bury our heads in the sofa so we could laugh our heads off...even then, we still got in trouble.
so yeah, you can imagine the conflict i now face in my new church as the vice president of the youth fellowship (yes, i can't say it enough). and so the other day we were talking and a brother was saying how the sisters seem to prefer to date and marry outside of the parish. naturally, a sister there said it was just that the brothers in the church were not up to the taste of the sisters. of course we all laughed it off as balderdash but i perfectly understood what she meant.
my church is smack in the middle of town and so no excuses can be made. One of the brethren was at my place three sundays ago, he just branched to visit when i didn't attend bible study on a tuesday. lets just say, i was sincerely grateful that my parlour is large. i sat as far away from him as possible, put on the whirlwind fan and went inside to spray some perfume on myself, to no avail. i'm not sure anyone since creation has quite smelt that pungent before and i saw it as my responsibility to, you know, bring up the topic. so i asked him what perfume he uses, he said, he used to use calvin klein but that its been a while since he bought it because he can't find that exact one that he loved so much. so i said, "o i use roll on instead, i find it lasts longer than perfume". he says "whats that?". so i go in and bring him the spare one i had and said he could keep it and let me know if he likes it.
to cut the long story short, yesterday, he dropped by and was again reeking like he ran in the last olymipcs and hadn't showered since. so naturally, i say "how did you find the roll on?" with a smile on my face, and he says he'd stopped using it. "Why"?, he says, "ti'n ba fi si abia mi, oma'n ta mi. ti'm ba de fi s'ori aso mi, oma'n stain e". (translated: "when i put it in my armpit, it stings, and when i put it on my clothes, it stains it). I. GIVE. UP.
i think that christians have generally come to expect that the world will judge them with a lower standard. that life will cut them some slack because they are born again. that being a christian absolves you from any need to look good, smell nice and fit in. well, unfortunately, it doesn't. illiteracy does though. and thats what i told my brethren in church. that the sisters will continue to run to "city of david" (thats a super modern parish in lekki) brothers if we do not up our game and that while we are at it, can they stop wearing silly patterned glossy chinese ties on triple coloured shirts on brown trousers to sunday service?
i think at some point, i will have to organize a marriageable men's seminar in my church where we'll discuss "revamping the christian male" but then the inevitable question will be: "if thy methods are so successful brother Orok, why remaineth thou unmarried?" to which my response shall be "if thou mindeth thine own business brother akin, the world would be a much safer place, and smell nicer too".
thats another issue for another day. see y'all around peeps.
Comments
them brothers need to step up their game.