My daughter-in-law got thrown out of church!?

[mundame]

We are puzzled and dismayed about this religious issue -- maybe someone can explain it.

My daughter-in-law visited her brother and his family and offered to take the little niece to Sunday School. They aren't religious but thought she would enjoy it (and she had a great time, fortunately, not knowing of the fireworks in the sanctuary).

This was a Baptist church. During the sermon, my DIL started waving her arm in praise. My own history is Methodist and we never did that but daughter and DIL have long gone to the sort of churches that meet in movie theaters or store fronts and they do. It's not wild behavior: just a sort of ritualized limp waving, as I've seen it.

The minister stopped abruptly and said right in the congregation for her to stop doing that: they don't wave arms in this church! She stopped and said she was sorry, but then got mad and rethought it and said no one could tell her how she could or couldn't praise Jesus, and left the sanctuary.

Well, darn. We always thought Baptists were............looser, more enthusiastic maybe, than that. This sounds downright Episcopal, rigid. No one was rolling around or shrieking in tongues, after all --- both of which I've seen or heard of, in days of yore.

What do you all think of this? She posted the story on Facebook, and her friends said she ought to come to their churches.

[Abbey Marie]

I'm kind of shocked that the Pastor did this. I currently attend a Baptist church, where some raise our arms in worship; most don't. No one would ever ask someone to stop. Way to turn your DIL off to going to church.

Our previous church of many, many years was the theater/storefront non-denominational type you've described. We all worshipped very expressively. It's not ritualized or limp, though.
I loved it there.

[darin]

I would wager, based on the evidence, that pastor doesn't know God. What the pastor did was NOT love. The pastor's actions were evidence of the opposite of love.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

I have no idea at all what the problem would be with raising ones arm in praise to the Lord.

I think the problem is with the so called preacher.

[Gunny]

From the mouth of the Baptist ... there are different Baptist churches and you have to go with the flow depending on which one you go to. Some of it is regional, definitely racial, the North isn't the South and the West isn't the East. The city is not the country. People just refuse to accept regional and cultural divide in this country.

If you started waving your arms in the church I was raised in you would probably have the entire congregation staring at you. Old-school Baptists are extremely conservative. It isn't that they "don't know God" @darin , it's that they know Him differently than you. Those people are the salt of the Earth and would give you the shirts off their backs.

In turn, I've been to one of thse charismatic, hippy, rock-n-roll churches that calls itself Baptist where they sway and sing to the band half the sermon and I was WAY out of place. Everybody running around in jeans and flip flops -- not my cup of tea. And try going to a black Baptist Church. Or a by God actual Southern Baptist Church. Southern Baptists are actually a separate church from y'all "regular" Baptists. And go to one of these small, country, Southern Baptist churches where everyone has known everyone else for a few generations like I grew up in. You'll get wide-eyed stared at like a rapper in a country bar .

My advice is if you dont like it, don't go. Freedom of worship means you can pick whichever church suits your fancy. But when in Rome ....

[Kathianne]

From the mouth of the Baptist ... there are different Baptist churches and you have to go with the flow depending on which one you go to. Some of it is regional, definitely racial, the North isn't the South and the West isn't the East. The city is not the country. People just refuse to accept regional and cultural divide in this country.

If you started waving your arms in the church I was raised in you would probably have the entire congregation staring at you. Old-school Baptists are extremely conservative. It isn't that they "don't know God" @darin , it's that they know Him differently than you. Those people are the salt of the Earth and would give you the shirts off their backs.

In turn, I've been to one of thse charismatic, hippy, rock-n-roll churches that calls itself Baptist where they sway and sing to the band half the sermon and I was WAY out of place. Everybody running around in jeans and flip flops -- not my cup of tea. And try going to a black Baptist Church. Or a by God actual Southern Baptist Church. Southern Baptists are actually a separate church from y'all "regular" Baptists. And go to one of these small, country, Southern Baptist churches where everyone has known everyone else for a few generations like I grew up in. You'll get wide-eyed stared at like a rapper in a country bar .

My advice is if you dont like it, don't go. Freedom of worship means you can pick whichever church suits your fancy. But when in Rome ....

That's pretty much my take, though I'm not Baptist. Different churches have different mores, it comes down to what is comfortable for the congregation.

Unless the message in not aligned with God's Word, to me one looks for where one finds it most conducive to their relationship with God.))

[darin]

It isn't that they "don't know God" @darin , it's that they know Him differently than you.

....

No. it's that they don't know God. there is no wrong way to know God. God is LOVE. When people act outside of Love they are giving the symptom they dont know love - ergo, don't know God.

[aboutime]

Sounds to me like that church is more concerned with HOW THEY APPEAR, as in Political Correctness, than actually worshipping God.

Those who go to such a church...TO IMPRESS the others there, are hypocrites. The pastor should happily Welcome Everyone, no matter how they show their Faith.

Just my opinion, and reminded me of when I was little, going to a Baptist Church.
I had become afraid of going, and sitting with the rest of the Sunday School class at the beginning of the Sermon...because I thought they BAPTISED everybody every Sunday. I was afraid of the water behind the Minister. Honestly!

[tailfins]

We are puzzled and dismayed about this religious issue -- maybe someone can explain it.

My daughter-in-law visited her brother and his family and offered to take the little niece to Sunday School. They aren't religious but thought she would enjoy it (and she had a great time, fortunately, not knowing of the fireworks in the sanctuary).

This was a Baptist church. During the sermon, my DIL started waving her arm in praise. My own history is Methodist and we never did that but daughter and DIL have long gone to the sort of churches that meet in movie theaters or store fronts and they do. It's not wild behavior: just a sort of ritualized limp waving, as I've seen it.

The minister stopped abruptly and said right in the congregation for her to stop doing that: they don't wave arms in this church! She stopped and said she was sorry, but then got mad and rethought it and said no one could tell her how she could or couldn't praise Jesus, and left the sanctuary.

Well, darn. We always thought Baptists were............looser, more enthusiastic maybe, than that. This sounds downright Episcopal, rigid. No one was rolling around or shrieking in tongues, after all --- both of which I've seen or heard of, in days of yore.

What do you all think of this? She posted the story on Facebook, and her friends said she ought to come to their churches.

Were they German Baptist? If so, they are just a shade away from being Amish. Stuffy churches like the one mentioned above are getting more and more elderly with lower and lower attendance. My father-in-law is the exact opposite: Before he retired, he was a pastor in Brazil. His church was known for sobering up drunks and drug addicts, protecting prostitutes from their pimps, giving a change of clothes to the homeless, etc. It was "come as you are" and in any condition. The churches he planted always grew quickly and were generally full.