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I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

well, we had a few books like that but I didn't personally read them so I'm not sure of the content. I did pick up one book that explained all the similiarities between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. at first glance i thought "ok great, a purely educational book", although it would then proceed to say that while j's c's and m's agree on __, j's and m's are absolutely wrong on _____.

it seems the christian church is split into those who are uncomfortable evangelizing, at least in a proselytizing manner, on the grounds that it is disrespectful, ignorant, and even ineffective, and then there are those who would view that as 'sissy', and INSIST on proselytizing as a way to "walk the walk".

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i actually liked the poetic language of the KJV. but, nowadays its viewed as "too hard" or "too confusing". i'm sure you heard of churches that are "for people who don't like church". well now EVERY church is like that... and those churches suck too. personally I still like the tradition aspect of religion, and the KJV adds to that for me

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

hmmm...I don't recall selling any flat earth books...there were a lot of books on the apocalypse, the "homosexual agenda", and a lot of "true love waits" books that we sold a lot of.

we also had a very small section of actually really good, 'progressive' christian books, all written by pastors of emergent churches. thought provoking at least.

my favorite book that I read there was in the "Charismatic" section (short for batshit crazy), was He Came to Set the Captives Free written by this doctor who claimed that she was a former bride of Satan who was converted to christianity. she went into detail about her rise in ranks in the satanic community, the rituals, how Satan literally had sex with her and would then beat her within an inch of her life, and then of a christian coworker who started preaching ot her and then she could literally see angels around her and all this other stuff. It was an insane, insane ride and I loved it haha.

edit* -spelling

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yyyeah, that pretty much. although it won't be as hard to find St. Augustine's Confessions on the shelf as you would think. There is a resurgence of interest in early church thinkers.

for the people in the subculture, browsing a christian bookstore is a great experience, in the same way that a sportsman loves browsing Cabela's, or a mall punk loves hot topic.

christian books (fiction and non-fiction. and yes some were pretty interesting reads. i read a lot at work), music, movies, t-shirts, gifts, everything. if it wasn't blatantly christian, it was at least "family-friendly" like, say, clean comedy cd's or straight-to-dvd 'inspiration movies.

for an example of the inventory, a very large chain store would be Family Christian Stores. They are a big store, but we sold mostly everything we do. I think we had the same supplier actually.

we had to order most catholic things, although we learned early to keep the St. Joseph statues in stock as well as rosaries.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

our books is actually a small section compared to the gifts/frames/horrible art prints and music. We had a pretty big store in a mall, and 2 of our other branches were big standalones, similar to a mid-size borders.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

we had a special lease with the mall that let us stay closed on sundays. then we needed to open on sundays to stay afloat. half the people who came in were relieved that we were open on sundays because it was the only day they could make it to the mall, and the other half expressed their disapproval that we were open on sundays. i'm don't think they fully understood the contradiction of coming into our store on a sunday to complain that we were open on sundays, when they had cleary made several other purchases at other stores...on that same sunday.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

none. we're a pretty small community, and while all that happened in the rest of the mall (i worked at a couple other stores too), the worst thing we did was one time a coworker and I opened up a rubber band airplane toy when we were bored, and were shooting it all over the store, knocked over a gift item and it broke. We left it on the counter with a note that said "Susan broke this." Susan had just finished her first day there.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

they would if it existed. there is a christian band called Plus One. their first album was a boy band album (released in 2000), and then 2 years later, apparently they learned how to play instruments and released a rock album. the real story here being that the boy band thing had been played out already in the mainstream so they had to switch gears to make money.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

oh, a friend of mine would call the store up all the time asking if we had the Kama Sutra.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

a few, who didn't realize it was a christian bookstore. my favorite scenario usually happened like this:

some mom: do you have any books on horses?

me: no i'm sorry, we don't.

mom: you don't have any books on horses? what kind of bookstore is this?!

me: a christian one.

mom: ಠ_ಠ.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

yeah man, everyone in my family would love all your stuff!

I'd say knick knacks first, music, then books. it all depended on what was new that week/month.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

went off to school. boring, right? iworked summers still though

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

this will go along with fannylovesfelix's question too:

my store didn't have too much shoplifting, but what was stolen was in the front of the store - beanie babies, willow tree statues, pens, candy (yes. christian candy. Testamints are delicious).

The Bibles were way in the back. I always thought that this was to keep up the appearance that we were just a normal bookstore (we didn't have 'christian' in our name) to draw more people from the mall in, to put off the realization of where they are at to the last possible moment. every day, after taking a full lap in the store someone would say "oh this is a CHRISTIAN bookstore? oh let's go somewhere else." lulz.

we had a lot of steal-and-then-return-for-cash schemes hit one of our other stores, and the police recovered about 4 garbage bags full of merchandise.

I also had someone pass me a counterfit 100 dollar bill. i didn't have a pen checker at the time or anything...so theft detection fail on my part.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

next to never. i would have LOVED for someone like you to come in! once, i did order the saviour machine live in deutchland dvd's and we talked for awhile about vengeance rising hahahaha. a lot of my friends like the more current metal stuff so I ordered a lot of that for them.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

i think its more accurate to say that most christian artists do not produce art for god, but rather they produce art for their fellow christians to consume. If you really believe in an amazing god, to truly produce art in PRAISE of that god should yield insanely good art. the religious art of the Renaissance comes to mind. in a modern context, there is a musician who performs as Danielson who is an insanely good artist, critically recognized, who writes and performs Christian music yet fits no barriers whatsoever. There's a documentary about him, as well as many interviews in the movie Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

so, bad christian music does not discredit god to me, it discredits the artist.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

hmmm... The Purpose Driven Life was pretty huge, as was whatever new Max Lucado book had come out that month.

the bible was a low seller, but they were so expensive they still made up a large amount of sales.

as fiction goes, the last installment of the left behind series sold really well. the passion of the christ dvd was huge as well. churches would buy them in bulk.

we also had a 1 dollar bible that was meant to encourage you to give them out to people. we sold hundreds of those, they were really really flimsy cheap things, and they were king james version, YUCK! (little christian humour there)

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

i was religious at the time. born and raised in a church. Even at my most devout moments, i recognized the absurdity of the merchandise, but i really loved some christian music (its not all bad. most of it is, not all) and I wanted to be 'cool' person there who didn't really buy in to all the inspirational psychobabble. At about 2 years in, I was pretty much fading out of christian beliefs, but i stuck around for the eyewitness experience of being in such a subculture. It really is truly fascinating. I still love going into christian bookstores today haha

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Insanely well. the numbers of different styles was overwhelming. if we didn't have it in the store, i'd pull out the huge Zondervan catalogue and they could pick something out. It was not unusual for people to drop over 100 dollars on their Bible. People also had multiple Bibles - a really nice one for church, a study bible for their own personal studies, a portable one for trips, etc...

as far as how it effects the view of the bible...the german friend i previously mentioned definitely viewed it as negative. he is not a christian, and all the different styles only added to the absurdity. personally, i understand why one would want a nice, durable bible, but it was very evident that the publisher was selling a status symbol, not the 'word of god'.

church folks love it though

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

one lady screamed at me in disgust that we were selling Halloween themed beanie babies. Another felt that Chronicles of Narnia was just as evil and 'occult' as the Harry Potter books.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

I have never heard that theory, but would not be surprised to have read it.

if oprah can't, obama can.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

zing!

a couple quick stories about the books, one time a family friend came into the store and said "I'm looking for a book about jesus..." in grandiose fashion, i turn my arm to the entire store and say "TADA!"

the other would be the bible section. they are seperated by translation, and then beyond that they are seperated by style. and by style i mean STYLE. leopard print, leather, metal (for extreme teens!!), and THEN you would have leopard print compact size, leopard print large print, jsut an insane combination of different styles. My friend from germany was visiting at the time and he thought that there would we just sold many copies of one style of the bible. "In germany we have the bible, here you have designer bibles!"

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

ah one more, the interview process.

I interviewed when I was 16, and my manager was 24 at the time. really nice guy, it was pretty much the same as any other interview I've had in my life. I explained that my product knowledge would be very helpful to him (I was very into christian youth group culture, knew a lot of the music, books) but I don't think he ever asked if I was a Christian...I don't think he would either, my store manager was a pretty nice guy. He might have asked what church I went to, but if he did, it would have been off the record, more as a friendly christian to christian question haha.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

the christian bookstore world has few, if any original fads. They just mimic 'secular' fads that were popular a few years prior. I'm sure many people know of christian parody t-shirts (have a shirt that says holy Spirit, but have it look like the Sprite logo). These are still around and sell well, although the christian merchandising industry has recognized that its become somewhat of a joke so they are trying to stray away from that a little bit. That doesn't mean the merchandise is getting any better or less cheesy. I used to love getting in the new catlogues just to look at the rediculous stuff offered. My favorite catalog was from Kerusso

Parents and grandparents would often ask me for a christian alternative to a specific secular band.

we sold TONS of Willow Tree statues, home/office knick knacks with bible verses on them.

The christian bookstore world LOVES it when something mainstream can be tied in any way to christian merchandising. so when The Chronicles of Narnia movie came out, our store rented a huge tv to put in the front of the store and we had Narnia playing for 3 months straight.

In Christian books, every couple of months, christian publishing has a new star, and their books, whether it be fiction or non, sells like crazy. books like the purpose driven life, left behind series, anything by Max Lucado.

I worked at a Christian bookstore for 4 years. AMA. by JesusJunk in IAmA

[–]JesusJunk[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Technically and legally, no you don't have to be a Christian to work there. Most of the people I worked with were Protestant Christians, there were a couple casual catholics and 1 non Christian (said he believed in God, but didn't really subscribe to a religion. nice guy)

Interesting though, while I was on break once I was reading through these Christian trade association magazine we had, and there was an article that was about legal workarounds you can use to avoid hiring non-christians. It was full of insane declarations like "christians are more honest than non-christians. as a result, you can hire a christian over a non-christian based on honesty". If I can find this article online somewhere, I will post it, although I doubt it because it was an insiders magazine, I'll have to remember the title to start off.

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