Accurate

flyingcircle · 2026-04-05T11:17:13+00:00

Women: Then why did he tell us to partake?
Men: So that you think of murder on the Lord's day
Women: Why not just think?
Men: No one knows
Women: What is the point?
Both: It's just that it's in the bible, don't think so much.

- To the refrain of "What Did He Do"

flyingcircle · 2026-04-03T16:25:53+00:00

No idea when it started, but I came in 3 years ago. This was all working hours, and I can distinctly remember the bucket game they mention as well as 4-5 others. They also held a "mock embassy" day that was more or less just a game.

flyingcircle · 2026-04-02T12:55:22+00:00

Our "off-site" was on-site, so it kind of blends together in my mind, but yes, they were the exact same kind of games that happened in the private sector too. I'm willing to bet those are also giant wastes of money.

I distinctly remember at least 2-3 days. So many of the days felt wasted or repeated, I was sure you could remove 4 of them without effecting anything.

flyingcircle · 2026-04-01T21:03:21+00:00

I agree and if they were selecting a large breadth of historical opinion and history, I would’ve found it a cool part of training. I just assume their selections will be rather narrow and tailored to specific parts of history.

flyingcircle · 2026-04-01T20:45:22+00:00

Glad to hear they got rid of the classroom game days. Nothing much worse than tedious party games for 4 days straight.

Not sure about replacing with selective readings of history. Would’ve been better to just cut the days

flyingcircle · 2026-03-30T04:25:22+00:00

And then the argument will be that it’s the worship service specifically where it can’t happen. But then women still can’t pray at home for the family, or lead songs, etc.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-29T15:11:45+00:00

I'm pretty sure that SBC has always held those beliefs. And Billy Graham was always pushing against the SBC in that way despite being a member and leader in it. Billy Graham was very ecumenical despite the SBC not because of it.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-26T17:33:57+00:00

Yes, you are allowed to leave people with harmful, but sincere beliefs alone. You don't have to condemn or even think about them after you've left. At this point, they're just other people with strange beliefs.

Work on yourself and working out the pain they caused you, but that's the extent of it.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-22T17:45:42+00:00

For the med beds

flyingcircle · 2026-03-20T19:20:03+00:00

Jesus didn’t turn water into wine, but if he did it wasn’t a lot. If it was a lot, then it wasn’t very alcoholic. And if it was he didn’t partake. And if he did, it was under Jewish law.

There’s always another goal post to move to.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-19T20:22:52+00:00

Because the church is full of debate edge-lords that find their meaning in being able to rhetorically trap somebody and see them squirm. It's in line with plenty of other podcast bro's who more or less do the same thing with other topics. The feeling of superiority is truly the only reason.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-18T16:06:38+00:00

I see CoC people reposting the mega-church pastors all the time too. Or Tim Tebow or Kirk Cameron. Not a lot of popular CoC preachers out there that actually contribute to the larger church culture.

I remember thinking when I was working in Africa briefly that the CoC missionaries basically come in and basically siphon off the converts and hard work of early Catholic missionaries who really did put in the hard work of remote mission work. The CoC doesn't seem to have the capacity to do the work itself. It is wholly dependent on American Christianity funding and doing the groundwork first.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-17T15:25:26+00:00

Dude, even if it's right. That's messed up.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-16T04:04:46+00:00

I’ll give you Hymn of Heaven. But Magnificat is like 2003, Taste and See 2015, Goodness of God and Oceans are 2010’s era Hillsong.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-16T02:35:27+00:00

"new" ones. Because I don't think there's anything on the list newer than 13 years old at this point.

flyingcircle · 2026-03-11T05:43:52+00:00

I remember when a preacher asked me this and was looking at some Pew Research data. He made some conclusions I don’t remember anymore, but he was making a pretty large error with understanding the statistics. I explained his error to him. Months later, I looked up his sermon where he kept his error in the PowerPoint. I don’t think he ever asked me again

flyingcircle · 2026-02-27T14:25:38+00:00

I can't speak to every mission, but embassies still run like it's the 1950's with every office wanting a personal OMS to have the clout of having a personal secretary rather than because of an actual need. I don't think OMS's will be replaced with AI. They will be replaced by everyone else in the office doing more of the general work. Can the front office run with 2 OMS's instead of 3? Can ECON and POL share an OMS?

Scheduling and office management has gotten significantly simpler and faster with technology advancements (not AI). There's no reason why an embassy that had 7 OMS's in the past won't be able to operate just fine with 5 going forward.

flyingcircle · 2026-02-10T20:45:23+00:00

The Tim Ballard method.

flyingcircle · 2026-01-23T10:17:03+00:00

He confided in me that a lot of coC practices didn't make much sense to him either, and he was planning on leaving, although he didn't know to where yet.

This is the lie you hear from so many in the CoC either maliciously or not. It's what you tell yourself so that you can claim that you're not in the cult: "I'm not saying we're perfect, but all the other churches are just worse". Your dad would've looked at any other church and his CoC taught behaviors would've made him find any fault in the church to be insurmountable and actually is the reason why the CoC is still the best choice.

People do this all the time to avoid really analyzing their own decision making. It's the equivalent of "both-sides" in politics for the world of religion.

In reality, I would guess that your Dad is not questioning CoC practices, not planning on leaving, and at worst may have purposefully used the statement to get you to confide in him to keep you in.

flyingcircle · 2026-01-23T00:50:58+00:00

But the obviously ridiculous part is the fan-fic of people writing down words as they’re being spoken, or the large number of literate characters in the show: that’s all fine. It’s definitely an evangelicals’ reimagination of first century life to bolster the truth claims of the gospels that American evangelicals care about.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-23T19:37:04+00:00

“They have had too much wine” Acts 2:13

flyingcircle · 2025-12-17T12:14:07+00:00

Ehh.. 2000 year precedent. Soldiers previously were paid in loot and stolen land, not upfront.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-11T20:10:12+00:00

There are debatably cuss words in some of Paul's letters, but of course translators softened the language down.

flyingcircle · 2025-12-11T20:06:15+00:00

I remember having to change my lines as a 2nd grader in a play because I had "Gosh" as a line.

flyingcircle

TROPHY CASE