Drinking

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[Linda]

This is a topic that I don't remember reading about before, so I thought I'd bring it up.

We noticed a lot of drinking at our GCx church. I'm not talking about a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at the game.

Here are some examples.

Ladies in my small group getting together at a coffee shop and bringing along Baileys to spike their coffee. (Pulling it out of their purse, looking around to make sure that no one else in the restaurant saw and dumping some in their coffee).

Small groups where mixed drinks were served AND talked about at length. Kind of like, look how cosmopolitan we are, we drink.

Young people who desire to be leaders bragging about being drunk and then hung over the next day.

Stashes of very expensive liquor in houses on display.

A friend who is older than us and enjoys "a beverage" now and then, was embarrassed to be on a mission's trip because two of the leaders were smuggling cases of beer under their jackets so they could drink on the trip, but the local pastors wouldn't see them.

I don't know, but it seems like when you make a BIG deal about drinking, when you get drunk, or when you are sneaking liquor, you might have a teensy problem.

Perhaps you need to drink to get through the day when you are in an authoritarian sect! Or, perhaps it is just a "look at us, how spiritual are we, we aren't like those legalistic teatotalling Baptists." Or, maybe that secret GCLI teaching has a chapter on "witnessing through alcohol!" We'd never know!

When I was in these situations, I always felt like I was back in high school and people were trying to be cool by drinking. I never heard drunkenness addressed from the pulpit, but I did hear drinking promoted as an evangelistic tool and blogging being condemned!

[namaste]

Actually, drinking was pretty taboo in our church.  This makes sense, as the stated goal of the church was *only* to reach out to college students.  Adults/community members were specifically and intentionally neglected.  Because of the age of the members, it didn't come up much.

I do however, recall that there were some situations where underage students were drinking.  I was shocked that the church didn't take a strong position against it.  The drinking in question was taking place at adult parties (where the drinking was reasonable and appropriate- like a glass of wine or something, nothing like what Linda described).  I was (and still am) flabbergasted that the leaders weren't troubled by older members providing alcohol to the younger members.

So....I guess the long and short of it is that the drinking thing was pretty much a non-issue (and not condoned) in our church, because of the age of the members.  But I was surprised that no one cared that adults were providing minors with alcoholic beverages on occasion.  I figured the rationale for this was avoiding legalism.

[G_Prince]

Well I always found cold turkey evangelism much easier when I was sloshed!

[nateswinton]

:lol:

[puff of purple smoke]

Small groups where mixed drinks were served AND talked about at length. Kind of like, look how cosmopolitan we are, we drink.

Our small group went out for beer quite often. I remember making a joke once about bringing beer to small group, thinking nobody would actually ever do that. The small group leader told me they used to actually bring and drink beer during small group! He said they stopped though because there were now underage people in the group who would feel left out. That just seemed really weird to me, to bring beer to what is basically a bible study. Just seems out of place.

I also find it strange that they were so lax about drinking, yet served grape juice instead of wine during communion. (Do they serve grape juice at all GC churches?)

[puff of purple smoke]

Oh! And the attitude about marijuana was also kind of weird.

Pastor's wife telling a group of college students about how much she wanted to smoke pot when visiting the Ampsterdam church, but her husband wouldn't let her.

A Mark Darling teaching tape from I think an LT conference, where he's making jokes about how one of the guys in our small group looked like a stoner. "You can just tell that guy used to smoke a lot of pot before he found Jesus!" followed by audience laughter.

[AgathaL'Orange]

Our church wasn't like that at all.  In fact, they were so weird about NOT drinking that I was actually 28 before I had my first taste of alcohol!!!  I drink a little now and then and enjoy the freedom of not being controlled so closely anymore.  

That is so bizarre about your small groups AND about people talking about being drunk and hungover.  Linda, you had some KOOKY evergreeness at your church.

[Valley Noir]

We noticed a lot of drinking at our GCx church. I'm not talking about a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at the game.

Here are some examples. . . .

Small groups where mixed drinks were served AND talked about at length.

Cocktails at small group?  What were they thinking!?!  Someone might confuse them for Episcopalians :shock: .

[steelgirl]

Oh! And the attitude about marijuana was also kind of weird.

Pastor's wife telling a group of college students about how much she wanted to smoke pot when visiting the Ampsterdam church, but her husband wouldn't let her.

Something is not right there.

[theresearchpersona]

You're right about that. In Galatians 5 the word "sorcery" (thinking NKJV's rendition here) isn't referring to "witchcraft" in the sense we think, but means "drug use" (literally). Of course that doesn't mean "don't take your meds" (medicinal), but it does mean "be sober" just as the word says...i.e. mentally; there's a diff between food/drink (i.e. meats and wine/beer) vs. what you smoke; it's also interesting that guys like Tom Short with conviction and without apology do tell people about marijuana "it's a sin" because their body is in God's image (and for those who're saved by God it's a temple of the Holy Spirit)...so it's odd that this kind of thing came up.

Anyway, I noticed the same jesting and childish attitudes toward substances too: and I'm not against a bear or anything.