Churchly writhings - humor - Column

Christian Century, Oct 11, 1995 by Martin E. Marty

ACCORDING TO surveys, 89.3 percent of our readers like these miscellaneous or drawer-cleaning-out columns. But 4.3 percent think I prepare them when heading for the road, knowing I can't be timely. They are wrong. Here I am in autumn, a timely season, unable to resist passing on these items from church bulletins, newsletters, ads, etc.:

Trinity United Methodist in Wilmette, Illinois, announces that "Brown Baggers will meet along with the Brown Gaggers from St. Augustine Episcopal Church." Hence a food riot?

Torn from an unidentified bulletin: "Problems in church,? If so, please writhe down on paper and put in Worship Department mail box." Write in squiggly lines.

At First Christian in Lafayette, Indiana, "the high school seniors received their Oxford Annointed Bible." Oily in the morning.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Oak Park, Illinois, notes that its high schoolers are going to visit a local PADS shelter for the homeless and "would like to bring some white men's socks with them." Are they collecting for PADS or the LAPD?

Liturgical innovation at St. Andrew's Episcopal, Newcastle, includes: "EXCHANGE THE PEACE: Announcements and joke of the week" before the offertory sentence. I don't know where Newcastle is, but now I don't want to know.

A Scottish Journal of Theology book review refers to a blurb as follows: "According to the publisher's condemnation . . ."

This one takes more space than most. It's from the minutes of the CCCNA Women's Commission, Mansfield, Ohio:

92-W-7: Out of the discussions

came a motion by Linda and seconded

by Penny stating that the

Women's Commission would work

to broaden the mission statement

of the Women's Commission to include

the reality that women's

groups are hands-on action groups

who neuter all people in the

Church and Community. The

Commission will work to help to

identify how the neutering occurs

and what future directions may be

taken.

Would you please read that motion again? All clear? Any amendments? Call the question? The minutes say: "Motion passed." Let us spay.

At First Congregational Church in Darien, Connecticut, the senior minister invites members to the Brookside parsonage on a Lenten day for "a relaxing oasis of calm." "Our restful golden, Oliver, will be a tease in front of the fireplace to set the mood." Call it Gypsy?

The front page of the newsletter of the Society for the Increase of the Ministry, a Hartford, Connecticut, scholarship foundation, indicates that it helps students prepare for ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. But page four banners it as "The Society for the Increase of Society." The Anglicans were always good at redundancy.

My revered professor Arthur Carl Piepkorn is remembered with a prize at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. The announcement folder says that there will be a "$2,000 prize awarded to the sinner." You can tell it's a Lutheran prize. Sin boldly. Writhe well.