Weird Teachings

[Eulaha L. Long]

When I was in fellowship in SLO, I was approached by one of the leading brother's wives and was told that my braids did not honor God.  So, I unbraided my hair and never wore braids again as a member.  Has anyone else encountered strange teachings such as this?

[guest]

It's been almost 20 years, but I do remember some things like this:

No pearls or white beads that looked like pearls on wedding dresses.

No braided hair(had nothing to do with race as far as I know) 1Pet 3:3

Same for costly clothes.

Everyone lived in the same neighborhood, or if they didn't, they were encouraged to move there!

The salad dressing has already been mentioned

And Finally......The Franklin Planner!!

[Rachel]

Lets see -

No pierced earrings - workers were told it was for the sake of the African brothern and that it stumbled them.  (What about when Samuel O. wife showed up with gold hoops in her ears.  Really stubbling to her I am sure).

No Best friends - wouldn't want to be exclusive would we.

No nail polish - at least among the more "committed" families.

[Kay]

I know about the earings, I never heard anything about braided hair: I used to braid mine all the time. I had pearls on my wedding dress, hmmm alot of them and I never heard a taboo against nail polish. I guess it depends what lodge you were from. The Franklin Planner was a hot fad. I guess with any group there are FADS. With the lodge, we didn't call them fads but 'spiritual helps or guidelines.'

[Sebastian Andrew]

Greetings:
Am I out of order here? Sorry about my gender but I can't change that(I must still have the 20th century thought patterns to make this kind of statement).
  The brothers where I am from couldn't preach unless they wore a tie. I realize that this isn't so weird, but we did tend to look like a bunch of Mormon missionaries on the afternoon outreach. Wicked me, I was always fantasizing that a certain brother's clip-on would fall off in front of everyone whilst he preached.

[Eulaha L. Long]

Regarding the braiding of hair: In our Assembly (SLO), it was the Black women who were encouraged not to.  I used to see the leading brother's kids (all non-Black) with braids all the time...so why was it just the Blacks?  I'll ponder that question over my bowl of vanilla ice cream tonight...

[Aslan213]

Hi Everyone,

Yup, lots of weird teachings out there!  How about this?  Doorkeepers are to dress in business attire for the meetings, but were chewed out if they out dressed the leadership.

If you were sitting in the front row in the meetings you could not use the bathroom.

Also, my wife told me this.  Sisters could not wear denim dresses on Sunday.  I know my wife never obeyed the rule, but it is there.  After she wore it, all the sisters started wearing them.  Hmmmm...talk about leading a rebellion.

Eric

[trockman]

Ha!

Eric, we had the same kind of thing up here.  All of the women were supposed to wear dresses to the Wed. nite Chapter summary.  Suzie decided to wear pants, and she was the only one for a while, but eventually they all started wearing them.

As a doorkeeper(I hate that term) I had to wear a suit and tie on wed. nite!  I never wore the jacket, and the LB's constantly hassled me about it. I would just bring the jacket and set it on the back of the chair.

Many LB's and their "goofy sycophants" would get up to preach, but would put their jacket back on ibefore speaking in order to show how serious the ministry was.

Visitors were real comfortable around this.....NOT!

Brent
(What an imbecile I was!)

[Aslan213]

Greg, you only had to call two people when missing a meeting?    You obviuosly missed the doorkeeper's meeting when it was discussed we might be directed to call more.

When I was sick (not Meetingitis) I had to call the head of the doorkeepers, then I was usually directed to call #2 in charge of the doorkeepers.  After that I had to call the BP's Puppet.  He usually had me call the BP and sometimes the jumping bean.  This would take 20-30 minutes as at least one would verbally assault me for being sick.

I learned very quickly that communication was not an attribute in the valley assembly.    

[Eulaha L. Long]

Remember this one?  You are not to say "God bless you" when someone sneezes!!!  After 9 years of not saying it, I am finally beginning to say it again.  It feel weird not to.

And what about this one:  a woman was not to cross her legs if she were in the front row and George was preaching (ie-if he visited your particular assembly)?

[Rachel]

Ok - I may get busted for this one

This is a wierd teaching but more then that.  I should probably go under a different thread but I can't decide which one so here it goes.

In meeting with Betty, while I was pregnant, she brought up the wounds of Christ in his hands and feet.  She said that he has those wounds in his resurected body because they are the result of our sin.  Her conclusion was that the consequences of our sin in our physical body would be there in our eternal bodies.  Her example was if we pierce our ears then we will have pierced ears in eternity.  (Would that really be such a bad thing? )  However if you take that to the logical conclusion that would mean a disease like AIDS that resulted from sexual immorality would still be present in our eternal bodies.  That would contradict the scripture which says there will no longer be sickness or death and no more tears.  A little scary huh.  

This is what Betty said to me.  Not second hand, to me.  

[ccmalibu]

O.K. i have a question re: a weird (at least it felt REALLY weird)  teaching that occured in the SLO assembly. I don't know if this happened elsewhere, but if it did, please fill me in....
One day somebody decided-maybe the result of a workerbee mtg or something, i'm not sure- that it would be a good idea for the children to address the adult saints as brother so-and-so or sister so-and so and that the adults address the leading brothers as brother so-and so. I did this for about 2 days and then decided it was too weird! i even had the kids stop calling me sister cristina because i felt like i was in a nunnery, o.k. convent!! anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback on this...hey, i was just thinking, did the kids have to call thier parents sister mom or brother dad??(wow, now THIS could get confusing,,,sounds like mormonism to me..anyway,  I didn't have kids in the assembly  (thank God!!!!!!!!! )so i don't know what the protocol was!!!!
Also, i used to address  the big cheese as geroge instead of bro. george. He never corrected me, but the sisters in my home sure did!!!!  I didn't care though, I still called him george. after all, he would always say that he's....just a simple brother in the Lord, and i didn't call the other bro's bro so and so. but, there's no hierarchy in this group, it's just our imaginations!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

[Arthur]

Christina, personally I didn't take the practise to be too weird.  The reasoning was that we are all in the family of God--we're all brothers and sisters in Christ, yet there needed to be some sign of respect for those who were older.  In other words, even in the world, repectful children say Mister or Misses to adults.  In the assembly, they replaced that with brother or sister, which was almost like a term of endearment, so the children said brother so and so when talking to an adult.  I can see how this could be seen as weird, but I thought it was kinda neat and more personal than mister since, after all, we are in the family of God.

George insisted on being called "Brother George" when he was up preaching. Otherwise he said it was ok to call him George.  In my upbringing, I would still expect for a young guy like me to call an elderly fellow like him, mister, so at the time, I thought it was a nice gesture that he would allow us to just call him George which is a more familiar term.  
In Fullerton, almost everyone calls him Brother George--that is like his name there.  

[trockman]

I hated being called "Brother Brent."

I was at a loss to tell my kids why the neighbor on the right was Mr. Churchill, while the one on the left was Brother David.  "Kids, we are not exclusive, but only call the saint's Brother, call other believers, Mr."

George chewed me out for calling him George once.  Others have told me the same thing.  He is a Brother among brothers. I am just a brother.

Suzie hated seeing assembly kids in the store, because she might be talking to someone, and this kid would run up and say, "Hi sister Suzie!"  It was embarrasing.

Brent

[Kimberley Tobin]

I have three children (ages 16, 8 and 7) and I never required them to call people brother or sister so and so.  And yes, you were right, there must have been some workerbee meeting where they decided it was a good idea, because, all of a sudden it was THE RAGE.  I had already been in fellowship for quite some time when they instituted it, so I thought it was rather strange.  My husband likens it to the Catholic church always changing the rules (meat/no meat on Fridays.) "Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them." Prov 5:6

But I have always been the rebel!