Life: Being a Church Kid

I was recently tagged in a Facebook post about called the Twenty Signs you know you are a Church Kid. And thought would post about it but tweak it to be my own version – not sure am going to include the whole 20 signs as some of them don’t relate to me.

I grew up as a church kid, but just any only church kid, I was a manse kid – my Dad was the minister of our church.  I was sent to Sunday School every week, went to Church, then went to Children’s Church in the middle of the service, Christian Endeavour on Tuesday nights and the Bunnies, Brownies and Girl Guides.

As a MK (Minister’s Kid) I had to move church as my Dad changed his job from one church to another and of course I had to move with him. So this move meant changes and one of these was moving from the chilled out Girl Guides to the very tight and strict Girls Brigade. Gone were the days making ice cream and along arrived the days of trying to get my leg higher than my head (something I could not do, so was not ever treated like a proper Girl’s Brigadier!

My journey has a church kid continued, moved from Sunday School to Bible Class, moved from Christian Endeavour to Youth Fellowship and went to Youth Club on Saturday nights. From Bible Class I then moved to become a Sunday School Teacher and moved from being a member of Holiday Clubs to being a leader in them.

I grew up a Presbyterian in Northern Ireland, but it doesn’t matter where you grow up or in what denomination you grow up in, being a church kid is the same everywhere. Living a life with memorizing bible verses, doing sword drills etc. However despite a bit of rebelling and saying no to Jesus, I now cling to my faith, I love Jesus and have been involved in every church I have been part of (a few because of moving from Northern Ireland to England, to Peru back to Northern Ireland). I have been a Presbyterian, an Anglican, a Baptist and back to Presbyterian again. But they are all the same – they are love and worship Jesus.

So what are the signs of being a Church Kid?

1. You know who Psalty is and can still sing along to the ‘Arky Arky’ song and quote lines from the tapes – “My name is Charity, Charity Church mouse and I am on my to California to be signed by Mouse-tail records, I am going to be a Gospel singing star”

2. You know what a sword drill is. I have already mentioned this above. And no it doesn’t involve real swords – it is a competition to see who the fastest person is in finding a bible verse.

3. You had a WWJD bracelet (What would Jesus Do) .or two….or ten.

4. You had a Beginner’s Bible, a Good News Bible and finally a Youth Bible.

5. You grew up going to C.S.S.M beach missions (which in Northern Ireland where hardly ever on the beach due to the rain).

6. You loved it when you got to watch a movie in Sunday School / Children’s Church – like Magee and me.  (Which I loved and even tried to kit my bedroom out like his with the cool marble funnel he had!)

7.  You have tapes (not CD’s) but tapes in your house of music by Ian White, Michael W Smith, Petra and Amy Grant to name a few.  Then when you grew into a teenager this was followed by Delirious CD’s….. (I still play their music as I think it is good).

8. As well as Psalty and the music mentioned above you grew up singing Shine Jesus Shine and every other Graham Kendrick song in churches and still know all the words without needing the music. (The modern day equivalent of Graham Kendrick is Townend & Getty – I was at a church recently where we sang three of their songs in one service!)  - (Don’t get me wrong they are sing & write great songs with a good Christian ethos).

9. You were either a Boy Scout, a Girl Guide, in the Boys Brigade or the Girl’s Brigade and still have a bit of the uniform somewhere in the attic!

10. You have automatic responses to some phrases e.g. when someone says Hallelu – Hallelu- Hallelu- Hallelujah”, you say “Praise Ye the Lord!” or when someone shouts ‘God is Good’ you say “All the Time”

11.  You thought it was cool to go away for the weekend with the Youth Club/Youth Fellowship and be with the cool crowd!

12. In your mind, Jesus was white, had long brown wear, always wore a white robe with a blue sash and never wore shoes.

13. You know what flannel graphs are!

14. You sat in the back row of the church reading Song of Songs, thinking it was the raciest book you had ever read!

15. You can tell someone about your faith using the “the wordless book”.