When I was growing up in Rock Island, anyone who set foot inside the Nazarene Church for any reason, but didn't "get saved" and become a member, was placed on the Prospect List.
Even if they just came for Vacation Bible School, or to cheer for a friend at a Jump Quiz Tournament.
They stayed on that list forever, unless they asked to be removed or the Church Board decided to purge the list of names from many years ago.
Every August, about a month before the fall revival, our Sunday school teacher gave each of us the contact information for 10 age- and -gender appropriate Prospects. We were supposed to make it our business to "win them for the Lord," or at least invite them to church.
During the next month, we received 1 point for each Prospect that we prayed for, 2 points for each letter or post card, 5 points for each telephone call, and 10 points for each in-person visit, plus an extra 10 point if they actually came to church.
The rest of this story is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends
Boomer, it seems like you were given a lot of "information" from your church and community about so many things that proved not to be true. How did you deal with all of that? It must've been hard to reconcile your experiences of people and places with what you were being taught about them. That's a lot of cognitive dissonance for a teenager! Especially one with an ever-growing awareness that he is gay. From your posts, you seem to have worked it all out in the end -But how did you manage?
ReplyDeleteThe church was like the rest of the world in the 1960s and 1970s: nobody ever mentioned gay people, and any evidence of same-sex desire was ignored or dismissed. During my senior year in high school, our new preacher was hip to "modern problems," and started yelling about "homa-sekshuls" in every sermon. But before that, nothing.
DeleteI mean, deliberate misinformation is still how some people address these issues. Notice how just talking about trans issues, you don't even have to talk about sex!, is "grooming" in some circles.
DeleteThe philosophy is "out of sight, out of mind". But a better translation is "blind idiot".