So I realize that I tend to tell stories about the crazy people I run into at church. I don't want anyone to get the idea that all Mormons are crazy from these stories. The fact is that we're quite down-to-earth, reasonable people, which is why the weirdos tend to stick out and get remembered. Over at Mormon Mommy Wars, a discussion got started about crazy things people have seen happen at church, including the married couple who kissed 41 times during a 1-hour meeting, and the lady who hit a squirrel with her car on the way to church and put it in her pocket and took it to church with her. That post now has 180 comments.
I realize that there are nutters everywhere. It's just that in our church we invite them to get up in front of everyone and say what's on their mind. I refer specifically to the practice of Testimony Meetings. On the first Sunday of every month, members of the congregation are invited to come up to the front if they wish and spend a few minutes sharing their feelings about and testimony of Jesus Christ. This can be a wonderful, faith-affirming time for the people who share their testimonies and for the people who hear them.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees this as "testify of Christ" time, which is why we get things like these:
- Roomate-imonies: "I just want to say how much I love my roommates, blah blah blah." Dude. Tell them, don't tell me.
- Confessionals
- Political/social soapboxes
- Bragging sessions
- Travelogues
- Calls to repentance
- Inspirational (read: crap) stories that they think are true but which totally came from Internet forwards, like the one about Mel Gibson being The Man Who Had No Face. No lie, someone used that one once.
If anyone starts saying anything really crazy then the Bishop can get up and kindly escort them down, but I've never actually seen that happen.
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