In college, when we weren’t playing cards or planning a themed dinner party—our “side dish only” party still reigns as the greatest dinner party I’ve ever attended—my friends and I talked. We talked about everything. We talked about the contestants on American Idol, the lack of parking at Common Grounds, each other’s penchant for over-committing, …
Each summer, our youth group joined other churches from our Super-Christian North Texas district for a week of camp that took place at a Pentecostally-sanctioned camp ground. It was a week of field-day games, non-coed swimming, sexually-repressed flirting with other sexually-repressed teenagers and no less than two hellfire and brimstone services each day. None of …
Ten minutes after I stepped off the plane, I was attacked by a mosquito the size of a bird. It slammed into my head as if it didn’t know where it was going but judging by the heat, I imagine it was trying to get inside the terminal and on board the next plane out. …
Toilet-papering was a rite of passage for my generation; more a matter-of-fact part of childhood than a taboo act perpetuated by delinquents. It was basically expected that we, as teenagers, would pillage the bathroom cabinets of our homes to gather as much toilet paper as we could before sneaking out in the middle of the …
One of the perks of being in a church youth group is having a standing group of people to spend time with in a setting that won’t make your parents worry about the status of your salvation. My youth group friends and I spent our summers playing putt-putt, Frisbee golf, diving off the platform at …
Ryan Brinson 