#415. The 5 stages of emailing friends an unintentionally funny Christian video.
Oct 3rd by JonA few weeks ago, a number of my friends sent me a link to an unintentionally funny Christian video. It was essentially three people breakdancing and rapping to duel synthesizers on the stage of what appears to be a large church.
What makes it so funny is that the routine was not designed to be comedy. It’s unintentional. If you saw Saturday Night Live do the same exact skit you might laugh a little, but not nearly as much as you would when seeing a church really try to be serious about it. And as I debated on whether or not to email it to all my friends, I realized that when it comes to unintentionally funny Christian videos, I think there are five stages we all go through:
1. Denial and Isolation
“That can’t be real. There is no way a church is doing that. That has to be fake. Maybe that is something the parody website, The Onion, did. That’s got to be a joke. Am I the only Christian that thinks that is ridiculous? Is it bad that I think that is ridiculous? Is it wrong to mock something a church did? I am so alone.”
2. Anger
“This is why God gets such a bad rap. When my friends say Christianity is corny or cheesy, this is the kind of stuff they’re talking about. I hope the guys at work don’t see this and email it to me since I’m the ‘Christian guy’ in the office.”
3. Bargaining
“I shouldn’t send this to friends, but it’s so funny. Look at that moonwalk. I have to share this with the world. But if I email it out, am I just perpetuating the idea that Christians are cheesy? Or is it a good thing to send it to my friends? Maybe it will let them know, ‘hey, I get it, this kind of stuff is silly, but we’re not all like that. I promise.’ I’ll just send it to a few people. I won’t send it to my entire contact list.”
4. Depression
“All hope is lost. That video was viewed 20 million times on youtube. It was even on “The Soup” with Joel McHale, whom I love and think is hilarious, but that’s beside the point. It’s everywhere. Now, millions of people have had their misconceptions about Christianity confirmed. And I emailed it to the guys at work. All hope is lost.”
5. Acceptance
“OK God, you’re in control. I don’t get to define what you are pleased with. Maybe that breakdancing was exactly what you wanted and there were people that were deeply moved by that. But between you and me, I hope that when I get to heaven you’ll do a little pop and lock, pull me aside and whisper, ‘hey, even I thought that video was funny.’ But we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Those are exaggerated for certain and maybe you don’t experience each of them when you get an unintentionally funny Christian video clip emailed to you. But I do, and I hope I keep getting video clips emailed to me, because they are awesome and they make me laugh and in some unexpected ways, they force me to think about my faith.
(Plus, they teach me fun songs, like Jesus is my friend. I know you’ve seen this 19 times already, and it’s actually posted in the Stuff Christians Like Facebook group, but this thing deserves about 22 views.)
Comments
I saw this video a couple of weeks ago and my 3 year old loves it and requests that I show it to her almost every day. Its funny so I don’t mind watching it more than once!
Is it wrong that my favourite part of this post is the shout-out to Joel McHale and “The Soup?”
Is it wrong that I determine who has potential to be a bosom buddy (versus a mere acquaintance) by discovering whether or not they’ve TiVo’d “The Soup?”
I think not.
(And I’m bemoaning the fact that I’m unable to access youtube at work.)
Okay, I really don’t like to make fun of other people who claim to be believers even though I love to laugh, but I just giggled and giggled. I could totally imagine the conversation,
“You know, we have got to get this message out …because we believe rock n roll is not evil and want to prove it to all our friends, we need to make sure to enunciate EVERY word.”
“Yeah, and since we don’t want anyone thinking pianos are evil, we should dominate the stage with one, even though we will use the debased synthesizer.”
“But we absolutely canNOT really jam on it.”
“Hey, let’s make sure that we have a wide range of ages that approve of our evil rock n roll.”
“Yo, Lead Singer, why don’t you let your hair grow JUST BARELY over your ears … you know, push the envelope a bit?”
“Oh rad, I’ve got the most radical idea. Let’s have a verse about how rock n roll and electric guitars are not evil!”
michelle
I know what you’re talking about, I’ve gone through these stages several times and not just with videos. But hey, loved The Soup reference!
Drinking coffee. You NEED to get some coffee from Luang Prabang!
Ah jeez, now I’m having to go thru the stages again. I posted it on my blog last week, then felt bad about it, and now feel silly for feeling bad.
Stacy:
“Dude, take it down. It’s causing me to stumble.”
I’m with you there, Babe.
Love this post. My Monday night bible study has recently had some fun watching BOTH of the cited videos.
( this is not on topic)
Since it’s october AKA Halloween month, I would like to suggest a topic that is near and dear to my sarcasit heart…
Christian haunted houses CHRISTIAN HAUNTED HOUSES!!!
AKA, look what will happen to you if you have sex and drink, houses.
Wait – there’s a SCL Facebook Group??!?!?!!?!??
brb – gotta go join that…
“lolz”
i’m not sure i get through all those stages. i just sit there incredulously staring at the screen thinking, “this isn’t real” for a long time. then i send it to my Christian friends because i know they’ll laugh.
I posted “Jesus Is My Friend” on my blog a few weeks ago! I sing it mostly to taunt my husband, who says it gets stuck in his head all. the. time. (Is it a sin that I taught it to my 3 kids so they will sing it around him?)
I have a friend in J-J-Jesus!
Amazing video! I tried not to laugh but failed miserably.
I nearly almost cried during this video. Out of hilarity and pain!
A Relient K remake would be awesome! I like “I can praise my God, and still play rock and roll”
Zap, though? ????
that was the greatest 2 min. 48 sec. of my LIFE. i’ll be singing it in my sleep.
pathetic, i know.
Seriously, the best part of that video is at the end when the TV Preacher Guy comes out fake-clapping and says how good that was and starts off into his TV Preacher Guy schtick. He obviously wasn’t hip to this music, but he tried to play it off.
I kept thinking, “So THAT’s what it would look like if Donny Osmond went Evangelical!”
Do you ever think God sits around up in heaven, watching us put together fine representations of Christianity (like this one) and puts his head in his hand and says, “What in the name of me do you think you’re doing?!”
And yes, I did just watch this for the third time today.
Fortunately the disclaimer is in the first verse..something like…”I can turn my cheek when peopel laugh at me…”
No, really, you HAVE to watch this one.
http://thinklings.org/posts/this-is-amazing
But be careful if you’re drinking while you’re watching, you’ll blow it out your nose.
Jen from CO
I heart Joel McHale. I’m with you. He is hilarious. Burger King commercials, the Soup, reading a grocery list. He kills me
Jon
Oh bless their hearts. I’m sure when they made this it was pretty radical to get all rock and roll about Jesus. Maybe they were even banned from some churches for being too out there.
Zap was my favorite part as well, but followed closely by the time he rolled the “r” in friend. Did you catch that? Toward the end I found myself getting excited to see what their big finale would be.
I have to give them credit for trying. I bet soon after this Petra and White Heart hit the scene and everybody’s minds were blown.
Ok the first time I watched this it was “shock and awe” but then I had to watch it again as if to confirm I saw what I thought I saw.. weird thing is it improves when you watch it again, to the point where I was thinking, “hey I could dig this”
Is it my imagination, or does the set resemble something from Love Connection or The Dating Game?
I’m sure somewhere, someone has found this very, very special. Somewhere.
I can’t wait until Sunday — I’m going to drop the phrase “Jesus is like a mountie, he always gets his man” sometime randomly during Sunday School class. I just KNOW somebody is going to get that joke.
ZAP! Lol, it reminds me of a methodist church I used to attend, before I was “saved” by the southern baptists
It was a little charismatic, and you would get the ocasional person who would just fall down and lay on their face at the front of the church. It always used to scare me, once I asked my big brother why they were laying on the floor and he got this huge (if not somewhat evil) look of glee on his face and said, “God ZAPPED them!”
I didn’t want to get zapped
“Jesus is like a mountie, he always gets his men…zap”
wow now it takes skill to write lyrics like that!
I am emailing my friends this by the way (:
ps- I am going to have this song stuck in my head for the next week! ahhh!!!
If it makes you feel any better, the un-posted video of the break dancers/singers is from The Way, International – which isn’t typically described as Christian.
But maybe the fact that people assume it’s Christian makes me feel worse…
here is a great example…
It’s actually from my church.. and was a joke… kinda.. it was for our annual youth festival (LOUDfest)
http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=14553041086
Stacy, have you seen the Jesus videos “what in the name of me…”
Yeah, and WHY the piano? Seriously. It wasn’t used and it took up a lot of room.
The lead singer has got to be Desi Arnez Jr.
I’ve set up a blog to feature some of the crazy christian videos that have been circulating lately
http://crazychristianclips.blogspot.com/
These people are funny to you? Are they a clown to you? See this is how traditional church music people look at the praise chorus people. Also, I just saw the “Gospel Harmony Boys”, and when they were introduced, the music was “Rubber Band Man”, but the guy didn’t sing, “Hand me down my walkin’ stick, hand me down my hat”. Instead it was something about “the Lord”, and “Jordan”, and I quit listening, because I knew I wasn’t going to hear anything about the Rubber Band Man starting to jam. It was like hearing “Ice Ice Baby”, when all I wanted was “Under Pressure”.
What’s wrong with “cheesy and corny” or just having fun. Actually “Jesus is a Friend” has circled our camp (ministry) with the same shamefaced response “I like it”. While visiting jail last Wed. I actually had it on iphone and let the inmates listen to it. They laughed and said “I like it”. Our teen band is going to do it Sunday nite. Say what you will “about the original, Jesus is a Friend”, it brot joy when they did it and continues to bring joy now, that is what I call a classic! For the rest quit trying to be cool or proper and just have some fun and laugh!
Why is there no link to the video of the rapping break dancers? That’s the original topic here. I MUST SEE THAT VIDEO!
This is FANTASTIC. You’ve changed my life.
I can’t decide which I find more funny: the video, or the fact that you wrote this post using the DABDA grief model. So funny.
Loved this and of course forwarded it to everyone. However, when I got on youtube, i started reading comments and “related videos” and got kind of sad. It’s okay for Christians to laugh at Christians, but it’s a little disturbing to have Marilyn Manson do his own version. Bleah.
Ska music at its best…
Well at least the thrusty gutiar man looked like he was enjoying himself, not so much the chubby man
I read the “dougsploitation” site like martdy posted. Honest;y, at first look, “Jesus is a Friend of Mine” is quite a laugh, but it’s pretty neat to see that the guy singing is just a normal guy getting by in the world. It’s still pure 80′s cheese, but it sure has stuck in my brain.
ZAP!
Hilarious.
“Jesus loves me even when I write silly songs…”
Yes this is true!
Ok, I just think humor is so Biblical. Tell me that Jesus and 12 guys (young guys) didn’t have some funny bathroom humor…”Dude (since Jesus spoke slang)…what did you eat? Next time, take it outside the tent!”
“Haha!!! I thought that was the camel.”
I have 3 males in my house.
I’m telling you for certain…God created humor.
1) Is that what metrosexual worship leaders were like back in the 80s?
2) Did anyone else notice that the drums were not encased by a fishbowl, but that the drums themselves >were< glorified fishbowls? :-0
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43392750
Here ya go, "nick the geek."
Had to do a bit of googling. Most sites say, "video is no longer available."
Here it is on the Soup
My husband (who I’ll mention is unsaved and doesn’t believe God is God) walked by while I was watching this, peered over my shoulder to watch for about 30 seconds and says, “that’s embarrassing.” in the most monotone voice ever. I’m stumped. I have no words after watching that. I’m a bit weirded out frankly. Me having no words…that is quite a feat.
SCL needs to do a post about Kirk Cameron. It’s lik a rule or something that if you are going to make a Christian movie he’s gotta be in it.
Lisa, there already is
http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/05/240-kirk-cameron.html
I asked politely once…
Where the heck is the breakdancing clip?!?!?!!!
My husband and I nearly wet our pants watching this video, but I wanted to say way to use even more words you learned in counseling and integrate them into this post (aka: the stages of grief); as a counselor myself, that was great!