If you grew up in a Christian home, you can more than relate to any of these truths. After all, you’ve lived them.
1. Your parents had strict guidelines about TV.
While the rest of your friends watched That’s So Raven and Spongebob you watched reruns of season three of Full House and pretended you knew what happened last week on The Fairly Odd Parents.
2. You were only allowed to listen to Christian music.
While you knew the words to EVERY Hawk Nelson song, your friends listened to artists you’d never heard of like Beyoncé and NSYNC. The closest you ever got to listening to “secular” music was that one time Jesse McCartney showed up on the Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
3. You weren’t allowed to watch PG-13 movies until you actually turned 13.
While the rest of your 12-year-old friends enjoyed the cinematic experience that is Mean Girls, you didn’t get to see it until you ceremoniously picked it as the film you’d be christened with on your 13th birthday. Until then, you’d laugh at the perfectly relatable quotes like you were the Mean Girls buff you claimed you were.
4. The best part of your week was Sunday school.
Nothing says freedom like the “now you may be excused for Sunday school” announcement in church. You knew this meant 1) a really good snack and 2) activities that did involve listening to the monotone pastor with the extremely bushy eyebrows.
5. You probably went on a mission trip.
You spent at least 10 days in another country doing some sort of outreach or volunteer work. You may have built an orphanage or ran a vacation bible school. One thing is for sure; you spent hours writing letters to send to relatives asking for both money and prayers.
6. Nice clothes meant church clothes.
Everyone owns a few outfits your mother dubbed “nice” and by “nice” she means an outfit she approved for you to wear to church. While other kids wore their nice button downs or cute sundresses to school, you were forbidden unless it was Sunday.
7. You only bought books from Christian Supply.
If you got a new book, CD or even magazine, chances are about 1000% that it was from Christian Supply or some other religious bookstore.
8. The only bumper sticker on your mom’s minivan was the fish symbol.
Of course your mom refused to put any sort of bumper stickers on her van; that was tacky. BUT she did have the tiny metal fish symbol attached to the back window, affixed for the entire world to see.
9. You liked to pretend the tiny cup of grape juice from communion was wine.
Every time you took the tiny cup from the communion tray you either a) pretended it was wine or b) took it in one gulp like a shot. Either way you thought you were the baddest kid in church.
10. Vacation bible school was the highlight of your summer.
Singing along to Veggie Tales in the park? Crafts? Too many popsicles? Sunburns from the rays of a thousand suns? Oh yes. Nothing can ever beat the glorious week that is VBS.
11. You had more than one Bible.
NIT, NIV, KJV, Teen, Adult, Devotional, NASA… the list goes on and on. You definitely owned more than one kind or translation of the bible and your grandma still buys you a new one every year to boot.
12. You went to church every Sunday, regardless of how sick you tried to sound.
Unless you were vomiting, there’s a pretty good chance you went to church every Sunday whether you liked it or not.
