You just might be a church nerd if...
- You have your own personal copy of your denomination's hymnal or prayer book and you keep it where you can easily find it.
- Before going to church on Sunday morning you check your own personal copy of the hymnal or prayer book to make sure you're on the right Sunday, because no one likes a person who says "a blessed quinquagesima Sunday to you" when it's actually sexagesima Sunday.
- You care less about whether your Sunday clothes are fashionable and appropriate than whether the altar guild has managed to get the right color of paraments in the chancel and on the ministers.
- You know what the altar guild does.
- You think that the music director choosing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" for a hymn on December 22 is cause for charges of heresy.
- You think that the music director choosing "We Three Kings" as a Christmas Eve hymn is cause for a new reformation.
- You're pretty sure that "cantor" is a more appropriate title than "music director" for the person responsible for leading the musical aspects of worship.
- You're sure that the organist using the trumpet stops on the organ during Lent is punishable by hanging.
- You can (and frequently do) quote statistics on bacterial transfer in the various methods of communing.
- You genuinely don't know where the person who asks you to meet him in the church lobby wants to see you.
- You have a difficult time controlling yourself when the lady next to you calls the chancel a stage.
- You find it extremely upsetting when the altar guild members don't remember to reverence the altar when approaching to arrange flowers.
- You (if you're Lutheran) know the hymn numbers for "A Mighty Fortress"--both settings.
- Even if you're protestant, prefer to call the communion or eucharistic service "mass".
- You're very dubious about celebrating Thanksgiving Day and assorted national holidays in the context of worship.
- Along about early December, you begin to incessantly argue with store owners, mall managers and assorted sales people that the piped in music ought to be Advent songs rather than Christmas carols, since the season of Christmas doesn't begin until sundown on Christmas Eve.
- You expect 12 xmas gifts from your significant other since liturgical Christians celebrate the season for 12 days.
- On Easter morning, you can't wait to greet your fellow parishioners with the ancient greeting "alleluia! he is risen", and can't understand why they don't remember their proper response. After all, you told them last year, and the year before, and the year before...
- You think a great day starts with being at the local monastery in time for Lauds, and then returning for Compline.
- You show up at your priest's/pastor's office door first thing on Tuesday mornings (Mondays are his/her day off) to discuss any liturgical ambiguities during Saturday's/Sunday's services.
- You pretty much know all the words to all the verses of all the hymns in the current incarnation of your denomination's hymnal, along with those of the top 20 [acceptable] praise choruses.
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