hymns

When my grandma was little, she thought the words to "Jesus loves me" were "Jesus slaws me." She couldn't figure out what that meant, or why Jesus would want to "slaw" anyone!

Anon

At the end of Sunday School in church they used to take a collection (donation of money ) from each one of us.
I believed ( aged 4/5) that every week the teacher left Sunday School and went up to heaven to give the money to God!!!

Gill

When my son was little he came back from church and said that they had sung his favourite hymn about the drains. I asked him to sing the song to me and he sang 'Guard our drains, guard our drains' instead of 'Our God reigns, our Gods reigns'.

Val

I thought that the lyrics to Silent Night were "Sleep in heavenly peas" instead of "Sleep in heavenly peace". Poor Jesus, asleep in the peas...

Veronique S

How many other people stood on their Bibles after learning, "The B-I-B-L-E, now that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!"

Mindy

Handel's "Messiah" includes "For we, like sheep, have gone astray". But Handel, a German, was a bit rough on his english phrasing, so the main line comes out as "For we LIKE sheep", which puzzled our Sunday School choir - we had nothing against sheep mind you, but few Australians would choose them as special mates. A couple of us decided on our own slant, incurring strife for singing, "For we like sheep, but I prefer dogs -..... etc". "But Sir, we were in tune and everything!"

Swanny

I thought the hymn "Bringing in the Sheep" was "Bringing in the Sheets" and that people would sing it when taking dry laundry (sheets in particular) off the cloths line.

Anon

when I was at school we used to sing the Hymn, the Lord of the Dance. When it got to the chorus, the line went - "Dance Lord wherever you may be i am the Lord of the dance said he" However i thought the line went "dnace Lord wherever you may be I am the Lord of the dance setee" and surprisingly enough imagined the Lord dancing on a sofa!

jen

A verse of the hymn "The Church's One Foundation" describes the church as follows: "Elect from every nation yet one o'er all the earth." I had never seen "elect" used as a noun before, so I assumed that it was a verb and that the verse was encouraging us to hold an international election to choose one person to be President of the World. I had no idea why.

T2

In a home video of me when I was three, I sang the "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" lyrics as "Good tidings we bring, to you and your kid." Until my mom corrected me, I never even knew the word "kin" existed.

Sarah

There's a park in Buffalo, NY, called Humboldt Park, so it didn't seem
odd to my little friend that there was a hymn that began, "Jesus Is
Sneaking Through Humboldt Park." He was surprised to learn it's
"Jesus the Seeker of Humble Hearts."

bertee

Not mine, but my husband's -- and not that long ago. He cracked up the choir during a church service by singing "There is a bomb in Goliad!" Considering that a very important battle during the Texas war for independence from Mexico was fought at Goliad, he did have a point.

Texas granny

MUM: What shall we sing now?
ME, AGED 4: Sing the one about the sofa
MUM: ???
ME: You know..."I am the Lord of the Dance Settee"
MUM: (smothered giggles) OH! You mean "I am the Lord of the Dance, said he"...(outright laughter)

Loody

We used to sing that old hymn that has a line "O God of Bethal by whose hand hast all our Father's led"
My Dad enjoyed fishing and I could never work out why God had taken all my father's lead.

Jon

When I was a child, we just to sing this song in church called Victory in Jesus. Part of the lyrics were "He plunged me to victory, beneath the crimson flood." (to understand the next part of this story, you have to know that there was a small town named Hickory that was a few miles from where I lived). Instead of the above lyrics, I always thought it said "He punched me to Hickory, into a sea of blood." I always hated that song because I could just imagine Jesus punched me under the chin, and me flying across the air into this bloody sea.

Chad

Like many others here, I too used to wonder what the deal was with the cross-eyes bear named Gladly. Boy am I relieved to see I'm not the only one who was miguided!

Anon

When I was little, I used to believe that the song " May the Dear Lord Bless You" was about a deer that was a lord in a kingdom and he was saying bless you as if you had just sneezed.

Tabitha

In about the 7th grade my friends and I would never be able to make it through church with a straight face whenever the congregation sang the hymn "Lead On Oh King Eternal". It always sounded like they were singing "Lead On, Oh Kinky Turtle." - Still makes me laugh!

Beckiboo

In our baptst church we sing a song entitled "Trust and Obey".  The lyrics in one of the verses say "as we walk by His side IN THE WAY".  We always laugh because it sounds like we are holding up progress.  WE'RE IN THE WAY!  Boy that speaks volumes doesn't it!

choir director in the south.

My brother and I are preacher's kids, so we were at church all the time. I was very gullible and my brother was very mischievous and in the hymn "Jesus is a Rock in a Weary Land," my brother told me the lyrics were "Jesus threw a rock and away he ran!" Then he went into this big explanation about how in olden times people were stoned to death for doing bad things, and if I wasn't good, Jesus was going to throw a rock at me. I think my brother was a religious terrorist.

Janie