It’s time for a confession. Not just for me – but for everyone. It’s time for everyone to be honest about how many W.W.J.D. bracelets you wore. Not how many you had (because we all had a variety of different colors). No, I mean how many did you wear on any one occasion. I know, I know. This takes vulnerability. Honesty. Transparency. Authenticity…I get that. So I’ll go first.
There were a few months, when I wore four W.W.J.D. bracelets at one time. I’m almost positive that I had red, blue, black and a rainbow bracelet.
It was 1997. I was a junior in high school. And I was a BIG fan of the W.W.J.D. bracelets (if for some reason, you have no idea what we’re talking about, W.W.J.D. stands for What Would Jesus Do? Perhaps this shirt would have caught on more…). I loved them – I thought that if you were a Christian, you should without a doubt be wearing a bracelet; otherwise, how else would you stay pure and safe from all of the worldly evils seeking to tempt and trap us?
It’s a little sad that I can even remember one occasion specifically when I was wearing my four W.W.J.D. bracelets. I was a junior in high school visiting a friend in college (at WWU) and went to a spodi party. I was approached by a young college girl who noticed my four brightly colored W.W.J.D. bracelets and asked me, “So…What Would Jesus Do huh? What does Jesus think of all this….?” Immediately I got a big grin on my face and proudly responded, “Well – Jesus turned water into wine, so…I’m sure he’s fine with it!”
Wow. I’m glad those W.W.J.D. bracelets were really doing some good.
So, now it’s your turn. What’s your memory of the W.W.J.D. bracelet phenomenon? Did they work for you? Did you wear as many as four at one time? What was your favorite color of bracelet? It’s time to take a trip down your Christian-kitsch-memory-lane and spend some time reminiscing about the W.W.J.D. bracelets.
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i actually never wore more than one at any given time, but i did own quite a few cause it was my goal to give out as many as possible.
adam,
thank you for this entry. it is amazing and spoke to my heart, soul, and mind directly.
i had one bracelet. it was red and i wore it everywhere—i wore it: to football practice, in the shower, to all school dances, to bed, to the bathroom, to church, and to the library.
needless to say my RED WWJD bracelet smelled so bad by month 9. my red WWJD bracelet had major sweat stains. after the RED one, I never got one because I realized I was becoming a product of Corporate Christianity.
i DETESTED this while WWJD things and never owned or wore ant WWJD Bracelets. Funny though, my twitter backgrounf is of Jesus wearing a trucker hat with WWID (What Would I Do).
I only ever wore a black one, and only for a little while. I was only willing to wear it, however, if I changed the meaning. Instead of “what would Jesus do” I changed it to “walk with Jesus daily”.
This I found to me much more appropriate.
I never had a WWJD bracelet. The closest I ever came was my “WWJD for a Klondike Bar?” t-shirt.
Fortunately (?) I was way before the WWJD craze, however my daughter was given one that I don’t remember her ever wearing. I, unfortunately, was the “One Way” Jesus finger generation. I had a necklace and stickers on virtually every notebook and bookcover I owned. Same idea, 20+ years earlier. Oh yeah, and I had a sticker on the cover of my brand new, hot of the presses, “Good News For Modern Man” bible!
I only had one – which I wore for years; I now think WWJD is a rather goofy question. I love these new posts.
I never wore a WWJD bracelet, but I distinctly remember sitting in first year Greek in the back row making up alternative meanings for the acronym instead. It’s still fun. You should try it.
Wet Willies Jiggle Deliciously!
I only ever had one at a time, and only the rainbow one. I got it and wore it and gave it away at the Syracuse General Assembly of the PC(USA), where combining the question with the rainbow had special meaning for the issue of GLBT ordination. I guess we could use it again now.
Well, I never had a W.W.J.D. bracelet (though they were popular when I was a sophomore in 1997, my how the time passes) but I did have a Ichthys ring that I wore on my ring finger. It was $6.50 at a Christian bookstore and I wore that thing until I got engaged in 2003. I really loved that ring and I ended up giving it to a woman I met in Mexico on a mission trip there. It wasn’t really a witness to anyone else, but it was just a reminder to myself of who I was! However, I’ve noticed that the W.W.J.D. trend has been making its rounds again (along with P.U.S.H. and F.R.O.G.) because I see some of the kids wearing them again at church … what is it about Christians and our need for Acronyms? (well, it does make me think that a United Methodist came up with the idea! : ) Love all your blog posts! Thanks for sharing!
i had an Icthus ring too. Remember the acronym for the Bible: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth? i think Christians attempt to simplify things cuz it’s safe and easier. Look at how they take the Bible literally.
BTW, what a fun post!
I wore one WWJD bracelet (I had a couple more on my dresser to give away). It was rainbow, and I wore it for a year my freshman-sophomore year of college. I was part of a covenant group that also read _In His Steps_, the original book that I guess the WWJD thing went with. We would talk about it a lot, and I actually found it pretty helpful. Jesus would pick up a lot of trash walking across campus, I noticed, and he’d talk to a lot of lonely looking people. Yes, this was part of my more funadamentalist days (which I try not to talk about now), but it was a way that I was intentionally thinking about following Christ in my every day life, and that’s not bad. Cheezy and cliche and overdone marketing, perhaps, but not bad. It was a relief to take it off, but also a way of asking myself what I would do now to stay in love with God (as we Methodists say!).
Plus, it was a great conversation starter. This one cute guy asked me if it meant I was gay, prompting a conversation about my faith and my support of GLBT rights (and no small amount of flirting). Three years of dating, eight years of marriage, one kid and one on the way later…
(Fun post and trip down memory lane; thanks!)
I will admit to it. I owned them, wore them, and gave them away. I’m pretty sure I owned one of those silicone embossed ones in every color….a rainbow of colors. That should have been my first clue for the surprise my future would hold! Seriously though Adam, I wore mine for myself and with a very sincere motive despite the commercialization and superficiality WWJD? seems to communicate to some folks. Of course, these days I don’t wear one because I don’t believe the question was ever WWJD? but HWGHML? How Would God Have Me Live? , an entirely different question on so many levels.
I actually had one of each color, so that I would have one to match every outfit. (very embarrassing to admit) I also had a friend who wore one for nearly three years without taking it off. So I’m pretty sure that means that he is the best Christian of all!
I had one, red with white writing. Then Charlie ate it; then Charlie pooped it out. I never wore it again. (Charlie was a Poodle/Bichon NOT a member of my youth group).
@Josh (and everyone really!) – Thanks for your vulnerability and sharing that you all had these and wore them in a variety of colors ;) It was a fun post to write and reminisce about and I hope you enjoyed re-thinking about your W.W.J.D. days as well.
I just remembered my favorite WWJD moment, which was the night a friend of mine was at a bar and a man wearing both a wedding ring and a WWJD bracelet tried to pick her up.
She told him, “Your wife is waiting for you at home and so is Jesus.”
umm.
wow.
i had one.
it was blue.
navy.
i wore my one.org bracelet more.
and i had a shirt.
a cut off that i wore under my jersey for every high school soccer game.
what would jesus do?
compete in quasi-barbaric yet entertaining competition.
inflict intentional pain on others.
boast of a supposed athletic talent.
attack the integrity of a black and white striped human.
yeah.
that’s what jesus would do.
Not only am I still wearing all twelve of mine (symbolizing the tribes of the OT and the disciples of the NT) but I went to the dentist to get WWJD Grillz. Unfortunately the only dentist in my insurance network is Jewish and he refused. At first I figured it was the Lord’s will but then I realized it’s up to me to convert him, then of course, he’ll do it for free.
In truth, I never wore one and it’s one of the few things in my life that I am proud of. I credit the reading of Franky Schaeffer’s Addicted to Mediocrity. I only wish it had come out sooner for at one time in my life, I did own the entire cassette collection of Stryper.
(Particularly for Mary and Becca) thanks for bringing up the mindfulness thing. That’s what I think we like about acronyms and talismans and such. And to share another that I got from a member (no longer) of the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship, Glaucia Vasconcelas Willkey. She did a service for our Presbytery in which she invited us to come to the font and renew our own baptisms, using whatever gestures (or not) we wished, and for one possible prop, she told us that under the water in the font were a bunch of those glass pebbles used to fill flower vases. We were invited to take one as a portable reminder of whose we were.
I carried that drop of clear glass, or as often as I could get one, a pebble of crystal quartz, in my pocket every day for years. When someone at work or in church was giving me a hard time, I could slip my hand in and hold it, and it did help me to remember my perspectives. I say “as often as I could get one” because I also gave a number of them away to others I thought might need the reminder more at that moment. One was to a young woman who had been chosen by the other members of the denominational Advocacy Committee on which she had been serving, chosen as their moderator, who had brought her infant daughter along to Committee meetings and then to General Assembly. At that General Assembly she was unseated from the Committee in a venomous campaign by the Presbyterian Right and replaced by a woman no one had ever heard of, who hadn’t been through the processes of the General Assembly Nominating Committee, who had no particular qualifications except freedom from the taint of leftishness. I thought Robin, the woman unseated, needed something tangible, even with her daughter in her arms, to remind her what matters. It served as both baptismal drop and shared tear.
bks
When the bracelets showed up, I was something between atheist and Jewish, and I longed to wear one. I had what I called “Christian envy.” I wanted what Christians have, but I didn’t know how to get past the Christian *ideas* to get there. I would have worn this bracelet in a heartbeat, and gratefully.
I can’t really understand why post-evangelical emergent-types hate them, but I know y’all have your reasons.
I love the idea of wearing something on my wrist, or something close to my heart, to remind me to love completely, with all of me, even in the most difficult moments. I understand that WWJD bracelets have become offensive, but do folks have something they wear instead? I’m open to suggestions.
I am thinking of a plain bracelet. Like my wedding ring reminds me of my wonderful soulmate, it would remind me of my beloved Jesus. What do you think?
I had a number of the bracelets, and I would wear two at once — one on each wrist. My favorite was a turquoise one that I got from a friend in youth group. (I was in sixth or seventh grade during the WWJD craze.) But then I remember the week our youth leader came in with a whole stack of them and told us all to wear them. It was shortly after that I tired of the whole ordeal and quit wearing them.
Does anyone remember the FROG bracelets, too? And the whole plethora of wristbands that followed?
i wore the rainbow one for quite some time… in college it was not infrequently mistaken for a signifier of my support for the gay community, which at the time caused me no end of stress. these days i don’t think i’d be so quick to be horrified for being mistaken for having compassion and understanding… wwjd
humm. I thought it meant What Would Judas Do….my bad.
In my life I have owned 3 total. and I am always weaing one. I have gotten down to my last one due to the fact that I am always wearing it. It’s the one thing I wont take off. Unless of couse I am taking a shower. My braclet is everything to me.
I was given one by a young person in 1997. I wore it as I made a decision to go into youth ministry the following year. It stayed on my wrist for 8 years, swimming, showering, getting mega-ragged. In the meantime, I bought many for all of my youth kids and my own personal children……..I still have the original that she gave me, but I did replace it and have now had the same one on since 2005. By the way it is the cloth one. And it has been wonderful so many times in my life as I contemplated many circumstances that I needed an answer to………..
i actually have one but its not a WWJD bracelet. its actually LLJD (Live Like Jesus Did) bracelet.
i got a question, where can i buy one of those WWJD bracelet thats shown on this topic? those bracelets with rainbow color???
10 years ago, I wore the spanish version of the bracelets. The message in them was: Q.H.J. (¿Que haría Jesus?). It really changed my life!
Ever since i can remeber i have been wearing a P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Somthing Happens)
Not untill recently have i begun to think about all the people who have asked me "what dose it mean"? and why am i really wearing it this long (4-5 years!) i have only replaced it once! And i have discovered that it is really a remider for me, but also as a seed to others (it has helped me in ways i can not explain..) i have also been wearing a W.W.J.D. (not as long though!)
Who cares what others think it is a perfectly good tool in life….
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