I plan to do one of these occasionally. I will first give a verse or verses from the Bible. Then I will give a re-write that I call the Modern Church Translation. Which is the way I see the modern church actually applying these verses.

10 Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. (New Living Translation)

10 Now, dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to separate into groups. Each group must consist of people who all think exactly the same. Each group must break fellowship with all other groups. Each group will be called a denomination. Let there be real harmony among those of your group, but remain separated from anyone who doesn’t see eye to eye with you. I plead with you to form a set of doctrines based on your opinions and make sure that anyone who wants to join your denomination promises to agree with them. Never under any circumstances should you question or challenge these beliefs. This will allow you to be united in thought and purpose without ever having to form an opinion for yourself. You won’t have to because you will have your church and denomination to do it for you. (Modern Church Translation)

After publishing my last post I went looking around the website for Mr. Young’s Church, Fellowship Church, and I found something that made me angry. They have a whole page of their website devoted to giving to the church. Click the link above to see. They have a section on this page titles “Creative Giving Ideas”. It says “If a cash gift is not an option for you consider some of these creative giving ideas”. It then goes on to list:

• Stocks
• Bonds
• Gold/Silver
• Land
• Homes
• Car
• Jewelry
• Coin collections

How perverse is this? In other words, if you are in such bad shape financially that you can’t give monetarily to this church they are actually encouraging you to give whatever valuables you may have. Mere words can not begin to express how wrong this is. I don’t know what else to say. I am disgusted they try to pass this off as Christianity.

Many different posts have already been written by many different people concerning the talk Ed Young, Jr. gave concerning what he deems to be “church pirates”. I don’t know if I have anything to say that hasn’t already been said elsewhere, but I definitely had some thoughts after watching this. If you haven’t seen the video, you can watch it here.

After watching this I understand that Mr. Young is angry and hurt. I’m sorry he has been hurt. I never like to see anyone suffering. However, in my opinion his pain comes from a faulty understanding of what church is, and the authority he assumes himself to have.

First, the people that attend the building he happens to preach in every Sunday morning are not his. He has no claim over them in any way. They are part of God’s church. They do not owe him or his building any loyalty. The only allegiance they owe is to God. They are free to attend wherever they wish or nowhere. No one can steal something from you that was not yours to begin with. Frankly, the fact that he thinks these people somehow owe him and his building something scares me. He seems to literally think he has some type of ownership over them.

The other issue I find disturbing is the fact that he obviously feels he is justified in condemning all these other pastors. Maybe they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, maybe they aren’t. Either way am I supposed to believe God tells Mr. Young what every other pastors motives truly are? Mr. Young may very well be a fine man, but God has not appointed him judge and rulemaker for other pastors.

To me the bottom line is that he is making an issue based on false and dangerous assumptions about the importance of a building along with it’s various staff and programs.

Keith over on subversive1 has a great post: The Parable of the Fourth Talent. It is a great read. I’m copying the entire post below. If the Bible were written today this parable would be included (it’s that good).

The Parable of the Fourth Talent by Keith Giles

Then the Master turned to the man with the fourth talent and he said, “Show me what you have done, my servant.”

The man with the fourth talent replied, “Master, I knew you were a savvy business man and that you require a substantial return on your investments, and so come and see the building I have purchased for many millions of dollars. See, I have placed photograhps of you throughout the facility and there are 46 inch flat panel plasma screens from which hundreds of people may watch me as I tell them to send me their money so that you can bless them. On Super Bowl Sunday we can even use this as an outreach to the community,” he said. “Master, look here, we have recently installed a thirty thousand dollar sound system with a state-of-the-art mixing board and flipping sweet Bose speakers powered by a killer amplifier.”

The Master looked at the man with the fourth talent and said, “You foolish man. Did you not realize that no one can build a house for me? In all the years you have served me did I ever, even once, ask that any of you build a temple for me to live in? All the Universe belongs to me, and Earth itself is my footstool.”

The man with the fourth talent scratched his head, “Did I mention that the building seats 3,000 people and has a heated baptistry?”

The Master rebuked him and said, “This building was built with money that could have fed the poor, comforted the sick and provided shelter for the homeless. Take this building and rent it out to the local rescue mission so that my people can have a warm place to sleep and safe place for their children to live, for whatever you have done for the least of these you have done it unto me.”

The man with the fourth talent replied, “Can we still have the Super Bowl Party in January?”

I was reading Daniel’s latest tongue in cheek post over on AvantGardeFaith about “constructive” ways a church could allow keeping your cell phone on during a service. As one of those people who no longer go to a traditional church it got me thinking about what things, if any a church could do that would make me interested again. These thoughts are also very much tongue in cheek, so don’t get offended thinking I am blaspheming. I just thought it would be fun to think along the lines of what could churches do to really pack the pews every Sunday.

1) On the cell phone theme. The service could be done game show style. The pastor would post his cell number up on the video display screen. He would have three closed boxes full of door prizes next to him. Then after each segment of his sermon he could ask two or three questions about what he just said. The first person to call him with the correct answer each time would get a chance to choose a door prize from one of the boxes. Somehow, I actually think a pastor that did this would have more people actually listen to his sermon than ever before.

2) Hold services at about lunch time on Sunday and have food catered in for a buffet meal during the service. For charismatic churches the food could only be served after the worship service. Can you imagine the messes that would be created if people were trying to hold plates of food during a pentecostal worship service? There would probably have to be a monitor at the end of the buffet line to ensure that no one got more food than they really needed. We wouldn’t want any one to be a glutton, would we? People would also have to be willing to make concessions for the abundance of bodily noises and odors that would accompany this. I’m not trying to be gross, but just saying. Overall, I really think this one would go over well. We all know if there are two things most Christians love to do. It is go to church and eat. Combining the two might convince some that they had already made it to heaven.

3) Church service bingo. Yep, you heard me right. Give everyone that comes through the door a bingo card. Numbers will be discreetly called off all during the service, usually right in the middle of something else. That way you have to be paying close attention to get them all. The music minister might call out “B4″ in between two lines of the chorus. The pastor might end his opening prayer with “Amen O-60″. Everyone that has gotten a bingo during the service can redeem their card for a prize after the conclusion of the service. Maybe one of the prizes could be a “you can skip church next week with God’s blessing” card.

Anyway, I could probably come up with lots more. But this post is already too long, and I am really hoping traffic will magically pick up to this site and I will get lots of responses from others of you out there. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Just when I think there is nothing that today’s Christian sub-culture can do that will surprise me they prove me wrong. I just discovered the “You’ve Been Left Behind” website. This isn’t a website to promote the Left Behind series of books. It isn’t a tribute to the Larry Norman song of the same name. What is it? If you clicked on the link you may already know. If you didn’t let me tell you.

For $40 a year you can leave email messages for up to 62 of your unsaved friends and family to be delivered in case of “the rapture”. No, I’m not kidding. This is a real website. (more…)

Occasionally I am going to take something that the modern culture of Christianity has labeled as “Christian” and tell you what it should be called.  At least what I think it should be called.

For entry #1 we will take an item that requires two different names. We will be renaming the “Christian” T-shirt.

1) The “I can’t be seen hanging out with sinners, so I hope the message on here makes you realize you need Jesus” T-shirt - this is for all those “witness” T-shirts.

2) The “Don’t you realize you are a despicable, disgusting sinner that needs to repent of your heathen ways” T-shirt - this is for all those “condemnation” T-shirts you see Christians wear pointing out what they perceive to be everyone’s sins. You know like the one that looks like the Budweiser logo, but says bud wise up instead.

I read Darin Hufford’s blog entry today entitled “Will Chasers“. It really struck a chord with me. I was told all my life of the importance of seeking God’s will in every aspect of my life. It was a constant theme. There was no question a Christian could ask that could not be answered with some variation of telling the person they needed to seek God’s will.

It seems God has a “perfect” will for any given choice in our life. I really think there are some people who take it to such an extreme they probably pray and ask God which stall to choose in a public restroom.

Here’s the thing about looking for God’s will in every decision we make. It is a cop out. (more…)

My daughter recently volunteered to sing in the “worship team” at the youth group she attends. I was a little dismayed when she told me her offer was met with an opportunity to try out for the worship team. I gave things the benefit of the doubt though. It was possible that she had simply misunderstood and the youth pastor was giving her a chance to try it out and see if she liked it.

If you have been part of any churches recently you know that she had not misunderstood. She really had to try out. (more…)

To start click here and read the article.

Is it just me or does anyone else find this distasteful? Is there no end to the ways people who call themselves Christians will commercialize and exploit God for their own personal ego and gain?

I simply have a hard time believing this has anything to do with ministry. How long before churches start putting together vacation packages to take their members to the Christian themepark? You know they will all want to go. The majority of Christians will turn a blind eye to the hypocrisy of the whole thing. They will be excited and enamored with this supposed shrine to God because it is marketed as being “Christian”. (more…)