PRAYER TUNNELS: (From Feb 11th 2005)

What, exactly, is a prayer tunnel? I get prayer and I get tunnel, but “prayer tunnel” just doesn’t quite work. Does the tunnel pray? Are they praying for the tunnel? Why aren’t there prayer bridges?

Let’s set the scene for those who have never experienced a “prayer tunnel”. Two rows of “Prayer Warriors” line up facing each other. Then both sides raise their hands in an arched manor in order to create a “tunnel”. And finally, people in need of prayer move through this “tunnel”. You might have seen something like this at a high school basketball game (without the prayer, of course).

I spent some time looking in the Bible and I can’t find any examples of prayer tunnels. (Although I think that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and he walked out of the tomb, the disciples formed a “tunnel” for him to run out of, but this was mostly just a bunch of high fives and chest bumping.) So it appears this is just another gimmick used by the church to…. Actually……I really don’t know. What is the point???

Maybe it is supposed to be like going to the drive through at Wendy’s. Sure you could dine in, but sometimes you just want to eat on the road. “Welcome to City Business Church, would you like dine in or carry out prayer today? Please pull forward through the next tunnel.”

What kind of prayer goes on in these tunnels anyway?

“JC he’s our man, if he can’t do it no one can”

“Here we go Jesus, here we go (clap, clap) Here we go Jesus, here we go (clap, clap)”

“J-E-SUS, Jesus, Jesus, He’s the best”

Disclaimer:I believe in the power of both prayer and tunnels. I just don’t like the combination of them. Honestly now, all you who have been involved in a prayer tunnel recently, what is the point? Were you really effected or effective?

It might be fun though, the next time your pastor gets up to preach, if you all ran forward and created a prayer tunnel for him to run through before his sermon. Let him finish off by jumping through a WWJD banner. A quick chest bump with the worship leader and he is ready to go. “OK team, before I begin to preach today, I would like everyone to get in a huddle. All right, on 3…1,2,3, GO JESUS!”

This actually is a great idea, “Prayer Huddles”. Now….

“Break”

So I’ve heard for sometime now about how CBC wants to plant 9 or so churches around the Portland area, but recently I heard that when they announced this plan in church they showed a map of Portland and had these nine red dots slowly appear. The dots then spread until the entire map was covered with CBC red.

That’s when it hit me. They won’t be happy just being City Bible Church in Portland, OR. They won’t rest until they’ve become City Bible World…

I sure hope Jesus comes back soon, ‘cause I couldn’t handle seeing statues of Frank

We are getting close to conference season @ CBC. They recently began advertising for the next Generation Unleashed Conference under the slogan “Divine”. Yes it is a bit presumptuous but whatever….

I believe it is because of this upcoming conference that we received a request to re-post an old classic, and so that is what I am going to do. We had to go all the way back to Thursday December 16th 2004 to bring you:

I tithed to CBC and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Tickets to NW Breakthrough - $75
Parking @ the conference - $20
Water Bottle w/CBC logo on it - $2
Knowing that the hype only last 2 weeks - Priceless

I’m taking a break from the Top Ten to ask a quick question. Is City Bible’s membership actually increasing in numbers? I’m asking because I just read a comment from FICM stating,

You can talk about alleged church growth at CBC, but the simple fact remains, that over the past 5 years, attendance at CBC has steadily decreased to the point that they actually removed half of the seating so it wouldn’t be so painfully obvious that they were half empty.

Is this true? I was cruising the new hip CBC website and found this little statement in PF’s bio.

Under Pastor Frank’s leadership, City Bible Church has continued to grow and become an influential, multi-campus church impacting the culture in Portland, Oregon, the Northwest and across the country.

I thought this statement was odd, because usually when a company (and that’s what this church is.. a company) brags about their growth they throw in a figure like, “Attendance has increased 20% in the last five years” or “our congregation has increased 50%” …but it just says the church has “continued to grow”. Kind of vague if you ask me.

Anyway, I don’t think the church is growing in numbers. They may be growing in “complaints about tithing” but not in actual people.

This post came out because six months into the blog, we were hearing from friends and family that the City Bible Eldership was still reading our blog, and they hated it. Nothing pleases a Morton boy more, than hearing someone in a leadership role is angry. Its fuel to our soul.

Worst.Blog.Ever.

Word on the street is City Bible is still running around telling everyone this blog is horrible.

Which, of course, pleases me to no end. It means they’re still reading it.

So CBC let me share something:

What’s really horrible is how many people have left your church, because there is no way to change the church from within.This blog is really just a byproduct of your preaching.

But whatever…

In keeping with the "Worst.Blog.Ever." theme, let me share a hypothetical knock knock joke between me and Pastor Frank.

Catalyst: Knock Knock

Pastor Frank: Who’s there?

Catalyst: Interrupting Cow

Pastor Frank: Interrupt-

Catalyst: MOOOOOOOOO!

Pastor Frank: Catalyst, you’re an idio-

Catalyst: MOOOOOOOOOO!

Pastor Frank: I’m leavi-

Catalyst: MOOOOOOOO!

(I find this joke works best with those individuals aged 5-11, the immature demographic).

(And yes, I’m bored.)

How many Pulitzer Prize winning papers have written articles about this blog? One.

Who is responsible for writing this article? Zach Dundas.

What do we owe him for this task? Our lives.

How can we repay him? Go hear him speak.

On Saturday, October 29, Multnomah Biblical Seminary will be hosting a conference on ending the culture wars in favor of building loving community. Many people of local fame will be present, including our biggest fan Zach Dundas (He isn’t really a fan). I would strongly encourage you to consider attending this special event. You may find a link to this event on the School of Theology web site, or you may use this link:http://new-wineskins.org/Events/

I’ll see you all there.

I would like to appoligize in advance for the nature of this next post. It is extremely distasteful and inappropriate. Sometimes I forget who reads this blog, and sometimes I remember but post anyway. Sorry.

We have received over 70,000 hits in little under one year and for that we want to say “THANK YOU”. A lot of people have asked how we got so many hits, to which we always reply “Keep it clean, dude.”.

Now a lot of blogs out there try getting hits by writing “Anna Kournikova Nude” somewhere in there blog, but thanks to you all we don’t have to stoop to that level.

You won’t see the header “Katie Holmes Naked” anywhere on our site. We’ve been able to keep it clean thanks to your support. And because we haven’t written “XXX” or advertised “FREE PORN” many would think this site has suffered, but I believe that we have been rewarded. We are a clean blog where you will never see “College Girls Uncensored”.

Thank You.

As was promised, here is Number 10 of our Top 10 posts. I believe this post came about when JP randomly emailed me a prophecy, and I had no choice but to put it up on the blog.

From March 7, 2005.

My brother JP moves in the prophetic.

Here is his prophecy regarding the future of City Business.

The Frank would say to you-a,

"Give me your money and watch me pour out blessings upon my church."

"I’ll cover this "city" church with plasma screen TV’s; I’ll replace the carpet and update the lighting" say’s the Frank

"Rise up oh check book of faith, write down a figure far beyond your means, and I shall stretch out my hand and receive this check. I shall take this check and deposit it in the bank of profits, now is the time, this is the season"

Thus sayeth the Frank.

Prayer. It’s interesting isn’t it? Essentially prayer is asking God to intervene with our lives, right? It’s asking for Divine intervention, a miracle. Even if it’s as small as finding a parking spot at Starbucks it’s still a miracle. Strip down our prayers and what do they really sound like?

Father God,

Your Son.

Or if you’re really spiritual:

Father God,

Your Son.

Of course we, as followers of Christ, believe that God loves to hear these prayers? Don’t we believe that he will always stop and listen? God cares for us so much, it really doesn’t matter what our prayers sound like. But should there be more to it?

What part do we play? Shouldn’t prayer be followed up with action? They say faith without works is dead but isn’t prayer without action the same?

When Mrs. Smith gets abused by her husband she should pray that God “softens his heart”, but she should also kick him in the balls and call the cops.

When Mr. Jones can’t get his son Johnny to listen, he should pray that God “breaks down the walls”, but he should also take away little Johnny’s car, allowance, and cell phone and tell Johnny to get a job.

At the same time when Andy gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, there’s nothing to do but pray. And that’s what should be done.

My point is simply this, Prayer should be a given. Pray. Always pray. Start with a prayer, end with a prayer. But I’m tired of people using prayer as an excuse.

Do you want to know why there are so many lousy pastors out there? It’s because Christians always want to take advantage of God. If someone’s going through a rough time, simply pull out a handy scripture and tell them to “Pray about it”? If that doesn’t work, ask them about the “secret sins” they must have in there life. When they get upset and leave the church because you aren’t helping them, go tell everyone how “bitter” they are. And in three quick steps you’ve turned them off of Christ. “Don’t worry bro, we’ll be praying for you.”

Why not mix in a therapist every now and again? Would it be so hard to say “Gee-wiz Tommy, I’d like to pray with you about this; but when were done, you really should seek professional help.”

Now, my mother will take great offence to all this. She loves prayer about as much as anyone I know. Last night she told me when you pray you should spend as much time listening as you do talking. “You can’t have a good relationship when only one person is talking”. She thinks I’m under-spiritualizing everything; but then again, she left CBC too.

Bitterness must run in the family.

Here is a recent comment from reader “Patient Passion.” (Where do people come up with these names?) Anyway, I thought it a strong enough statement to deserves its own thread:

I have been watching this blog for the last several months. It amazes me how deeply hurt and disenfranchized some of the posters are. For this, my heart is saddened. I think it is good that people have a place to come together to discuss their hurts and concerns for a congregation that has obviously touched a lot of lives (positively or not.)

I would be careful, though, to examine how you judge Pastor Frank and the church. Do we really presume to know all of Frank’s motives and heart? I know I don’t…any more than I presume to know any of yours. We know for a fact that he is subject to the same sinful nature that is in all of us. It seems to me that there are only three possibilities regarding Frank’s concepts and practice of tithing and fund-raising. Either he’s wrong, and he knows it. He’s wrong and he doesn’t know it. Or, he’s right.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t pretend to have God and his infinite nature even close to figured out. I leave room for the possibility that some of my thinking could be flawed…that my views of Christ and his way of doing things are a bit limited. In fact, the Bible confuses me in a lot of ways. I consider myself and intelligent and educated man. But, I can’t fully wrap my mind around the Word.

All of this is to say, that our judgements are influenced by our own potentially flawed intelects. I don’t believe in relativism. I do believe that the Word of God stands as truth. I also believe that the Holy Spirit illuminates the Word to reveal its truth to us. So, in all that the Spirit is showing you, is CBC at fault? Have you left room for God to work in mysterious ways without contradicting his own nature? If the answer is yes, than I pray that God changes Frank’s heart and brings him into alignment with His truth. And that CBC follows suit. If the answer is no, than I pray God would change our hearts to better see what he’s doing through CBC and Pastor Frank.

At any rate, I think we all have some praying to do.