I need to apologize. I have been emailing back and forth with a pastor from CBC and I realized something interesting…City Bible Church and City Business Church are really quite a bit alike (I know, I know, now I need to apologize to a whole new group of people).

I believe that both Bible and Blog churches have good intentions (that could be debated from either side but just go with me for a moment). The problem is that in order to get through to find those "good intentions" you have to wade through a bunch of crap. When I am honest with myself I will admit that a lot of what I have written was done with the wrong "heart". I believe it is important, as Christians, to be able to admit when you have done something wrong. I am not saying that we can not have a website dedicated to holding the church accountable, but we need to examine why we are doing it.

Many people have been offended by the words written on this blog. I have sent personal apology letters to those who I know are offended, but feel that there are others out there that need to hear it as well. I wish I could make this a specific and personal apology, but for now this will have to do.

In the past, my intentions have not always been good. Some of the things I have said were written with the intent to attack and humiliate others. Please forgive me. If anyone reading this has felt hurt by me, please send me an email so I can try to make things right.

-Johnpaul

I had pretty much sworn off all City sermons after the last couple I listened to condemned single fathers, put a dollar amount on faith and ripped off a Garth Brooks song.

Life is too short to listen to Frank and Wendell tell me why I should give them money. I also find that after about 20 minutes of a City sermon my ears start to bleed. Never a good sign.

But in a moment of weakness I clicked on CBC's website. And wouldn't you know it, Wendiddy (my nemesis) was at CBC preaching on giving. A Wendell Smith sermon on giving at City Bible is like the perfect Tri-fecta. Something along the lines of staring at a perfect rainbow. And I had to listen. So I clicked play and here's what I heard:

The 7 principles of sowing and reaping.

1. Pay your tithe. If everyone will tithe, God will help the church buy a building.
2. Just Give. Luke 6:38 – This is the main economic principle in the divine economy.
3. Sowing comes before reaping.

So much for the perfect rainbow. At this point, I couldn't take it anymore (ears bleeding and all that).

However, there are stilll four more principles. Any thoughts on what they might be?

Couv Operator (who is an attractive man and looks nothing like my father, I might add) sends in this phenomenal blog post listing the home values of Evangelical Leaders in Colorado. The blog starts by quoting the following verse:

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." - Matthew 19:24

Which begs the question, "Are these people going to heaven?"  

Dr. James Dobson 
$1,252,522.00**
Presents a daily radio program called Focus on the Family on over 6,000 stations worldwide in more than a dozen languages. He is chairman of the board of a nonprofit organization of the same name, which he founded in 1977. His programs are estimated to be heard by more than 200 million people every day in 164 countries.

Rob Brendle
$629,447.00
ASSOCIATE PASTOR
Rob Brendle is associate pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rob founded SATURDAYNIGHT (www.saturdaynight.org) — New Life’s thriving community of twenty- and thirty something believers — and now he teaches and encourages hundreds of people to live into their callings in Christ. Rob helped pioneer worldprayerteam.org, the world's first internet-based real-time prayer information exchange, and he currently serves in an advisory role with the National Association of Evangelicals.

The blog goes on to list the home values of several other pastors. 

But I wonder, why is it that Malichi Chapter 3 is preached ad naseum. Yet no one ever mentions that Christ himself said it is practically impossible for a rich man to enter the Kindom of Heaven.

(I suspect this is one of those verses we're not supposed to take literally. Unlike the verses about homosexuality, which, you know, are of course literal.)

A reader sends in this Yahoo Article about a Church in Portland, Oregon called Bridgetown Ministries that goes out on Friday nights and washes the feet of the homeless.

The author writes:

Washing the feet of society's outcasts might be as far out of the box as you can get. This work has practical importance, of course; people who can't keep their feet clean and dry end up suffering extreme discomfort or worse. But there's more to it than that. What Bridgetown Ministries does on Friday nights is highly biblical.

Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, talks about "the least of these," as in, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for (God)." Ministry leader Snider had invoked that very passage while preparing the volunteers back at ministry headquarters earlier in the evening. "When you go out there tonight," Snider told them, "I want you to look for Jesus. You might see him in the eyes of a drunk person, a homeless person."

Our reader also ponders, "When was the last time anyone saw Frank Damazio, Judah Smith or Wendell Smith wash someone's feet?"

A reader sends in this tragic but mildly funny story about a Pastor who is accused of killing one of his elderly parishoners in order to gain access to his trust fund.

Key section:

Porter was arrested two weeks ago at a U.S-Mexico border checkpoint. Investigators said he caused two car accidents, the latter killing 85-year-old Frank Craig, in a scheme to inherit the retired farmer's trust fund.

Craig had asked Porter to help him build an agriculture-themed museum with his $4 million estate, and by 1999, the Hickman Community Church pastor had control of Craig's finances, Craig family members said. The trust was changed to replace Craig's two sisters with Porter as the successor trustee and the church as the new heir, they said.

Investigators said they believe Porter first tried to kill Craig in 2002 when he veered his truck off a rural road and struck an oak tree. The crash crippled Craig, but did not initially raise suspicions.

In April 2004, Porter plunged his pickup truck into an irrigation canal, and the farmer drowned. Porter, who walked away from both wrecks, gave the eulogy at Craig's funeral.

He tried to kill the man TWICE. Not once, TWICE! That's dedication.

And please spare me all the comments about how not every pastor tries to kill his parishoner for their money.  I know. I know.

Christian Blogger, David Baryly, writes a creed about people who comment on blogs:

The boorishness of "Christian" commenters on blogs is often startling. Blog owners possess rights and authority on blogs, not commenters. The commenter may indeed be correct and the blog owner wrong, but the blog is private property. Even possession of the truth does not give a commenter the right to enter private property guns blazing.

Simple respect for ownership should cause us to think twice before commenting negatively on others' blogs. Are we participating constructively? Are we respecting the wishes of the owner? Or are we vandalizing private property? I don’t have to respect my opponent's position–or even person–to respect his authority over his blog. Even if he sins against me, it's not my right to violate his property in return. I must respect legitimate authority even when it's used sinfully.

Proprietorial rights are perhaps the most basic form of extrinsic authority on the internet. Christians must not fail to show respect for ownership. The military's saying that you don’t have to respect the man but you must respect the rank holds true on the internet as well. You don’t have to agree with what is said in a forum to respect the authority of those who own the forum.

Hahaha…. ahhhh, I love it. 

Evidently, David doesn't like it when people disagree with him. He should pastor a Mega-church. He'd fit right in.

If you don't want negataive comments on your blog, then don't allow comments. It's really that simple. 

David Mackin offers a little insight into the Matchmaking process.

(Warning: He plugs Joshua Harris's book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Which, in my opinion, is one of the most ridiculous books ever written. From personal experience, married people love this book. Single people, not so much.)

(Warning Update: Don't let the "plug" dissuade you from reading the entire post. Mr. Mackin truly has some interesting thoughts regarding matchmaking and dating in general.) 

Match-making Pastors:  
In about 1974, Sam Poe, a young pastor in Kelso-Longview, called Chris Stenson (name changed). He said that he wanted to get married and asked chris if he had any godly women at his Church/School that he could recommend to him. Chris introduced him to a spiritual and intelligent student named Marlene. Sam met Marlene, fell in love, and, as far as I could tell when I saw them several years ago at Arlan Askew’s church (Westside Vineyard), they have been living happily ever serving God together in the ministry. Thanks to Chris Stenson.

Match-breaking Pastors:  
In about 1975, I traveled to Brazil and Jamaica with Steven Beaver (name changed). At that time, both of us were dating. Steven was dating Lois Lane (name changed) and I was dating Trisha (name changed). While in Jamaica, I remember us both taking some special time to pick out some dress materials that we thought Lois and Trisha would like. After we arrived back home, Chris Stenson called me into his office. He told me that since I had been dating Trisha for about a couple of years, that it was time that I had to make up my mind as to whether I wanted to marry her or not. If I wasn’t ready to marry her, then he told me that he wanted me to break up. Some time after my conversation with Chris, I remember sitting in Trisha’s living room (her parents lived right across the street from the church), with tears pouring down my cheeks, I told her as I was pounding my hand on the arm of the chair: I am not ready to get married right now; maybe later, but not right now. But, I have to break up with you because Chris has told me that if I’m not ready to propose to you, then he wants me to end it. She didn’t have much to say, and then I left.

Match-making Alternatives:
Some pastors have dumped the dating model for the young people in their local churches and have adopted the courting model. The essence of the courting model is based on the belief that young people are not wise enough to make their own life mate choices. When a man is interested in a young woman, he must observe her in groups as much as he can, and, if interested in pursuing her, he must go to the woman’s father first and ask him if he can court his daughter. This means begin down the road to marriage. If accepted, the man begins to do everything with the girl’s family and does not really spend time alone with her (lest they get tempted). In my view, the courting model has both an upside and a downside. The upsides are: (1) healthy family emphasis (2) possibly less temptation and (3) saving one’s daughters from multiple heartbreaks. The downsides are: (1) the guy and girl don’t really get to know each other since they are hardly ever allowed to spend time together (2) how does this work with older singles? (3) how does this work when both sets of parents aren’t into the courting model? (4) how does this not just become another form of arranged marriage by two families in the same local church eager to see their children wed? (If you want to read more about the positive sides of the  courting model see: I Kissed Dating Good-bye and Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris.)

Match-making in the Local Church Culture:
I loved the movie, The Firm, starring Tom Cruise. In the movie, Tom plays an intelligent graduate fresh out of law school who gets unknowingly hired by a prestigious law firm that is run by the mob. He doesn’t see the mob connections at first because he likes the money and the prestige. While a representative of the firm is giving Tom a tour of his new office, Tom asks what the firm’s view is on the partners starting families. The representative says without hesitation that the firm loves and greatly encourages children and families. (I think that the local church acts like this firm much of the time. They push marriage very strongly so that young people are saved from temptation (oops! adultery is a huge problem today),  and all of the main leaders on their staff are “safely married.” Plus, with being married and kids shortly on the way, a local church firm can have more tentacles on a person that if s/he was single and “rootless.”) More roots = more control. This part of the movie reminded me of when I was a young man at church, apparently showing some form of leadership calling on my life to those “over me.” One day Frank told me that he felt my hesitation in getting married was from my Catholic background and my wanting to be a celibate priest when I was growing up. Rick Johnston, a former head of my church's counseling department, asked me one day: “David, how do you see women? Are they just like looking at dogs to you or what?” (In other words, do you have normal sexual desires toward women?) When I did get engaged, we went to one of the married elders for pre-marital counseling. Honestly, it was a joke. I felt that we were just going through a form – they were so excited to see us “engaged!” As it turned out, I did get married in the same year as I was hired as a church college teacher. How ironic! Unfortunately, the marriage lasted only 15 years at which time my wife filed for a divorce. As I look back, my first wife and I didn’t really take the time to get to know each other as we should have. (If you’re interested in a book that I found extremely helpful in finding a more compatible mate my second time around see: Date or Soul Mate? by Neil Clark Warren.)

In the past, I've received a few requests to post a picture of myself. Sadly, I am the most un-photogenic person in the world, and in many pictures bear a striking resemblance to Jabba the Hut. However, at our company Christmas party yesterday, I took a reasonable picture with my co-worker. So here you are. I'm the guy in the Santa Hat. 

And yes, that is my 3/4 full beer at the bottom. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Holiday Cake was available. And much like my mother, I loves me some cake. However, I still had my beer to drink, prompting the following picture taken by my boss with his cell phone. Notice what I'm cradling in my left arm.  It's a DC trick.

Quite a few readers sent me this article about Jim and Tammy Bakker's son, Jay, who has started a church in a Pub and is currently starring in a reality TV show.

Jay is the focus of "One Punk Under God: The Prodigal Son of Jim & Tammy Faye," a reality series about the back-to-basics church he calls Revolution, which, notwithstanding his decade-long sobriety, holds services in an Atlanta bar.

Keeping the faith while keeping Revolution going will prove to be a challenge for Jay.

"I think Revolution is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place," he muses in the first episode (airing Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST on Sundance Channel). "With some groups we're too Christian, and with the Christians we're not Christian enough."

While Jim might not be Christian enough for Christians, his parents were wonderful Christians. I mean until Jim Bakker went to jail for Fraud.  I love this hypocrisy. If you constantly ask people for money and preach an Unbiblical Prosperity Doctrine, you're fine. However,  if you go to church in a Bar, you're a sinner. 

Update: Jay Bakker participated in an online chat on Washington Post today.

Best question:

Oxon Hill, Md.: As a Christian I am trying to understand what exactly it is that you are preaching?

What is your mission and purpose for this church?

Jay Bakker: To show people the grace and love of Christ, to let people know that God loves them. So many people today feel like the church has become almost like a private country club based on do's and don't's and we're trying to deconstruct that myth.

A friend of mine, who is a writer in NYC, has a fun blog called Popsurfing.

In a recent post, my friend links to a New Yorker article that talks about a Magazine style Bible written for young girls. The article includes this quote:

The result was “Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine. The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets:

Have you ever had a white stain appear underneath the arms of your favorite dark blouse? Don’t freak out. You can quickly give deodorant spots the boot. Just grab a spare toothbrush, dampen with a little water and liquid soap, and gently scrub until the stain fades away. As you wash away the stain, praise God for cleansing us from all the wrong things we have done. (1 John 1:9)

Heh. Jesus, He's just like Clorox.