Chris sends in this link to a Christian whose house is in foreclosure. And the home-owner does not know what to do.

The Homeowner asks, "So what do we do, as Christians?  Are we getting what we deserve?  Are the greedy builders partly to blame?  The banks who were unwilling to negotiate their rates back down or do short sales?  

What I know is that I have to start looking for a rental home, moving my family and belongings, and repairing my credit.  And we are very stressed."

This guy is absolutely doing the right thing by walking away from his home. But ultimately, it’s his fault. It’s not the banks fault. It’s not the builders fault. He bought a home he couldn’t afford, and now he’s paying the price. 

Next time, don’t buy more house than you can afford.  I’m not sure that’s in the Bible, but it should be. 

With the upcoming 3-day weekend, I thought it would appropriate to post something fun for a change.

Guitar Praise

Because who doesn't want to rock out to your favorite Chris Tomlin or David Crowder worship songs? Now when you sing "I will become more undignified than this" while flailing your plastic guitar, people will understand you completely. The only thing missing is some classic Stryper so you can belt out "To Hell with the Devil".

A City Business regular recently had this to say:

Until leadership gets over themselves and stops taking up all of their congregations time by expecting them to be in church “every time the doors are open” things will never change. I believe there are a lot of selfless caring people in church that would gladly sacrifice their lives for others but they have been brainwashed into thinking that they are in the will of God by sacrificing their lives for the church.

I have to say, I couldn't agree more.  When I was a youth pastor/leader at a semi-connected MFI church in Portland, I spent 5 out of 7 nights a week doing church related things.  At first I was completely psyched about it.  I felt like I was truly living God's calling on my life.  But after a year or so I started to get burned out.  I was getting paid pennies, working many long days, and had very few non-christian friends.  I became claustrophobic as I was constantly surrounded by Christian things.  At that time I was too naive in my understanding of the Gospel to get what was truly wrong.  Now 10 years later I realize what it was.  I was dedicated to the external and not the internal.  I wanted to please people and not Christ.  The church had become my entire life and I had completely shut out the outside world.  I was one of those brainwashed people who sacrificed my life for the church - all in the name of living righteous, yet I was empty.

When I finally left that church and helped start The Well in NE Portland, I discovered what working for and going to church was truly about.  I only went into the office a few hours a week.  I was there for only a few hours on Sundays.  I felt little to no pressure as a leader in the congregation.  Why?  Because there was no expectations for me to be anything other then myself.  Everyone understood that the church was just our meeting place, not our final destination.  There was no ego, or pride, or attention seekers.  None of the other bull sh*t that took place at my former churches went on at my new church.  The focus was on Jesus, people, and the truth of the Gospel.  Sure we had idiots and knuckle-heads in the congregation (what church doesn't?), but funny thing was they never seemed to stay around very long.  Eventually they went back to the churches they came from because the traditional human-centered, works-based Christianity that they were seeking did not exist, and those people didn't know how to handle it.  They waited week after week for someone to acknowledge their "goodness" or put them on a pedestal as being an important member of the church and when that didn't happen, they left.

I say all that to say this.  Yes, church is a place made up of weak, sick, sinful people so there is no perfect church.  However, there are good churches that put Jesus first and foremost.  Not in words, but in actions.  These churches constantly preach the cross.  They focus not on what we can do for Him, but what He has already done for us.  They do not exists for money or attention and don't run like a business.  There are no big conferences, futuristic websites, weekly entertaining celebrity speakers, or pastors who demand the spotlight.  There's just Jesus.  And for the people who work for and attend these churches, that's all they really care about.

So if you find yourself attending a church that loves Jesus and people more then anything else, hold onto it with dear life.  There are few around.

"Will a man rob God?"

This quote from Malachi is often used to back up the practice of the tithe. It's a blatant guilt tactic to keep people tithing as the passage talks about blessings from God if you tithe and cursing if you don't. We've argued many times over and over again that we as Believers no longer live under OT law, so the blessings and cursing don't apply. But this myth of tithing and promised prosperity has a direct consequence upon the financial well-being of those who still practice it.

Let us assume you have a 401k plan or a similar retirement fund. (You don't? Get one!) Let us also assume you make a modest $40,000 a year, for the sake of argument, and that you're not very ambitious and your salary doesn't go up at all until retirement. Obviously, this is pretty lame, but it makes the numbers easier to work with. Let us now imagine that you take 10% of your income and faithfully deposit that sum into your 401k, from the age of 25 until you retire at 65. That $4,000 a year, through the miracle of compound interest at a modest 7%, becomes a whopping $854,438.28! (If that isn't enough to motivate you to start saving for retirement NOW, I don't know what will.) An interesting thing about compound interest, is that the sooner you start saving the bigger your earnings. If Peter started contributing 10% to his 401k at age 25 and then quit contributing at age 35, he would still earn $450,146.10. If Paul started contributing 10% to his 401k at age 35 until he was 65 he would only have $404,292.17.OK, so that's your financial lesson for the day.

So, if you were to instead put 10% of your income into tithing, how much money would you have for retirement? Well, unless the church (or God?) is going to write you a check when you turn 65, you get nothing. Zip. Bupkiss. Nada. All those promises about not being able to out-give God? Explain that to your grandfather who is living on Social Security after tithing his entire life. Who is going to pay his gas bill this winter? Never mind actually enjoying his retirement. 

"But, Belteshazzar," you say, "why can't you save 10% and tithe 10% as well?" Fair question! It seems like it doesn't have to be either/or, but should it? If you were actually frugal enough to live on 80% of your modest $40k a year, good for you! But, if you had put all 20% in your 401k, you'd have a retirement savings of $1.7 million! Not only is that a lot of money, you could afford to give even more money to the church than if you had tithed it. How you ask? First off, you'd be able to "tithe" 10% of your savings to the tune of $170,000. That's $10k more than you could have given if you faithfully gave $4k a year. Plus, with the remaining funds in a 5%CD, you earn interest of $76,500 a year. 10% of that is 7,650 a year, almost twice of what you were tithing in the original way of thinking. Imagine if a church had a group of retirees who consistently gave from their rather fat retirement accounts, who were also able to enjoy their retirement? A church board could not ask for a more stable financial plan. Imagine if you had a modest size church where you had 10 retirees, including one "new" retiree per year, that's a revenue of almost $250k a year, which is a good start on a budget for a small church. The kicker is, no one in the church has to be poor to do it. 

So, the next time you hear, "Give to God first" and "give until it hurts" and "sacrifice", ask yourself, "What am I giving up?" If you and your family aren't your first priority, then it's time to reexamine your priorities. If a church is encouraging or even demanding that tithing come first in your finances, then they are abusing your trust and potentially robbing you and the church of real financial prosperity. Tithing the poor in your church just keeps them and the church poor in the long run.

²⁴"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

    ²⁶"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

    ²⁸" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. ²⁹For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ³⁰And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

Greetings, fellow Netizens! It is I, Belteshazzar, your newest and latest contributor to all things tithing here at City Business Church. I've been a long-time reader and commenter here and the Mortons have kindly asked me to lend a hand in creating new content. I've been commenting under the name Former Inner Circle Member (FICM), which was a rather vain moniker I'll humbly admit. I've decided to change my alias for a couple of reasons, mainly to get rid of the old awkward one, and also I was jealous of the other bloggers for having such cool super-hero sounding names. In the end, I chose "Belteshazzar" because it's a pretty good hint as to my true identity without giving it away completely. I have good reasons for remaining semi-anonymous, so I will neither confirm nor deny any guesses. If you think you know who I am, look me up on Facebook or email, I'm not hard to find. If you don't know who I am, well, it's probably not important.

I was a part of Bible Temple/City Bible Church for over 10 years. I went to a Christian High School and aspired to be in full-time ministry so I promptly went to Portland Bible College. That worked so well, after my first year I quit to spend the next year working off my tuition debt and figuring out what the heck I was going to do next. But I was still drinking the kool-aid and spent the next decade working my boney butt off trying to please God and the leaders of the church. Man, I did it all, youth ministry, music, mission trips, outreaches, small group leader, started a student group on my college campus, and spent 3 services on Sunday and 2 nights a week in meetings, on top of working at a Christian company and going to a real college. I did everything but actually take a paid staff position at the church. I say all that so that when people have reason to question me or the legitmacy of my complaints at CBC and MFI, or as they call it my "lack of unity", I want people to know that I'm not making this stuff up because I was offended by some off-hand remark or don't understand how things really work there under the big bubbles. I tried it all, and despite all the normal dysfunction of being in a church being run by imperfect people there is one "doctrine" they still teach that I am unable to forgive. I've forgiven all the other petty things done to me or said about, heck, I really don't care what they think of me. But I can't help but feel righteous rage that they still teach and promote tithing and prosperity over the Gospel of Christ. It's something I won't back down on, and I'm not about to apologize to them or anyone else for criticizing, mocking, or satirizing the teaching of tithing=wealth.

So, in the spirit of that, I'll leave you with something I hope you will think is funny or at least though provoking. There was an episode of South Park a few years back where the kids discovered that the Underpants Gnomes were stealing…well, underpants . When confronted, said gnomes gladly shared their business plan:

1. Collect underpants

2.  ?

3. Profit

With a little rearranging, we get…

1. Tithe

2. ?

3. Prosperity

For all the Bible quoting they do about how God will bless you if you give, phase 2 seems to be remarkably absent from this business plan. Next post, I discuss how tithing could actually be costing the church money in the long run.

Since City Business has officially endorsed Obama, I thought I would share this crazy story with our readers.  Not sure why this has not been publicized more, but turns out the first major assassination attempt on Obama has been foiled.  CLICK HERE for details. 

I know we are on the left coast with a lot of love for Obama around these parts, but you gotta figure there are hundreds of militia and white supremacy groups chomping at the bit to take him out.  The chances of a black man as the leader of the free world has got to be sending them into a freaking frenzy.  If he is elected I hope his security detail is damn near close to the US National Guard, cause it's almost inevitable that someone is going to take a shot at him.

I found this old post I had written awhile back and never posted. It begins to touch on the social awkwardness of my youth which ultimately lead to the formation of this blog. Anyway, here is a little Morton Family History.

I grew up in an extremely anti-abortion Christian family. My father was heavily involved in the "Operation Rescue" movement which led to our family spending most weekends outside of an abortion clinic. I learned to love protesting and I learned to hate abortion. At the age of 12 I started "Rescuing" (blocking doors to abortion clinics so that patients could not get in) right next to my dad. If you want to see a bunch of riled up heathens, let your 12 year old take a stand against abortion. I couldn't begin to count how many times I heard someone yell out "Your parents are brainwashing you"…yeah, whatever.

My mother spent a couple years (approximately) picking up a group of kids every Wednesday and driving them down to an abortion clinic on Broadway where we would stand out with our signs and take a lot of abuse. I have 3 fond memories of these Wednesday trips (actually 4, but now that I am married I shouldn't mention how much I enjoyed getting crammed next to Jessica Zimmer in my mom's minivan)…anyway, those three memories in no particular order are:

1. Having a dirty diaper thrown at me from a car passing by. It missed by a mile.
2. Being told every week by a complete stranger that they "wish my mother would have aborted me"…to which I would often respond, "She's standing right there, you can take it up with her".
3. When Portland Trailblazer Danny Ainge drove by, stopped his car, honked and waved!!! I still get goosebumps thinking about it. Later, during our homeschool English class my mother had us write letters to Danny thanking him for his support. A couple weeks later my brothers and I all received autographed pictures of him. I still have mine and consider it to be one of my most prized possessions (us homeschoolers are easy to win over).

When you are insulted as much as the Morton Family was, and for such a long and consistent period of time you begin to get tough skin. Combine that with the fact that we were home-schooled and didn't actually have any friends that weren't named Morton and you can begin to see where the social issues would start to set in. In fact the most outgoing activity that we ever did were these Wednesday Protest Trips.

I'm struggling now to remember some of the signs we used to hold…Abortion Stops a Beating Heart…Be A Hero Save a Whale, Save a Baby Go to Jail (which my father did frequently)…then there was always someone holding the extremely grotesque picture of an aborted baby (Hey Mom, I've got some real anxiety issues related to seeing or hearing about sickness… and this bloody fetus is helping at all!)

Anyhow, i don't want to drag this story on for to long and by now you may be wondering how we avoided a life of bombing abortion clinics and instead chose a life of anti-CBC blogging…well, the truth is…CBC is far more fun to pick on than those pesky Pro-Choice'ers. And really, a protest is a protest… I love them all…I do miss dodging diapers though.

 Brother Joel just sent this to me and I thought it was kinda funny. Anyhow, since Justin is still recovering from the Hood to Coast, this is what you get:

I am going to put this on craigslist think it will sell!!!!!!!

Autographed version of the bible - $1,000,000

I have a near-mint copy of the Bible, signed by the Big J.C. himself. According to Amazon, this is one of the better selling books of all time. I'm guessing the Prince of Peace would be happy to hear that.

This book was entrusted to me by the Knights of Templar, they borrowed it from Our Savior sometime between 28 and 32 AD and forgot to give it back. It was one of those things where they said they'd return it in a week, but then they didn't get around to reading it right away. And you know how you always feel bad returning a book you haven't read, especially when the lender asks you what you thought of it. So in trying to avoid an awkward moment with the Alpha and Omega, they hung onto it until they had more time. Well that time turned into about 2000 years, and it got mixed in with some other books and made it into a yard sale box.

At first, the King of Kings' signature wasn't worth much, but after Our Redeemer died on the cross for your sins, apparently the value skyrocketed and then rose more gradually over the next 2000 years as more people learned of the Good Shepherd's story.

Why am I selling it? I could say that I'm interested in sharing the Word of God with someone else - become a "Fisher of Men" so to speak. But the truth is I just bought a Wii and don't have room on the bookshelf for both. I'll either use the money to fight world hunger, or buy that Rock Band game I've been hankering for.

There is a reason this blog exists. The reasons can be found in this article about Pastor Michael Guglielmucci who, to quote the article "inspired hundreds of thousands of young Christians with his terminal cancer battle"….and now…"has been exposed as a fraud".

Quick side note: He even fooled Judah Smith into performing a prayer of healing over him.

Here is an excerpt from this shocking (but not surprising) article:

Earlier this year, Mr Guglielmucci released a hit song, Healer , which was featured on Sydney church Hillsong's latest album.

The song debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA charts.

It since has become an anthem of faith for believers, many of whom are suffering their own illness and were praying for a miracle for Mr Guglielmucci, who has claimed for two years to be terminally ill.

In one church performance that has attracted 300,000 hits on YouTube, he performs his hit song with an oxygen tube in his nose.

The moral of this story is simple: If you put your trust in Man he will dupe you. That's right Michael Guglielmucci is a Duper. He duped Christians all over the world and he isn't the only one doing it.

Now, you may be saying to yourself… "but MY pastor would never do that"…well No, he probably wouldn't…but he could.

This is why it is so important to question all authority, this is why it is important to be able to freely speak your mind and freely criticize (if necessary) leaders…when you put yourself in a situation where you must completely submit without question you set yourself to be duped.

For the record, by "question" I mean compare what leaders are saying with what the Bible says and point out inconsistancies.

(a special thanks to blog reader New Taste for pointing us to this article)