Protest Starbuck's old coffee cup logo. A group of Christians in San Diego is challenging the sexual content of an old Starbuck's logo that the company is now placing on some coffee cups.

I do believe this is spelled out in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19,20.

"Therefore go and find unimportant, uncontroverisal issues, protesting in the name of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Kenneth Copeland. Teach America to become increasingly annoyed with your lack of priorities and your obsession with wealth. And surely I am with you always, though embarrassed by your inability to understand the basics of grace and compassion."

Uh, so according to the New York City Church website, in April,   Dr. Frank Damazio will be a guest speaker. 

As you can imagine, this gives me pause.  I'm not so surprised at the speaking in New York, but at the "doctor" in front of Frank's name.

I didn't know you could get a Doctorate in tithing.

I'm actually genuinely curious to know where he got his degree. 

In any event, I suspect he is a doctor like Dr. Phil is a doctor. And Dr. Laura is a doctor. Basically, really good at telling you how to live your life, but not so good at helping you in an actual medical emergency.

Update: A reader informed me that Frank got his Doctorate from Oral Roberts University. As ORU is pretty much ground zero for the Prosperity Doctrine, this kind of makes sense.

Recently, a church in Dallas Texas refused to hold a memorial service for a church member's brother, after finding out the brother was gay. The pastor, Gary Simmons, defended his decision this way:

High Point Church opposes homosexuality, and there was no way the church could host a service that appeared to endorse it, Mr. Simons said.

"Can you hold the event and condone the sin and compromise our principles?" he said. "We can't."

While I disagree that homosexuality is a sin, I'm down with letting churches preach what they want. (Unless, of course, they preach about tithing, and then I WILL RELEASE MY UNHOLY WRATH ON ALL INVOLVED!) …but I digress…. anyway, Mr. Simmons goes on to further explain the churches decision…

The issue was not so much that Mr. Sinclair was, from the church's perspective, an unrepentant sinner, he said. It's that it was clear from the photos that his friends and family wanted that part of his life to be a significant part of the service.

The pastor said that he could imagine a similar situation involving a different sin. Perhaps a mother who is a member of the church loses a son who is a thief or murderer, Mr. Simons said. The church would surely volunteer to hold a service, he said.

"But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son murdering someone," he said. "That's a red light going off."

This, of course, begs the question, "Is homosexuality a victimless sin?"

Here's a fun video of a recent Christians United for Israel Tour, which is a conference for Christians devoted to helping Israel.

The video was created by a left leaning individual, so it's not exactly your typical Christian video. But it's interviews with the conference participants are absolutely priceless.

The title kind of gives it away, but still pretty funny.

Cannonball Baptism

(Thanks living life.)

A new website has been established by the International House of Prayer and God TV, called The Prayer Room. The site allows a person to join in prayer over the web anytime of the day.

And, as luck would have it, the organizers of The Prayer Room are offering a free three day trial.

We want to invite you to become one of the thousands that believe with us that God’s agenda includes Global Intercession. This includes touching those in secluded parts of the world with a stream of anointing. With this tool, which was once unknown and hidden is now open to all, the poor and hungry of the Earth.

As a special gift, we are offering a FREE TRIAL to our new High Quality webstream. We trust you will be blessed and encouraged as you join with us and thousands of others around the world, in Day and Night prayer.
 
Until He Comes,

Mike Bickle And Rory Alec

I suspect that when He comes, He is going to be pissed that Bickle and Alec were using His name to charge the poor to pray.

The blog Monday Morning Insight has linked to David's recent post and offers the following analysis:

Repent, Pastor Frank! 
I agree with Perry Noble when he says that he doesn’t pay attention to his blog critics; but what if the blog in question is one that is specifically set up to bring down your church and your ministry?  How should you respond.  Case in point. What would you do if you were Pastor Frank?  Ignore?  Confront?  This type of thing is starting to do major damage in many churches.  Don’t underestimate the power of the rouge blogger.  (By the way, I don’t know any of the situation of this church, or this blogger… I just use this as an instance to make you think about what you’d do if this type of thing happened in your church.

QUESTION:  If you were Pastor Frank, how would you respond?  Or would you at all?

The comments underneath the blog post are fantastic. As you all know, if you criticize the church, you are bitter and angry and hateful and kick puppies and root for the Lakers and like spam.

Just ran across a blog by Joe Carter that discusses 10 harmful evangelism tools. They include:

The Alter Call, Witnessing, The Sinners Prayer and Chick Tracts.

Joe posits:

If you want to be a more effective "witness for Christ" then start by doing what Christ did and love other people. Start by loving the "unlovable" — the smelly, unbathed men down at the mission, the annoying kids at church, the bonehead who cuts you off in traffic. Yes, you need to tell people about the Gospel. But that is evangelism, not "witnessing." In the context of the Christian life, "witness" should be a noun more often than a verb.

Regarding Testimonies, he says:

Several years ago, during a job interview for a Christian organization, my prospective employer asked me to tell him my "testimony." The fact that I was a Christian apparently wasn't enough. I had to have a good conversion story to go along with my faith.

 And Chick Tracts:

Chick Tracts are a tool of the devil. That fact–and yes it is a fact–is not changed just because you know a guy who knows a guy who heard testimony about a guy who said the Sinner' Prayer after finding "The Long Trip" on the floor of a truck stop restroom.

Gotta say, I agreed with a lot of what he said. Evangelism tools are often impressive among Christian Circles, but highly ineffective among everyone else.