Spray Painting Mother's Day Crafts

I had the opportunity to visit a big church on Mother's Day a few years back.  It was awesome.  They treated every mom in the pace to a Starbucks coffee of their choice.  Nice!

That's the big difference between a big church and (what I like to call) a small-but-growing church.  I can't imagine the big church pastor staying up until midnight spray-painting crafts for the children's church Mother's Day project.  For that matter, I can't imagine the big church pastor making corsages to honor the ladies on their special day.  I'm pretty sure that they just delegate to a staffer to go and get 2,000 Starbucks gift cards. 

That's the hidden benefit of the small-but-growing church, the personal touch.  See, I get to help make each of the rose corsages that the ladies wear--it's personal.  I get to be a part of the craft that the kids make for their moms.  Those aren't the only differences. 

They say that as a church grows, the role of the Pastor changes.  A big church pastor can't possibly know the name of more than a select bunch of people, usually key leaders.  A small church pastor not only knows the name of all the people that call the church home, but also know their extended family member's names, and in a lot of cases, even their dogs' names. 

Pastoring a small-but-growing church--too much fun! 

Any Lunch Plans for May 22nd?

I have an acquaintance that stops by every so often to tell me about his latest interests.  These typically include either politics, religion or the intersection of the two.  After his most recent visit, his closing salvo was to pull a card out of his wallet and ask, "what do you think of this?". 

The card was a wallet-sized version of the campaign to convince people that the Rapture of the Church is going to occur on May 21st and that the Final Judgement will be in October 2011. 
These ideas have been popularized by Harold Camping and a few others.

Ah, good old Harold, if you recall, he's the guy who has been trying to set a date for the Rapture of the Church all the way back to 1988. 

The funny things about these guys is that they use a blend of pseudo-scholarship to make their theories sound plausible.  For example, whenever they can find what they feel is a helpful proof text, they just cherry pick it out of its biblical context and put it out there.  But mingled with poorly exegeted passages are bold assertions that have no basis in fact.  You can can easily identify them...they almost always start with phrases like:

• "We know"
• "We have discovered"
• "It has been revealed to me"

These guys methodologies are highly suspect and they use techniques that are common to false teachers and cult leaders alike:

• Proof texting--the practice of pulling a verse out of context to make it support a particular viewpoint
• Ignoring the historical beliefs of the Christian church
• Violating sound interpretation of the Bible

 Of course, these guys have scripted answers to just about any objection that is made.  But remember, just because someone has an answer, doesn't make it a sound answer.  At the risk of sounding dull, I'll stick to these two solidly biblical points:

1. The Lord is coming soon!
2. No one gets to know the exact day or hour of his return!

All of this makes me want to call my friend and ask him if he'd like to have lunch with me...on May 22nd.