Presby-Musings

In the early 2000's Jim Henderson , a former pastor and newly minted church consultant,"bought" an atheist off of E-Bay for $504, and put him to work.  The atheist, a young man named Hemant Mehta , had been looking for a fun way to show Christians that he could attend church with an open mind, and was willing to allow Christians to give him their best shot at converting him.  Henderson won the bid, and sent Mehta out to start visiting churches with the assignment of reporting what he experienced. The result spawned a website, discussion groups, stories by the Wall Street Journal and much more. In 2006, Henderson met Matt Casper, a marketing copywriter and freelance writer and singer/songwriter, who lived in San Diego.  Casper also happened to be an atheist.  The two became friends and decided to write a book together as they visited churches all across America--documenting their dialogue and their experiences.  They agreed to be as open and honest with one...

My first sermon was epic. And when I say "epic," what I really mean is "not epic," but I like to pretend--especially in this moment--that it was epic in the regular sense of the word. But it wasn't. I actually cannot for the life of me remember what I preached.  I didn't write it down anywhere, and there are no recordings that exist of the event. There was a video recording, however, which shall factor into this story momentarily, but that, too, went the way of the dodo at some point.  A fact that I do not lament in the least. When I preached the aforementioned sermon I was filling the pulpit after the departure of my pastor and mentor, who had served the church for 17 years, three of which I was privileged to experience.  He was a kind and intelligent man, who could read in German, Greek probably Hebrew and of course had a command of English that was fairly impressive. He read his sermons from a manuscript, though, anchored behind the pulpit--...

I was listening to a lengthy interview that the folks at Catalyst did with Rick Warren, and something that he said just blew me away. He said that early in his career he sent out 100 letters to the 100 fastest growing and vibrant churches in America at the time.  He asked them to what they attributed their vibrancy, and he received a wide variety of responses. But the ONE THING that he said that all of those churches had in common... And the ONE THING that he said that all growing, vibrant churches have in common to this day is this: "Strong leaders that believe God." He clarified this a bit by saying that "believing God" meant that these strong leaders believed God more than they believed in their own strength, the institutional church, denominations, theology... any number of things that aren't God. These leaders, he asserted, were not afraid to trust God to lead them and were willing to put it all on the line to respond to God's call. And ...

  Go to this guy's church on Easter and you could win A NEW CAR!           This Easter  Bay Area Fellowship of Corpus Christi TX is giving away over a million dollars in cash and prizes to people who attend worship at one of their 8 worship services.  You can read a bit more about the story HERE .  Most or all of the merchandise (anything from skateboards to flat screen TV's) has been donated, including the cars.  Pastor Bil Cornelius (dude, spell your name like all the other Bill's in the dang world), claims that it's all a big illustration that teaches us about Resurrection and the most important giveaway of all... Eternal Life by believing in Jesus. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California is holding their Easter services at Angel Stadium in Anaheim.  If you go on their website you will see that the "tickets" for one of the services are all gone, but there is still time to get in on the one that is onl...

I am continuing my sermon series on Money this week. And I will be preaching on tithing. First, I need to say this. The word tithe comes from the word "tenth."  So when I talk about "tithing" I talk about the regular giving of one/tenth of one's income to God. Just so we're clear. People don't like to hear sermons on tithing, I've learned. Because most of them don't... you know, tithe.  Some Christians (generally the ones who as I mentioned earlier don't tithe) like to say things like, "Well, Jesus didn't say anything about tithing!" or (if they are really pompous and learned) "Tithing is simply not part of the New Covenant."  That last bit is a Christianese way of saying the first thing. And both things are bushwah, by the way---which is another way of saying "cha-ra," which is the Hebrew way of saying "crap." There are some people who get all hoity-toity (untranslatable in any lang...