Let's suppose that your husband is pastor of a growing independent church. Let's further suppose that the church purchased the original location of Lakewood Church which moved to the old Houston basketball arena. And then let's suppose that it's time to have a fundraiser for the church.
Your 50th birthday is coming up. How about a birthday party for you? Brilliant! Here's the webpage describing it.
The church can sell tickets to the party for $100 each. Gifts? Everyone is going to ask anyway, so let's save time by providing a link to your short list on the website: money, handbags from Gucci, Chanel and Vuitton, or gift certificates from Neiman's, Saks Fifth Avenue or Escada. You're just a simple girl with simple needs. Blessed are those who shop at the Galleria, for they shall find these Designers!
The columnist for the Houston Chronicle who wrote about this upcoming event called your theology "health and wealth."
YOU THINK?????
Your 50th birthday is coming up. How about a birthday party for you? Brilliant! Here's the webpage describing it.
The church can sell tickets to the party for $100 each. Gifts? Everyone is going to ask anyway, so let's save time by providing a link to your short list on the website: money, handbags from Gucci, Chanel and Vuitton, or gift certificates from Neiman's, Saks Fifth Avenue or Escada. You're just a simple girl with simple needs. Blessed are those who shop at the Galleria, for they shall find these Designers!
The columnist for the Houston Chronicle who wrote about this upcoming event called your theology "health and wealth."
YOU THINK?????
Guess they're all busy praying the Prayer of Jabez.
ReplyDeleteIck.
Jesus weeps.
Sort of makes me think of this past week's OT passage, with Naaman being ticked that Elisha didn't react with enough awe and wonder at his worldly stature, but instead gave him a very simple task to be cured of his leprosy. And meanwhile the King of Israel was suspicious of gifts asking for a cure for Naaman, thinking it was a plot.
Maybe the King of Israel wasn't entirely wrong.Tisn't about the silver and gold and ten suits of clothes, or the Chanel or Louis Vuitton or Escada.
Sort of makes me happy that I'm a dumpy, short woman who can't fit into Chanel or Escada. Makes life simpler, somehow.
In a word... ish.
ReplyDeleteThank you, thank you, thank you for this!
ReplyDeleteBetween your posting and Truth In Love's posting on the PCUSA "V-Day" stuff, I've been laughing all morning!
(Now can I cry?)
How 'bout we all get together and send her a vow of poverty, written on the back of a Wal-Mart gift card?
ReplyDeleteThis is embarrassing. And illmannered. Uncouth. Crass. Ignorant.
Bah!
And what's truely embarassing (or should be...) is that they just don't get it, nor do their masses of followers (perfectly coifed and turned out themselves). May "health and wealth" continue to follow them, for I'm afraid they would succomb to Darwin's theory of evolution should things become dark and dire in their lives. Just enough controversy in this statement to keep them confused for weeks.
ReplyDeleteTHAT SITE WASN'T A JOKE?!?!?!?
ReplyDeleteThere are no words..but if there were words, they'd be unfit to post on a "family" blog!
ReplyDeleteAlas, RM, the site is NOT a joke.
ReplyDeletesigh
ReplyDeleteI was also taken aback at the toronto church wanting to pay off the pastor's mortguage and buy him a ferrari for his 50th - we don't do things like that in Finland -
but this is a million times worse.
I feel a bit like Judas saying this - but there are poor out there. What on earth are they playing at. If this is for real. God help me for my judgemental attitude but this is not good honourable or nice.
Blech, blech, blech!!
ReplyDeleteDear Jesus: Please save me from your followers.
ReplyDeleteI am speechless--but only for a moment!
ReplyDeleteThese are some of the "Christians" who give the rest of us "Christians" a bad name... There are others, but this sort contributes their fair share.
(sarcasm font on) I am sure they don't have any members who use the food pantry, do they? (sarcasm font off)
So do they think if you don't have a "high enough income" (however they may define it) that God doesn't love you? Or something? I am frankly mystified by their thinking.
I know people like that exist (met a few of them, in my denomination,too, I'm sorry to say), but I am still dumbfounded at their arrogance.
Rant off.
Sigh.
I think I am going to be sick.
ReplyDeleteThat was a joke, right?
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't, okay, then I want a cream-colored formal from Saks for my next session meeting. We have obviously been going at this church thing all wrong.
Goodness! Just when I think I've read it all ... how incredibly tragic! No wonder the non-Christian population disbeliefs our witness. God have mercy. Christ have mercy!
ReplyDeleteWow. This is really, truly awful.
ReplyDeleteDear Friends,
ReplyDeleteI really wish I had made this up or it was a satiric site. But it's not. I'm starting to wonder what's in the water down here.
As your humble correspondent, I promise to keep a sharp eye out for further developments.
I'm sure that all this will somehow contribute to doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right!!
This is truly dreadful. And unfaithful. And tacky. And elitist. And .......I'm struck speechless. It's just so bad.
ReplyDeleteUm.... what??? It almost seems like a joke!!!!!!
ReplyDelete*wow*
ReplyDeleteI would like to be able to laugh out loud at this. I simply cannot believe it. Ditto to what Greg H. said. Sad thing is....this is one of the fastest growing churches in their area? Lord, help us! Or perhaps I should be asking what I'm doing wrong? I'd just like to get the church parking lot paved. :-(
ReplyDeleteWow. What nerve in Jesus' name!
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe this is a true thing.
From a girlie angle, why would you ask women to wear cream and gold? Are those the church colors or just colors that look wretched on everyone else but the Birthday Girl?
I'm going to show this to my local pals. UNBELIEVABLE!
Wow. I'm simply speechless.
ReplyDeleteHow disconnected this poor woman has become.