Its funny.  Sometimes I'm watching gameshows or something and I do a doubletake when they state their age at 27 or 28 and look at them again and SWEAR that to me these people look at least 35 years old.  This has happened like 3 times in the past 3 days.  you're 28?  What the heck have you been doing?!  I know 28 year olds who look like 28 year olds or younger but man is it depressing to watch someone else who you've already written off as middle aged come out and say they're the same age as you.  Do i look that old?!?!?!  Maybe its the bald spot i've had since i was 20. 

anyway, the democrats are eating eachother alive and its painful to watch.  im no johnny mac fan nor a republican by any means but its painfully obvious that if the press can roll out Jeremiah Wright quotes at will (ie - Italians as "garlic noses" and our  white supremacist govt in charge of the Ku Klux  Klan...)  then its gonna be a loooooooooooooong and hard battle in November.    What the heck is a garlic nose anyway? 

On a side note, for any SWHS alumni reading this:  What the hell WAS that barn in East Windsor anyway?  You know, the one that was apparently a dance hall for awhile that was rumored to be the meeting place for the Ct KKK ....   twostripe tim would know....  joe too maybe?

until next time, garlic noses...

MY GOSH it is so nice to be out of Los Angeles and be away from the mega-church.

Not that it didn't help me out and not that God didn't use it to teach me a "butt-load of crap," as Nacho Libre would say, but now that I'm out of the�scene and can once again think with somewhat of a sober mind I can see how that place was eating me, and�is currently eating many others, alive from the insides out.

I think it's interesting how the�concept of�preaching the gospel turned into an almost exclusively narrow sighted event, focused on people in the streets and on drugs and in crisis situations who are far more willing to accept the invitation to altar call than your normal average Joe person.� Why else would someone�be stepping into a "seeker friendly" church for the first time, as an outsider to the body of Christ?��

Not that�I see a problem with the concept of going after the hurting.��Jesus rolled with prostitutes and lepers, and I think we are correct in following his example.� Hang out with the hurting and�the destitute, and tell them the "good news"� [which is what the word "gospel" actually means].� Eternal life with a good God etc...

But I have�a few�bones to pick with the byproducts of OUR faults as humans, trying to run seeker friendly churches like the one I lived at/worked at full time for the past three years.�

�What exactly *IS* the gospel??????� Do we even know anymore?� What is this "good news" that people are all amped up on, running around with spiritual pride and a virtual complete lack of self-control when it comes to the fruits of the spirit and spiritual maturity?

Let me tell you something:� WHO GIVES A FLYING F#CK ABOUT NUMBERS!??!?� Who cares about altar call numbers, who cares about how many people are in your church, who cares about number of people you got to say the sinner's prayer last week??????� WHO CARES?� And this is why you SHOULDN'T care:� We don't know people's hearts.� You could get 100 people to say the sinner's prayer (i was the outreach director of a major outreach ministry in arguably the biggest missionary field in the US, I've SEEN this with my own eyes) and it won't mean a thing! Why?� Because sometimes people feel pressured to pray, or convicted by man and not by the Holy Spirit, or are appeasing the person witnessing or whatever.

Well, what about altar calls??� Same exact deal.� I've seen "altar calls" of 200 people week after week after week after week after (snore....) week after week after week after (zzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz) week.� And the pastor's are pretty much pinching their own asses, trying to goose themselves into feeling some sort of feeling for the same old routine that brings many of the same exact people to the front week after week.� So, in my experience and to the best of my discernment - I'd say there's maybe ....��� 15-25 of those "200" per altar call who are new to the front or who are genuinely giving their hearts to Christ.� NO small number indeed, considering one is enugh to make the angels rejoice.� But i think sometimes our faithlessness in God's power is manifested collectively after dripping down from the people at the top who are so concerned, so often, with looking good and having fantastic P.R. and keeping the show rolling that they don't realize/can't bring themselves to realize that this "evangelistic counting" is really just bold-faced lying that eventually trickles down and poisons their own people.�� Discounting all the staff, altar workers, repeaters who'd go up to the front for a bake sale or�tire alignment as fast and indifferently as they'd go for the altar call (some people are HIGHLY encouraged to go forward.� Trust me),� and people who are like the seeds from Jesus' parable that eventually prove to have fallen amongst thorns (get choked out of following Christ by the cares of the world) or who fall on rocky ground (those who get all excited at first but fall away because they have no root ------------------------� then you've only got a good handful of people going up there genuinely getting "saved."�� And the leaders all know it yet continue in their "exaggerations" of the numbers.

Again, not to say God doesn't move and touch people's lives greatly during these moments.� Just that He doesn't need our help to try and finish His awesome work.� It's not like His work is found lacking at the end of the day and we need to pad His numbers to redeem Him to His own people.

And church numbers.� If i hear another pastor of a mega-church talking about "church growth" and the fact that if you're church isn't growing rapidly from year to year that you have a stale church and a big problem, Im going to throw up.� In fact, I think it's HEALTHY for a church to sometimes go through a decline;� weed out the ones who aren't really interested in hearing God's true voice.�� Too often, churches tip toe on eggshells while trying not to offend their members so they preach like one island verse a Sunday and then "expound" on it with whatever life's lessons they have from their own personal lives, tell some jokes, and then�hit the doors by 11:30.� It keeps people coming back because many people HATE the concept of sitting in church and being bored by the pastor so if the pastor keeps it to 20 mins, the chances they'll come back are huge.

But the point is this:� if you actually PREACH the word of God, His sheep know His voice.� You will gain who you are supposed to gain, find who you are supposed to find.� And if you lose 300 full-yet-empty seats in the process, oh well!� At least you genuinely tried to get them saved too, genuinely tried to give them a chance to hear what the Bible really has to say.� What God really has to say.

One of the fastest quoted scriptures in the Bible is Hosea 4:6 "my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge,"� yet there are very few pastors and preachers out there who are actually preaching the Bible and not instead just�a bunch of tangents en route to another "incredible, super-duper, ridiculously successful" altar call after the likes of which we can chalk up numbers, pat eachother on the asses, and call it a day.�

It's this type of fakeness that turns off God's own people.� It this whole "frost-tip my hair, im a dude but i wear foundation, metrosexual, fake smiling fake handshakes fake "good to see you/nice to meet you", fake salvation, FAKE CHURCH FALSE IDOL" type of mentality that dupes poor people into thinking this is the way the church is really supposed to be.�

NEWS FLASH YOU CORNY, LOST & POOR SONSOFBITCHES - God doesn't care what we look like on the outside!� God doesn't care about all the good works in the world if our heart isn't right!� Stop trying to redeem yourselves to the world.� No more "hey guys, look here - we're cool too!� Look, LOOK!!!! We're Hollywood, check out our lighting and cool guitar riffs!� We're cool too!!!"

We're called to be the head and not the tail, and when a church runs around trying to grab onto and hang onto the coat heels of some "celebrity" so and so to get them and come visit their church and hype the crap out of it before hand - thats what I call being the tail.� Chasing after the world.� Yknow what?� I dont care if Billy Blanks the Tae Bo guy comes to your church.� I don't care if the supporting actress girl from "You Got Served" or whatever comes to your church.� I don't care if Harrison Ford's body double is coming to speak at your church!� WHO CARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop grab-assing the world with little tic tac testimonies to boost your numbers when the people that are already in your church are dying like flies in their ignorance.

�

sometimes that title seems like an oxymoron to me...

I was the intern director of a name ministry at a BIG name ministry in Los Angeles.  Been here for three years.  Been a staff for like a year an a half of that. 

Always loved to smoke the weed.  Seriously.  Loved it.  My whole life.  Never had a problem with hard drugs, never really liked to drink.  Always loved the bud. 

Stayed clean my entire time in Los Angeles minus the annual trips back to the homeland.  But in L.A. , was always clean.

One of my best friends here is an ex heroin addict.  Junkie of junkies.  Not like the "junkie" that the SWPD cop called me when he arrested me for a dimebag and $5.00 bowl.  Real junkie junkie.  LIKE, almost died junkie.

To be fair, even before i took off and smoked bud with him, I was looking.  Which, to the secular (nonchristian) ear, is absolutely not a big deal to smoke some weed here and there.  But in ministry, I might as well be jamming needles in my arm while looking at child pornography while shoving razor blades up my ass.  That's just the way the church is - liking to be clean on the outside while on the inside they're full of the same exact s**t everyone else is.

So, eventually I was living that old churchy double-life everyone's come to expect from us christians.  Smoking bud, driving around with possession on me, ducking the powers that be, etc... 

Smoking bud with old christian friends...  ducking my pastor's daughter girlfriend's calls.  Or beating around the truth of where i was or what i was doing.

Finally, I felt i loved her (and God) enough to tell her i was smoking again.  To her, being the churchy churchy churched girl her whole life, it was like a brick to the face.  But she bounced back.  Told her I'd quit.  No big deal.

Next day my buddy shows up with bomb hash.  Man the devil knows how to work it with me.  So i was like, all chivalrously turning down the hash for a few days.  But, like I said, the devil knows me and that if he keeps persisting like that, I'm done for.  So i was done for.  Smoking the good buds, the medical prescription buds that'll shut your mind off on you.  The high life for weed connoseurs.

Dodging phone calls, dodging accountability, dodging the powers that be.  Dodging the heart of my fiancee.  Dodging my own heart.  Dodging, most importantly to a man who firmly believes and has set himself a part for the purposes thereof, God Himself.

Then old church buddy number two starts rolling around everyday.  Bringing them good smokes.  But he's slipping.  Drinking now.  Occasionally and then more occasionally and then driving occasionally after drinking occasionally and occasionally being a little bit too f**ked up to drive but occasionally driving occasionally after occasionally drinking a bunch of beers and smoking a bunch of weed, occasionally driving his ministry vehicle back to the ministry house where he NOT so occasionally lives.  He's occasionally there full-time.

Church buddy # 3.  Known this guy forever, too.  He's the type of guy who you have to worry about.  Quiet.  Lonely.  Insecure.  But has a great heart and is actually probably the most anointed worship leader I've ever seen in my life.  Which says a lot, to a dude who's been INSIDE the church full-time for the last four years. 

Number 3 started smoking cigarettes again, then started smoking bud again.  Then smoked bud like everyday, driving around his ministry vehicle (both vehicles belonging to ministries and NOT them personally) and getting pulled over acouple times just for LOOKING messed up.  Which says a lot, considering this is L.A. and like half an hour ago i saw some dude spun on crystal or something almost run down an older lady in a crosswalk out in Hollywood and nobody cared.

Number 3 has a friend, who's not my friend, we'll call him Tom.  Tom is also a heroin addict.  Tom has a buddy we'll call Frank who is addicted to crack rock.  Both these dudes, Tom and Frank, are from Park City Utah and come from filthy rich white families.  Both these dudes call themselves christians and both went to church here for at least a good number of months.  In case it sounds familiar, Park City is where they do the Sundance music festival every year.

So church buddy 3 and these two clowns hit the bars, get ripped and go down to skid row to score their perspective drugs.  H and C.  Heroin and crack.

Tom shoots up and turns white immediately.  Passed out.  3 thinks he's dying, starts slapping him on the face and freaking out.  Frank is cracked out, which means calloused and detached and therefore not realizing his homey is about to die on his livingroom couch.

Tom's lips turn blue, face goes so pale, and comes an inch away from death.  Wakes back up, says "i'm hungry," and goes back to life as normal.  f**king junkies.

Ahhh the church.  a point:

When i went back to the weed after i swore to the girl i LOOOOVE so much that I'd stop, i realized something:  If smoking weed is not a big deal, why can't i stop for the one i love so much?  Why did it lead to my homeboys getting back into their old patterns and driving drunk, smoking crack, or shooting dope?  Why was it harder to break than I'd ever thought it would be?

Because it's deceptive.  We do it in dark places, where people can't see.  It's deceptive.  Hiding in the darkness, hiding from the threat of punishment and consequence.  And it can get on top of you.  Look at the burnouts in this world.

 That stuff can't be happening in the church.  We aren't called to smoke herb and get drunk like we used to.  We're supposed to be done with that stuff; have something better than that stuff. 

So i got rid of the sack i had just bought, confessed to my fiancee that i was smoking again- and what happens?  The next day my homeboy shows up and says "you wanna meet god?" 

"god" was the name of the new bud he had gotten, and it was trying real hard to live up to its name.  I was tempted, but stayed straight and havent smoked ever since.  Just funny to SEE with my own eyes the devil try and get at me for real. 

Stood up in front of the whole ministry, in front of people i've been a role model and an example to.  In front of people i've disciplined and counseled. People i've reamed out and people i've cried over. And told the whole thing.  Admitted the whole thing.  And I'm done.  I'm walking in the light now and not hiding in the darkness. 

Tom...  Tom will probably die.  And it's interesting to look into someone's face who's young and vibrant and handsome and know that he's one day going to be found dead in some Super8 hotel room, somewhere far away from his family.  Somewhere far away from everyone that loves him.  Surrounded by people who don't give a s**t and won't bat a lash at another dead white kid being wheeled out of a hotel.

Frank will probably downward spiral.  If he doesn't plug back into church and have people to lift him up, he'll probably be there when Tom dies and will probably kill himself after he comes sober and realizes what just happened.

Number 3 will probably get kicked out of the ministry and the church if he doesnt come clean and clean up his act, and will probably end up living in his parents house, sleeping on the living room couch.

Number 2 will probably get pulled over for D.U.I. eventually, in a ministry vehicle...  which will completely ruin his life and lose his job and his place.

Number 1 will hopefully stay clean.  But it's always tough when you're an ex-junkie.  Cuz you're never really an EX-junkie, you're just a junkie who hasn't shot in awhile.  Sometimes situations turn to slip-n-slides and you're back to your old mess in a matter of minutes.

These, of course, are worst case scenarios.  but these people have been flirting with worst case scenarios for awhile now.  Real life people flirting with real life disaster...

I will stay clean.