Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[NWF Daily News]

The sturdy steel bastions where high schoolers shove their books, papers - and sometimes their classmates - will now come at a price for some local students.

Choctawhatchee High School will begin charging students $5 to use a locker next year. 

With budget cuts, “it is strictly being done to help take care of the maintenance of the lockers,” said Choctaw Principal Cindy Massarelli-Gates.

Local high schools spend between $2,000 and $5,000 every summer repairing lockers and changing combinations, she said.

Massarelli-Gates doesn’t expect the fee will “be a big shock” for parents, particularly because Crestview and Niceville high schools have been charging a similar fee for the past few years.

“The cost of keeping up a locker is a lot,” Massarelli-Gates said. “That cost has just continued to go up. As our budget has tightened, we’ve had to look at some ways to tighten some things.” 

In addition to rising costs, schools are facing declining enrollment. Schools are funded by the state primarily on the number of full-time students. 

Read more here.

[From me]

What’s next?  Charging for use of the restroom?  How about having a toll booth set up in the hallway for access to go to class?  They could even have a cover charge for the lunchroom.  What other ways could they make money?

What do you think?

[Christian Post]

Popular megachurch pastor Rick Warren said he does not believe pastors should endorse political candidates in a recent interview held weeks ahead of his highly-anticipated leadership and compassion forum, which will feature presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

“I don’t think it’s right for pastors to endorse [a political candidate] in the first place,” Warren said on a recent CNN interview when asked if he thinks McCain was right to disavow controversial pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley.

“I would never endorse a candidate. I would never campaign for a candidate,” he added.

“I think as a pastor my role is to pastor all the flock regardless of their political persuasion, so I wouldn’t have wanted endorsements anyways.”

Warren has, however, invited political candidates to speak at his church on the topic of HIV/AIDS. Past politicians that have spoken at Saddleback Church during its annual HIV/AIDS conference include Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Sam Brownback.

Next month, Obama and McCain will appear together for the first time during the ’08 presidential race to answer questions from Warren about faith and moral issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights.

“I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of faith and politics,” Warren said, “because faith is simply a worldview and everybody’s got a worldview.”

A person who says he can separate his faith and worldview is either an “idiot” or “lying” because it’s impossible, the influential Christian leader contends.

Read more here.

[From me]

Of course you know I agree with Rick.  I believe when a pastor or a church endorses one candidate or party over another, they automatically put half the people they are trying to minister to against them.  What do you think about people like Rick inviting people from both sides to speak at church?

What do do you think?

[MLB]

The reason Fernando Tatis returned to baseball after two years out of the game, he said on Monday, had little to do with the fact that he wanted to play baseball. Sure, some part of him did miss the game. But mostly he just wanted to build a church.

His entire community in the Dominican Republic wanted to build a church, in fact, and if Tatis signed a Major League contract, he would have the money to do so. The problem was, no team particularly wanted an aging infielder with seemingly little to give.

But Tatis wanted to build a church, and so he told his family that he was going to return to the Major Leagues. This happened roughly a week before the phone rang.

It was the Orioles. They were interested. And now?

“The church is built,” Tatis said. “It’s beautiful, and we got it.”

Tatis played one mediocre portion of the 2006 season with the Orioles before spending another year out of the Majors and hooking on with the Mets this spring. That was a part-time gig until Monday, when manager Jerry Manuel deemed Tatis his regular left fielder for the indefinite future.

“He right now is our left fielder,” Manuel said. “There is no question about it.”

Read more here.

[From me]

In a day when athletes hold out for more money in their bank account, what a great story.  The man came back to play so his community would have a public place to worship God.  Cool!

What do you think?

[SignonSanDiego.com]

For 22 years, they’ve been singing hymns at a stone-sided building off East County’s Old Highway 80, not country and western songs. They’ve been drinking grape juice for communion, not wine and beer. County officials say that has to stop.

A county attorney told the Guatay Christian Fellowship it’s OK to sell beer and wine and host live events at the building in a trailer park, but it doesn’t have a permit to allow religious services.

Read more here.

[From me]

So let me get this straight.  A bar can sell alcohol to potential drunks who might go out and abuse people or drive drunk and kill someone.  But a church can’t meet to help people.  Makes a lot of sense.

What do you think?

[Fox Atlanta]

A High Ridge, Mo., woman says she has found Jesus in a bag of Cheetos (video: MyFoxStLouis).  Kelly Ramey says, “I think I found Jesus on a Cheeto as funny as that sounds.”

She bought a bag of a local convenience store, and inside the bag she felt something unusual.

“I looked at that and I thought, ‘Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.’ It was just like wow,” she says.

Family and friends agree with her.  Her daughter says, “I thought it was pretty cool.” But Kelly Ramey’s friend, Sue Edelman, sees something different. “I looked again and I thought a horse head.”

Kelly says her husband has a special name for it. “He calls him Cheesus.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Chezzy!  Looks like barbed wire to me.  I saw Jesus in my Pikes Blend this morning…

What do you think?