[9News]

After one of its organizers suffered an injury, a church was forced to cancel a gun giveaway at a weekend youth event.   The Windsor Hills Baptist Church planned the giveaway as a way to draw new participants to the church’s annual youth conference.

The gun in question: an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

Windsor Hills cancelled the giveaway Friday evening after announcing that Pastor Emeritus Jim Vineyard, who was running the event, had suffered a foot injury and would be unable to attend. A video posted on the church’s Web site contains a shooting competition from the 2007 conference, which also included a gun giveaway.

Church leaders defended the decision to hold the event.

“I don’t want people thinking. ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,’” said Bob Ross, the youth pastor at Windsor Hills. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

Maybe I’m missing something here.  Is it a good idea for a “Church” to give away a gun?  What message does this send to those who don’t attend church?

What do you think?

[Telegraph]

John Lennon famously claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, even predicting that Christianity would “vanish and shrink”. But 28 years after his death, in an interview being broadcast for the first time, he claims that on the contrary, he hoped to encourage people to focus on the Christian faith.

Despite his familiar image as a hippy icon who invited us to imagine a world without religion, Lennon says he was “one of Christ’s biggest fans” and felt emotional in church.

In the interview, which was recorded in 1969 and is being aired on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, he talks about the Church of England, his vision of heaven, and expresses disappointment at not being allowed to marry his second wife, Yoko Ono, in church.

The interview was conducted by Ken Seymour of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when Lennon and Ono were at the Bed-In for Peace protest in Montreal. It was bought three years ago by National Museums Liverpool, which is playing an extract at a new exhibition at World Museum Liverpool.

Christians around the world had been dismayed by Lennon’s boast in an article in London’s Evening Standard about the popularity of the Beatles, but the singer says he was misunderstood.

“It’s just an expression meaning the Beatles seem to me to have more influence over youth than Christ,” he says. “Now I wasn’t saying that was a good idea, ‘cos I’m one of Christ’s biggest fans. And if I can turn the focus on the Beatles on to Christ’s message, then that’s what we’re here to do.”

He blames “the hypocrites” for being too “uptight” in reacting to his comments. “If the Beatles get on the side of Christ, which they always were, and let people know that, then maybe the churches won’t be full, but there’ll be a lot of Christians dancing in the dance halls. Whatever they celebrate, God and Christ, I don’t think it matters as long as they’re aware of Him and His message.”

He acknowledges a strong belief in the power of prayer but says he dislikes all the church trappings. “Community praying is probably very powerful… I’m just against the hypocrisy and the hat-wearing and the socialising and the tea parties.”

His aversion to institutional religion was shaped when a “ludicrous” vicar banned him from a church when he was 14 because he and his friends were “having the giggles”.

“I wasn’t convinced of the vicar’s sincerity anyway. But I knew it was the house of God. So I went along for that and the atmosphere always made me feel emotional and religious or whatever you call it.

“Being thrown out of church for laughing was the end of the Church for me.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Wow. I don’t think we can discount what Lennon said.  He made some interesting observations.  I wonder how many people have been turned off for of church for the same reasons Lennon was?  There is a lot of hypocrisy in the church.  I’m one of the problems.  That is why every day I ask God to cleanse my heart so I can become a new person.  I certainly don’t want to be the reason a person gives up on church.  I used to get the giggles in church.  Thank God I wasn’t asked to leave.  I think we can learn from this rather than dismissing what he said.

What do you think?

[Tennessean]

A man says he was so consumed by the spirit of God that he fell and hit his head while at a Knoxville church. Now he wants Lakewind Church to pay $2.5 million for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering he says he’s endured from his injuries.

Read more here.

[From me]

Why doesn’t he just sue the Holy Spirit?

What do you think? 

[Houston Chronicle]

Grace Community Church is raising money to build two enormous crosses that its pastor says will mark the entrances to Houston on Interstate 45. The crosses will likely rank among the largest in the world.

Counting their bases, the crosses would reach up to 200 feet. Each would dwarf I-45’s current symbol of Texas largeness. “Big Sam” Houston, the colossal statue in Huntsville, stands 77 feet tall with its base.

The symbols of Christianity would tower over Grace’s freeway-hugging campuses: the south campus at Dixie Farm Road, and the new north campus just south of The Woodlands. Combined, they serve 12,000 members.

Part building, part sculpture, each cross would include a “prayer center” about 40 feet off the ground — a “Space Needle-type place,” Pastor Steve Riggle said — where Christians from all over Houston could come to pray for the city’s well-being.

An openwork globe 60 feet in diameter, with latitude and longitude lines crisscrossing the continents, would top the prayer center. The bottom of the cross would be visible through the globe.

Riggle sees the crosses as a symbolic stand against moral decay. “The freeways are littered with sexually oriented businesses,” he said. “I’d rather see something that stands for hope, life and faith.”

He hopes that other churches follow Grace’s lead. “What if there was one of these at every entrance to the city?” he asks on a YouTube video. “You talk about marking our city for God!”

“Marking Our City” billboards show a giant cross looming over the Houston skyline, and promise a 150-foot cross is “coming soon.” But the pastor hopes both structures will be 200 feet tall, roughly the height of a 20-story building. The Federal Aviation Administration, he said, may limit the south campus’s cross to 150 feet because it’s near Ellington Field.

The cross on Grace’s billboards bears a striking likeness to one often hailed as the world’s largest: the “Cross at the Crossroads” in Effingham, Ill. Completed in 2001, the white metal structure is 198 feet tall and measures 113 feet at its crossbar. It cost $1 million.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I’m curious if a large cross will bring the unchurched to church?  Maybe.  I would rather spend the money on the community or send it to missions.

What do you think?

[Times Online]

“It is not yours, it is God’s, and you are not going to get it.” So saith Kenneth Copeland, the television evangelist, when asked to submit his ministry’s private financial records to Washington.

Mr Copeland is one of at least six American “televangelists” facing the scrutiny of a senate investigation for alleged financial wrongdoing. The Eagle Mountain International Church - otherwise known as the Kenneth Copeland Ministries - preaches a doctrine of financial prosperity, with the promise that God can make a follower both healthy and wealthy. The faithful are encouraged to dig deep and give to the Church, where donated dollars will provide a one hundredfold return in happiness and wealth.

As Mr Copeland’s televised congregation listen to their minister boom, “You are not created for poverty,” they deposit cash in a donation envelope across which is written: “I am sowing $____ and believing for a hundredfold return.”

Mr Copeland certainly practises what he preaches. According to a report into the pentecostal charismatics, commissioned by the Senate, the ministry built Mr Copeland and his wife Gloria a mansion “the size of an hotel” and enabled him to acquire a $20 million Cessna Citation to help him to spread the word of God across the US.

Speaking to his assembled congregation on the runway by his new aeroplane, Mr Copeland said: “The Lord spoke to me and said ‘you’re gonna believe for a Citation 10, right now’.” He also promised that the jet, one of four owned by the Church, “will never ever be used as for anything other than what is becoming of you Lord Jesus”.

The ministry also owns an airport capable of accepting jet landings, leases land for Mr Copeland’s cattle and horses and also leases land to the family so that it can operate oil and gas wells.

Read more here.

[From me]

I posted my views on church and ministries tax free status here last week.  Churches and ministries aren’t guaranteed tax free status forever.  If ministers and ministries start becoming arrogant towards the government, the tide could turn against all of us.  I also mentioned this past weekend I don’t know whether or not they need private jets.  As long as ministries are up front about their donations and gifts and they pay their income taxes, what they spend is between them and their donors.

But what about the arrogance of:

“It’s not yours, it’s God’s and you’re not going to get it and that’s something I’ll go to prison over. So, just get over it!”  Kenneth Copeland

Is that really how ministers should respond to our government?  I don’t see prosperity as a God given right. Jesus never promised us lots of money.  In fact he promised us trouble. 

Luke 9:23

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Jesus said if we follow Jesus we must give Him everything we have.  Taking up one’s cross means one thing-Death!  According to the Health/Wealth teachings I guess I must be living in sin.  We are struggling financially as I type this.  If I gave a large “seed” to one of these Health/Wealth teachers would I become rich?  Would it change my life?  No, but it would pad their pockets.

Look what Jesus said in:

Luke 12:41-44

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

How do the Health/Wealth teachers explain this?  If I’m missing something please show me.  Because I don’t like struggling financially.  I would love to have lots of money so I can give a lot away.  I would love to go on mission trips and support ministries.  I don’t want a jet.  I don’t want an expensive car.  I would like to buy a motorcycle so I could save money on gas.  I could go on and on.  But I’m happy paying my bills and enjoying the ministry God has given me.  I’m grateful for my family and friends.  I’m convinced that God doesn’t promise us wealth.  Abundant life is more than money.  The widow mentioned above was rich in God’s eyes. Everything is different when we look at life the way the BIble lays it out.  I doubt I’ll ever have a lot of money.  That’s OK.  I left the world of making money to become a vocational minister–not to get rich.

What do you think?