There is Only One Name You Can Drop to Get Past the Bouncer

This morning, I thought about the things I’ve seen preachers put on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. I’ve “followed” and “liked” a number of them, and I’ve read a lot of this stuff. I realized that almost all of it fell into two categories.

1. Feel-good platitudes that don’t offend anyone and certainly don’t help anyone. You know what I mean. “If you want God to stand up for u, stand up for God! #holywonderfulpeoplefullofpositivity!!!!”

2. Self-promotion. Things like, “WOW! I ALMOST GOT TO STAND NEXT TO JOEL OSTEEN!”

The pastors at my new church are constantly putting up useful scriptures and spiritual advice. John Bevere puts up a lot of stuff intended to help people get close to God. But they seem unusual.

Jesus told us that our hearts would be where our treasure lay. Many charismatic preachers like to tell us he meant that if we gave tons of money to churches, God would give us loads of cash in return. I’m not sure how they come to that interpretation. It appears Jesus was talking about generosity and the need to avoid materialism; he referred to people with eyes that were “single” or “evil,” and supposedly, this was idiomatic speech concerning generosity. And he said we were not to lay up treasures on earth.

It seems odd that preachers would use this verse to get people to give them earthly treasure, but there you go.

I don’t think the verse is about buying money from God, as the prosperity preachers do. I think it simply means that your heart will be occupied with the things that matter to you. If you treasure money, your heart will be set on money, and you will devote a lot of effort to obtaining it (and you may well end up running a megachurch and teaching false doctrine in order to get rich). If you treasure the things of God–things like generosity and mercy–you will set your heart on providing them.

I think it also refers to rewards we will receive in heaven. If your heart is on heavenly things, you will receive good things in heaven. That’s scriptural, so I have no problem with it.

When preachers tweet about their megachurch-running buddies, or about spending a few minutes in the glorious presence of famous athletes or entertainers, it shows where their treasure lies. They value promotion, admiration, and wealth. If they cared about their flocks, wouldn’t they spend their time talking about God, from scripture and experience? How is God glorified by your brief encounter with Shaquille O’Neal? Wouldn’t it be better to give people useful advice? Why not tell them to pray in tongues or to be sure to read the Bible? Why not remind them to be good to the poor? If things like that are important to you, you will talk about them.

In connection with this topic, I’m going to link to a video I saw a few days back. Tell me what you think of this.

VIDEO

Here is a Sample

As usual, I don’t know where to begin. I’ll just start typing and see what happens.

My old church gets wackier by the second. I don’t know if “wackier” is acceptable Christianese, but it’s apt. And I can’t get away from it. The leaders don’t seem to realize how hard it is to keep secrets in a church. Information comes to me whether I want it or not. It reminds me of the old Pajamas Media days, when people on the inside would tell me stuff in order to get it published.

They can’t seem to let things drop. My plan, until someone shoots me in the head, is to criticize Steve Munsey and other money-crazed preachers, as well as feel-good preachers, just as hard as I can, everywhere I can, and maybe that is keeping me at the top of the charts. That has been suggested to me. In any case, I know they’re still poking the fire.

The church discourages the acknowledgement of problems, and people are fairly good about keeping quiet in public, so I guess they kind of lose it when someone goes off the reservation and starts hammering the totally bogus doctrine of a prominent friend of the church. It must be completely amazing to them to load up Facebook and see me putting up photos of Munsey’s astounding claims. “The Atonement” is Rosh Hashanah! How much more wrong can a person get?

Why go after the Munseys and Osteens? That’s pretty simple. They hurt my friends.

I made all sorts of friends at the old church, and I still have them. They didn’t run off and shun me when I quit going. Many of them are poor. Just about all are looking for answers. “How can I please God?” “How can I get my prayers answered?” “How can I get out of a lifestyle of defeat and want?” “How can my family be healed?” The Munseys and Osteens and the other blind guides are hurting these people very badly. They are wasting their time. It would be bad if they merely didn’t help, but they are actively coming between these people and God, by giving them false hopes and useless strategies. Were it not for the false doctrine which wastes people’s time, money, and enthusiasm, many individuals in the church might be doing much, much better. Because God really does answer prayer and bless people, once they quit trying to buy him off with their rent money.

What kind of person would leave a church full of sincere, hurting people and never look back? That’s a particularly pointed question, when the person who left knows how to get in touch with God. I know how to do it. I can hook people up. So could the greedy feel-good pharaohs, if they would be honest with themselves, cut the crap, and teach the truth.

Well, they could if they KNEW HOW. My strong suspicion is that many of them would know how, if they would only listen to God instead of the soothing sound of paper landing in collection plates.

So to summarize, I believe I am still mischaracterized as the guy who sent the foxes into the fields, and the Philistines can’t figure out how to put out the fire. And I can’t stop telling the truth publicly, because people might be helped by it.

I’m told one bigwig may be having a change of heart toward the Holy Spirit. This person has asked people to pray in tongues. That’s a wonderful sign. I hope it means something. It’s good to see God smoosh your adversaries, but it’s better to see them get a clue and change their ways. After all, I used to be God’s adversary.

Today I talked to someone I thought would never leave the church. I thought this person had a phobia of criticism, and that it might be this person’s undoing. Today this person told me there was a “lack of leadership” at the church. This is someone who never said anything negative, even when it was called for. This is someone who never gave me a clue anything was wrong. This person left long before I did. Yet I’m perceived as the Svengali?

A week or two back, it rained. I was driving to New Dawn for my second visit, and I was thinking surely God would not let me get stuck in accident traffic on the way to this oasis of blessing. I was so eager to get there. And I made it. This week I learned that on that same day, my old church had 400 people at the second Sunday service.

The second Sunday service should have roughly a thousand people in attendance. It’s often higher. Outside of the somewhat embarrassing youth service on Tuesday night, which attracts tons of frivolous kids, the 11:00 a.m. service is the big weekly event. I used to run security during this service, so I know.

If rain can cut attendance by 60%, what does it say about the devotion the leaders are inspiring? I was highly disturbed by the prospect that I might not make it to New Dawn, and the rain was coming down in buckets. Would I have felt the same way while driving to the old place? Not unless they were counting on me to work.

I am told the leaders were very unhappy with attendance. It doesn’t take a genius to understand what happened. Men cut a hole in a roof so their buddy could meet Jesus, but folks at my old church weren’t willing to take a five-minute car ride and then walk a hundred feet under an umbrella. Clearly, the church has not shown them that there is anything worth showing up for.

Do the leaders realize this is their fault? Is there any possibility that they are aware that blaming other people is not going to fix things?

I’m also hearing that the upcoming youth conference is looking bad. People tell me ticket sales are a fraction of what they were last year. The church has to fill an expensive theater on the Beach. They have to pay whether or not anyone shows up. And they may be obligated to pay the acts that show up.

The conference is one reason I left. I knew they would expect me to fork out money for a ticket and then show up and work. And of course, there would then be offerings. Last year, I didn’t see a single speaker. I was doing security stuff outside and in the lobby. I got to make a good connection and talk to two people about tongues, but don’t ask me what happened on the stage.

This year, I couldn’t face another conference. I didn’t want to assist at an event where another bunch of young preachers tried to convince people they were cool. And I didn’t want to deal with the hurt feelings and quiet disapproval that would follow if I refused to buy a ticket or show up to work.

Last year one of the “cool” young preachers had a luggage problem, and he didn’t have his special American Outfitters preaching shirt, so volunteers had to run around the city looking for a new one. That really soured me on him and his pals. I was told it was American Outfitters, but maybe it was American Apparel. That would make more sense. Anyway, I doubt that shirt had special Holy-Spirit-wicking fibers in it.

When I left the church, I told them the Holy Spirit would bring people in, if he was given the chance. The Holy Spirit is so good, once people get introduced to him, they will want to be with him again. When prayers start getting answered and lives start changing, people will recommend the church. I got nowhere with that pitch.

I used to tell people that the church was like a parking lot full of shiny cars. Remove the cars that aren’t paid for, and what do you see? Maybe 25% remain. The rest were illusions. They belonged to banks. They didn’t represent wealth. They represented debt. What happens when the silly, half-Christian people leave a megachurch? Same thing. It may have happened at the rained-out service. A smart preacher would get the hint and make changes.

“A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.”

I wish I had told the head pastor how many church members had ridiculed or dismissed Steve Munsey in my presence. He came to our church and put on an extremely creepy show where he cut the bark off a shrub branch and compared donors to Jacob with his spotted cattle (it’s not worth explaining). He bragged about Beyonce and R. Kelly–every Christian’s role models–showing up at his church. About women, he said, “It’s okay to look, but you can’t touch!” while making startling squeezing gestures with his hands held up in front of him. And of course, while some people ate it up, godly people quietly said they were grossed out or just offended.

Thinking about it, I am reminded of “A Face in the Crowd.” This is an old Andy Griffith movie about a TV star who pandered to idiots. His name was Lonesome Rhodes. He hired a certified cretin–a man named Beanie–to pass judgment on his material. If Beanie liked it, Rhodes went with it. If not, it was cut.

If Steve Munsey puts on a horrifying, off-putting show at your church, and the dumbest people there go nuts, you don’t use that as a measure of the day’s success. If you can’t manage to get guidance from God, you talk to people you respect, and you listen to what they say.

I keep telling people I don’t want to talk about this stuff, but it seems like it keeps coming to me.

I don’t think it’s gossip. Correcting lies is not gossip. Defending yourself is not gossip. Exposing disgusting heresy masquerading as doctrine is not gossip. But I would like to move on.

I have been concerned about unforgiveness. I don’t want to be aggravated with these people for the rest of my life. Though I still talk about what has happened, I believe God has kept me out of the grudge trap. the other day I felt his grace hit me, and the annoyance melted out of me. I’m not thrilled with the way people are behaving, but believe it or not, I’m not bitter. That’s a blessing.

I’ve thought a little bit about anger. It’s not evil. If it were, Jesus would have been a much more cheerful guy. He was angry a LOT. So were the prophets. So anger is okay. But how long can you have it in you before it becomes problematic? I feel that God will permit you to be angry long enough to accomplish a worthy purpose, and then you have to get rid of it. I believe that has happened to me. I don’t sit around thinking about the scandalous behavior I know about. I don’t plot revenge. But I do talk about it, when I think it’s important to do so.

When God forgives, he forgets. He didn’t give us that ability, so he must not expect us to do the same. If you forget, you don’t learn. I forgive, but I will always remember. Nobody wants to step in the same pile of manure twice.

As for life outside that church, I continue to be amazed. God’s presence is overpowering sometimes. It happens at least once a day. Usually, it’s several times. My prayer time in the garage is beyond description. Waves of faith pound their way through me. Peace surrounds me like a fog. Signs keep following me.

Things keep getting better. And I’m not making huge donations to weird characters who use hair spray and wear orange suits. I’m not pursuing “The Torah Blessing.” I’m not wearing a genuine Jewish prayer shawl and lighting Sabbath candles. I’m not writing checks so I can get Steve Munsey’s seven nonexistent blessings of Passover, Pentecost, the Atonement, Groundhog Day, or Elvis’s birthday. I don’t have an anointed prayer cloth from Robert Tilton. I’m not a lifetime partner of The 700 Club. I don’t fool with ANY of that crap. What I have has been freely given, and you want it, you can have it for nothing.

What I’m doing is right. I’m honored to be insulted and slandered for it.

Thass a Big Twinkie

I know exactly what this is. It’s a sloar. And those things inside it are shubs and zulls.

Additional info:

Worse Than the Mormons

I have started to realize that my old church was a cult.

I don’t mean a full-bore, bank-account-linking, phone-tapping, making-you-put-them-in-your-will cult. It’s not like they had naked intitiation rituals or big filing cabinets full of stuff to use to blackmail people who left. And what they taught was primarily Christianity; the non-Christian stuff hadn’t completely displaced it. But they exerted way too much control over people, and it seemed like the leaders benefited from the flock more than the flock benefited from the church. Those are my impressions, anyway. I base them on several years of interaction with the church.

Since I left, they have done things that go beyond normal church behavior. When someone leaves, it may be okay to call and thank them for their past service, and to pray for their success. But they did things that were downright creepy. Things that were possessive, controlling, and sick. Not to mention cowardly.

I think there are things you have to ask yourself about your church’s leaders, in order to determine whether they’re veering into cult territory.

1. Do they ask you to do things for the pastor or his relatives, even when those things don’t benefit the church or advance God’s kingdom?

2. When things are given to the church, do they take them for themselves?

3. Are the pastors available to talk, or are they “VIPs” who are too busy and too inaccessible to speak with? Should a church even permit the use of the term “VIP”?

4. Are employees forced to do additional unpaid work?

5. How does the lifestyle of the pastors compare to that of people a notch or two lower on the food chain?

6. Is constructive criticism welcomed, and do the leaders act on it?

7. Does the church give to the poor? I don’t mean referrals to government agencies or real charities. Do they give people cash and goods? Special promotions don’t count. If a rich businessman gives the church a thousand shirts, and the church passes them out in front of TV cameras while taking full credit, it doesn’t qualify.

8. Are people afraid to express concerns to the pastors? When they do, do their relationships with the ruling clique suddenly grow cold?

9. Does the church generate and distribute an annual report? I don’t mean the garbage corporations file with secretaries of state. I mean a detailed account of what was taken in and where it was spent, with actual dollar figures. Do you know how much the church pays your pastor, and how much it spends on perks like airfare and hotels? Don’t you have a right to know, since it comes out of your pocket?

10. Are there a few people at the top who are incessantly promoted? Do undistinguished relatives of the people at the very top receive promotion that far outstrips their talents and character?

11. Is there an inner circle almost no one can crack? Do the pastors and their families have few or no real friends at the church?

12. Are virtually all of the head pastor’s friends preachers (especially preachers who are more successful)?

13. Does the inner circle have scandals everyone knows about, yet which are never confronted or acknowledged from the pulpit?

14. Does the church seem to avoid or limit activity which could be seen as promoting other local churches? Are the vast majority of preachers the pastor promotes located too far away to threaten your church’s attendance?

15. Has a leader at your church ever injected himself into your personal relationships in order to advance his own interests above yours?

16. Are people of no influence routinely ignored and pushed aside when they come forward with needs, while wealthy people with no discernible spiritual assets are invited to be part of the pastors’ social circle?

17. Does your church give VIP treatment to people simply because they’re wealthy or well-known? Would they seat someone like Luther Campbell in the front row and invite him backstage? Do they do the same thing with worldly professional athletes, whose tithes could make a huge difference in the church’s financial status? Do they seat politicians up front?

18. Does your church tend to choose physically attractive or young people for positions that require exposure before the public?

19. Does the church preach defensive sermons, showing that they are aware the flock is grumbling, yet seeking to shift blame instead of addressing the issues?

20. Does the church preach ridiculous, unscriptural “grow where you’re planted” sermons, intended to make people feel guilty about taking their tithes to other churches?

21. Does the church preach incessantly about giving tithes and offerings, while barely mentioning giving to the needy?

22. Does your church allow employees or volunteers to see information about your tithes and offerings, and do they speak to you about them when they drop?

It seems to me that my old church takes advantage of people and tries to control their thoughts. I think this is why God doesn’t bless the place. Their debt is enormous, and simple math appears to guarantee that there is no way they can get out of the hole simply through normal tithes and offerings, even if they continue having six services a week. The building is dirty. It’s in need of repairs. The sermons have become silly and boring. The music has gotten dull. The people at the top promote themselves nationwide, but they seem to be getting zero traction, and they will probably never end up like Joel Osteen or even Keith Craft or Steve Munsey. Serious Christians are leaving or reducing their roles.

There are a lot of gullible people there, and there are also people who are not gullible, yet who swallow more nonsense than they should, simply because they are used to trying to believe what preachers say. But the congregation is not completely stupid. Like Abraham Lincoln said, you can’t fool all the people all of the time. When you consistently treat people like suckers, they eventually figure it out. And the answer isn’t to whine and whimper about submission to authority. The answer is to admit fault, repent, and pray for God’s help.

I hope they decide to leave me and my friends alone. A pastor should not reach into another church and pester people who worship there, just because they used to go to his church. That’s like abducting someone’s kids. It is warped and wrong, and I hope they understand how inappropriate it is.

Is it Safe to Come Out?

God continues to amaze.

Weird things are happening at my old church, and I can say the same of my new church. The difference is that the things that are happening at my new church are positive.

I can’t believe how well I fit in. The pastor and his wife are COMPLETELY on board with the Holy Spirit.

Back around 1995, I turned on Fox News for the first time, and I had my usual emotional reaction to listening to the news. I braced myself for a pile of left-wing distortions, omissions, lies, and sneers. But it didn’t come. I thought something was wrong. I figured it was a momentary aberration. But they never returned to “normal.” No matter how many times I watched, I continued to see fair treatment of conservatives.

It felt odd. It didn’t seem right. It seemed like the other shoe was hovering over my head, waiting to drop.

The same thing is happening at my church. It’s freaking me out. I really mean that.

Every so often, I feel a powerful urge to post something about the Holy Spirit, or about the way modern charismatic churches have turned into whorehouses and cults. I’ve been posting stuff like that for quite some time. I’ve gotten used to the knowledge that I could be inviting rebukes or silent disfavor from people in authority, or from those they have succeeded in indoctrinating. I knew I was sealing myself out of the Circle of Trust, as one exiled volunteer put it to me in a moment of levity.

I don’t have that problem any more. If I post something on Facebook about the power of tongues, guess who shows up to “like” it or expand on it? The pastor or his wife! I’m not kidding!

Here’s a video I posted. It’s Glenn Arekion, on Sid Roth’s show, talking about the power of tongues. It’s one of the greatest teachings you will ever see. My pastor’s wife actually REPOSTED it. Can you even try to understand what that meant to me?

In my old church, they actually had a policy about who was allowed to receive or interpret a message in tongues. They apparently thought they could decide whom the Holy Spirit would choose, which is like trying to decide where lightning will strike.

I would guess that the aim was to avoid a scenario in which crazy people ran up and down the aisles gibbering and making things up, but it was not a good solution. After all, the Holy Spirit gives us direction, and like the Bible says, where there is no vision, the people perish.

I’ve come to realize that I was going to a de facto pre-charismatic church. Technically, they were charismatic. They taught that we should be baptized with the Holy Spirit. But they didn’t really believe God would do much for you.

The New Testament tells us the Holy Spirit will enter into us like a virus and grow and reproduce God’s nature in us. We’ll develop the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. We’ll have faith. We’ll work miracles. We’ll be more loving and self-disciplined. My church did not teach that. They admitted that the fruit and gifts existed, but they taught self-help and positive thinking. They said we should try to pray for 15 minutes a day; they didn’t tell us to do a lot of praying in tongues or with our understanding. They spent much, much more time talking about human effort than about God’s power, and like the Bible says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In other words, you are going to promote the things you actually care about. In other words, BS walks, etcetera.

There was one area in which they claimed God would move heaven and earth to help you. That was the area of money. If you gave burdensome, unscriptural offerings, God would repay you with giant returns. It hasn’t happened to anyone I know, but they taught it. Where are all the millionaire Christians? Haven’t seen them yet, although the prosperity gospel is over thirty years old. There are millionaires here and there, but the harvest that was predicted does not exist. There should be more millionaires and billionaires.

They taught that we would get “thirtyfold” and “hundredfold” returns on our offerings, but I don’t know one person–not one–who has had that experience. I know people who say giving has resulted in more prosperity, and I would not deny that, provided giving is done correctly, and that it’s not all you do. But let’s do some math so you will understand how far off the doctrine was.

Imagine you get a thirtyfold return on your tithes, and it kicks in on a yearly basis. One year, you give ten percent of your increase. The next year, God gives you thirty times that amount, or three times your original income. Your tithe should go up by a factor of three. The following year, God should give you thirty times three times your original tithe, or nine times your original income. So on the low end of the promise–”thirtyfold”–your income should multiply by three on a yearly basis. At the end of five cycles, you would be looking at three to the fifth power, or 243 times your original income. Before too long, you would own the entire planet.

I don’t know anyone who has seen their income multiply by 243, but I do know people who say they tithe yet have gone broke.

Anyway, it’s extremely odd that a church would tell people to expect God to work financial miracles, when they also tell them they have to help themselves in all other areas. It is suspicious.

The church taught about networking, which says a lot. They taught about things like good posture and exercise. Good stuff to know, I suppose, but it’s not really what the Bible is about. The Bible is about being filled with the presence of a loving, powerful supernatural being that changes you and fixes your problems.

What I’m saying here is that they taught about the Holy Spirit baptism, which makes them charismatic, but they lived like Baptists or Lutherans. They lived like people who had never heard of Azusa Street.

I showed a few people the power of tongues, and it worked for them, but the church never had any interest in it. Funny; those people have left or backed away from the church. The Holy Spirit brings revelation. He shows you problems with bad doctrine. He is the reason people are leaving.

Now I’m at a church where people are as excited about tongues as I am. I just don’t know what to do. I’m beside myself. I feel like I won the lottery. I would have been happy with less worldliness and venality. I never expected to find myself in such agreement with the people above me. I did not think such churches existed.

I feel like I got away from Pharaoh. When God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the Jews go, he told him to tell him they had to be released so they could serve God, or be his slaves. It wasn’t just a political liberation. They were under a worldly man who took too much of their time, work, and money. Their primary purpose was to serve God, not a greedy, self-promoting man who exalted himself above God. In moving to a church that respects the Holy Spirit, I feel that I will be free to serve God. The parallel is remarkable, especially since I started going to the new church during the week after Passover.

Obviously, the people who ran my old church were not on the same moral level as Pharaoh.

I could not bless my old church. I tried to write for them, free of charge, and I did good work, and nothing came of it. I cooked for them, and nothing came of it, even though I did such a good job, people begged me to go back. I tried to help fix up their cafe. The tools I brought in ended up gathering dust. I was initially invited to join the pastor’s prayer group, but that fizzled out. If it ever restarted, they did not inform me. I occasionally led a different prayer group, but the man who was in charge of it was fired by the church (his position was eliminated), and the group vanished. I joined the official prayer team, but I saw they were doing things that I had been taught were dangerous, so I quit.

There was nothing I could do to help the leadership. I felt like I was pouring fertilizer into the sewer. And when I gave them advice, the usual response was to reject it and criticize my negativity, or just shine me on. “That’s great, Steve. We love you, bro.” God hasn’t sent them anyone else who can do what I can do. Why would he?

I only succeeded as an Armorbearer. A sort of security guard. That’s nice, and it produced a lot of good fruit, but making me a security guard is like hiring an electrician to compose an opera. God gives people gifts for a reason, and when his blessings flow, people are matched with the jobs God equipped them to do.

I don’t know what I’ll do at the new place, but I know I’ll be able to do the most important thing of which I’m capable. I’ll be able to promote the Holy Ghost. Everything else is peanuts. If I teach someone to pray in tongues, no one is going to come along behind me and say I’m wrong. In fact, I’ll be reinforcing what they already teach. That’s what I would have done at the old church, if I had been able to!

I don’t care about the cooking. A church shouldn’t run a business, anyway. You can’t serve God and Mammon, and you shouldn’t waste people’s tithes subsidizing a failed restaurant. Not when you have other bills you can’t pay. I’ll be using my cooking talents in my home from now on, when I invite friends for prayer meetings. That’s good enough.

When I worked on a kibbutz, I met a man who had starved during the Holocaust. When he worked in the kibbutz kitchen, they had to send people behind him to clean up. He used to hide food in the cabinets. He couldn’t help it. He could not get used to the idea that food would continue to be provided for him.

I feel like that man. I’m so used to being suppressed and disappointed, I feel like I can’t stand up straight and relax. Can I really be in a church that listens to God and moves in his guidance and power? Can it really be that people won’t take advantage of me and say one thing to my face and another behind my back? I can’t get used to that paradigm. I need time to heal, so I won’t transfer the emotions I felt at the old church to the innocent people at the new church. I know they won’t be perfect, but most likely, there are some depths to which they will not sink.

I miss my mom. Every so often, she gave me a piece of wonderful advice. The language was a little harsh, but I’ll repeat it anyway. One day she told me a friend’s ex-husband had bought the friend a new Lincoln Town Car. I asked why he would do that. And she said, “Because not everyone is a son of a bitch.” That really stuck with me. It’s wiser than it sounds.

I would never call anyone at my old church a thing like that. I don’t think they sit around plotting to do evil. But I have always treasured that lesson, and the fundamental idea applies. Every preacher falls short of the glory of God, but they are not all so carnal you can’t deal with them. There are churches where people are treated pretty well. Even on this cursed planet, that is not too much to expect.

I was going to write about something else. Oh, well. Tomorrow.

I Leak my Own Sensitive Information for the Sake of Efficiency

In case anyone is monitoring my website here are a few facts. It would be easier to call me and ask, but anyway:

1. I was not the first person in my social circle to leave my church.

2. Several people left or chose new positions before I took off.

3. I did not tell any of them to leave.

4. I was surprised when they left, because I did not know it was going to happen.

5. I do not know why every person left. Some told me. Others did not.

6. I did not tell them to go to New Dawn, because I did not know it existed.

7. No one told me to leave.

8. No one told me to try New Dawn. I asked people what they thought about it, and it sounded pretty good, so I decided to take a look.

9. More people are planning to leave or considering leaving, so yes, it will get worse. I have not injected them with drugs or put implants in their brains. I have no control over what they do. I did not put the idea of leaving in their heads. I don’t even know who all of them are.

10. I did recruit two friends.

Hope this saves you some time.

Plus Negative Feedback

The new amp is done, except for some soldering and the installation of the cord and fuse.

I think it came out very well, given that I started with a piece of aluminum that had been banged around in a metal dealer’s establishmen. Here’s a photo.

If you’re an amp guy, you will see a potential problem there. When you work on projects like this, it’s easy to get too close to the work and forget what you’re doing. I accidentally mounted one of the output transformers in such a way that the laminates are coplanar with the power transformer laminates. Supposedly, this can cause a coupling effect, so the 60 Hz buzz from the AC goes out through the power tubes.

I don’t know which way the bobbins inside these things are oriented. The wire coils inside go around bobbins, and the magnetic fields generated by the transformers are parallel to the axes of the bobbins, as they exit the metal. I think. That’s what my physics background suggests. I believe the fields would be strongest at the ends of the power transformer bobbins, so if it’s pointing at the OT, it could be bad. But maybe it’s pointing the other way, which would be okay. Maybe.

I have found out about a way to test for hum. Before you put the amp together, you stick the transformers in place, and you connect the OT to a speaker or a set of headphones. You connect the PT to an AC source, and you listen to see if it makes the headphones hum. If so, you have to move the OT around until it stops. I guess I’ll do that tomorrow.

I feel like writing some more about my new church. I have been a little reluctant to do that, because it has been suggested to me that certain people at my old church are under the impression that positive remarks about New Dawn are “Trinity-bashing.” I hope that’s not true, but if it is, they’re going to have to hitch up their diapers and take it. There is only so much I can do to avoid offending them, short of wearing a muzzle.

Last week I suggested a friend of mine visit the new place. I’ve already covered some of this in posts I took down. He didn’t fit in at the old church, and he was part of the little circle of people who were excited about prayer in tongues. The Holy Spirit worked a shocking change in him after he started praying in tongues regularly, and he started getting all sorts of revelation. A number of people noticed it. Anyway, he was in a slump, and I thought the new place would suit him.

When I got to church on Sunday, he had already been there for 50 minutes. He said he already knew the pastor. He also had relatives all over the church. His nephew was an usher. He had been there before. I didn’t know any of this. I just thought he would do better there.

The pastor preached on John 15 and Matthew 7. In John 15, Jesus said he was the vine, and that branches that didn’t abide in him would be cast into the fire, and in Matthew 7, he said false prophets would come and take advantage of the flock.

Let’s see if I can remember the important points.

The pastor said the bit about casting people into the fire was not about us. It was about the false prophets. He said God “pruned” us, as a gardener would prune useful branches to improve the yield, but that he would not discard us. That makes sense to me. We are taught that it’s pretty hard to lose salvation, but we also know that if we pray in the Spirit, God will change us from inside and help us bear fruit.

False prophets, on the other hand, are not part of the vine, so they may be cast aside. Makes you wonder about Steve Munsey’s status, since he is clearly making up doctrine that makes him money, serving his own belly instead of the Lord. I assume he’s a Christian, but you never know.

He also taught about Luke 16, in which Jesus told us that if we were not faithful with other people’s things, God would not give us our own things. He said he had worked in other people’s ministries, and that he had been faithful, and that now he had his own ministry.

Naturally, I wondered if he was going to say something indicating that my friends and I had blown it by not sticking with our old church, but on the contrary, he said that if you can’t be fruitful under one man’s ministry, it’s time to pack up and move to another.

My friend Alonzo had moved to New Dawn before I had. He and his wife were sitting across the room when the pastor said the bit about packing up. I looked toward them, and she was looking at me and my other friend. We were all thinking the same thing.

Later in the service, the leaders were getting into prayer and prophecy. There was no tightly scripted service at this point. If you’re Spirit-filled, you know how a minute-by-minute schedule can prevent the Holy Spirit from working. They were calling people up, and somebody called Alonzo and his wife.

For a long time, they have wanted to have a ministry helping people with marriage. They want to write a book on God’s advice for couples. When they met me and learned that I was a writer, they asked for my help. At the old church, they had tried to work in the new ministry for couples, but their ideas had been shot down. I’m not saying they were right or wrong, but they were shot down.

While they were at the front of the room, the prophecy started. They were told they were going to have a ministry for married people. They were told that God had not given up on them. The message seemed to be, “You may have thought you were going to be be ignored forever, but I’m going to bring you through this.”

That was amazing. They’ve had some really tough times, and they’ve had to deal with rejection and discouragement, so they needed to hear that God was still with them. And the pastor had no way of knowing they wanted to run a couples’ ministry. He hadn’t seen them in two weeks. They weren’t planning to join the church. He barely knew them.

There is one other person I’ve been trying to bring to New Dawn. He’s a musician. He’s looking for a place where the Holy Spirit is free to act. While I was standing around after the service, the music director came over and asked if any of us were musicians. They’re recruiting! So now I had some ammunition. God saw the need, and he put this tool in my hand.

Since Sunday, I’ve been Facebooking, as usual. The Holy Spirit keeps doing great things in my life, and I write about it. I write about the power of tongues. Guess what? The pastor has been “liking” my statuses. He believes the same things I do! I had no idea. It’s so strange to have my doctrine ENDORSED by a pastor. It’s like the first time I watched Fox News. I thought something was wrong, because they weren’t slanting the news way to the left. I thought it was a momentary aberration, but eventually I realized they were different.

My new pastor really believes in the Holy Spirit. When he posts on Facebook or writes on his blog, he says things I agree with. I don’t have to hide and scurry around by the baseboards. I can say what I know, without worrying about what people will think.

I know he thinks like I do, because when he thinks he’s not getting a good response from the crowd, he’ll call them “this Methodist church” or “this Baptist church.” He’s kidding, but I know what he means. He means we shouldn’t be like backward churches that teach salvation but stop short of the Holy Spirit message.

I sincerely believe that while my old church is nominally Assemblies of God, which means “kooky charismatics,” in practice and belief, it’s closer to the Baptists or Presbyterians. If you say God healed you miraculously or did some other supernatural work in your life, people in authority don’t seem to buy it. They preach that God will work miracles in order to give you a huge return on your tithes, which isn’t true, but other than that, they don’t seem to think he’ll do much for people. They teach self-reliance. Very strange.

I got an interesting revelation about the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us that you can be forgiven for speaking against the Father or the Son, but that those who spoke against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. Here’s what I believe God told me.

God told ancient people about the Father, and some did okay with that, and others fell away. So he sent Jesus. Some went forward with Jesus, and others fell away. Jesus asked the Father to forgive those who put him to death, because they did not know what they were doing. When Jesus left, he sent the Holy Spirit. This is all God has left. There is no fourth manifestation. Every Spirit-baptized charismatic knows about the Holy Spirit. When the churches persecute and exclude and slander him, as they do, daily, no one can say, “They know not what they do.” If they reject him and lie about him and suppress him, while speaking in his name and fleecing the sheep, they will have no excuse, so they will be judged.

Churches are teaching that tongues are of the devil, or that they are just “evidence” of the Spirit’s presence. They deny Paul, who made it clear that prayer in tongues builds us up, and who linked the Armor of God to prayer in tongues. They are depriving people of the only means of receiving improved character (the fruit of the Spirit) and supernatural weapons (the gifts of the Spirit). As a result, people remain in what the Bible calls “iniquity” and “lawlessness.” The Holy Spirit isn’t powerful in them, so they don’t receive his guidance, so the law is not written on their hearts. They don’t have God’s GPS.

Some Christians teach that you get the whole Holy Ghost package as soon as you accept salvation. That’s just plain stupid. Martin Luther believed, yet he hated Jews. Is that the fruit of the Spirit? Jimmy Swaggart is a charismatic, so he has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which puts him one step beyond mere salvation. Does he strike you as a person whose nature is like that of God? Is he mature? Is he even honest? Of course not. Kenneth Copeland is a charismatic, and he’s downright mean. So where are the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, which these people and many other carnal Christians supposedly received in full measure?

Don’t even try to tell me they’re supposed to TRY. If it comes from human effort, it’s not the Holy Spirit. Anyone can try. The fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit have to be more than that.

Jesus taught us that the Kingdom of God was within us, and that it grew gradually, like a mustard tree. He also called tongues “living water.” What do trees need in order to grow? Use your head.

I think the big lesson here is that no matter how easy God makes it, we will find a way to rebel. Sadly, the most influential rebels run the churches of this world. That may be about to change. God is patient, but we may be about to see a little judgment.

Ptooey

Peculiar events are taking place at my old church, and I think it has reached the point where I need to do anything I can to put out the fire. A friend I respect–someone who is a strong believer in the Holy Spirit and the power of tongues–called me up and gave me a word, and I think this person is right. I believe God gave him an answer for us.

Nobody reads this blog any more, and nothing I put up here can have any serious consequences, but I’m concerned that things I’ve written here and elsewhere have veered into the carnal realm. The center of my life is my belief in the power of God. The funny thing is, you can end up using the flesh to promote God’s power, and that doesn’t work. Such carnality is the thing that disappoints me about modern charismatic churches, so I shouldn’t let myself fall into the same trap.

No one is going to be persuaded by criticism that stings too much. So I’m going to go back over things I’ve posted, and I’ll take down anything that seems counterproductive.

I don’t think people at my old church get up in the morning and ask themselves what they can do to mess up the kingdom of God. I think they could do a lot better, but so could I.

I’ve been trying to let this drop, as I noted yesterday. The future is my home. I don’t want to get dragged backward in a petty squabble over nothing. I am concerned about the people I left behind, but I can do more for them by praying and being an example than by using persuasive words.

I am not going to quit glorifying God, and if that means saying good things about my new church, that’s what I’ll do. My old church taught us to get on the Internet and tweet and Facebook like crazy. They can’t teach that and then tell us not to do it for other churches. But I’m going to try to avoid putting anything up which they will see as targeted at them.

Steve Munsey…hmm. I sincerely believe it would be a sin to sit by and say nothing about his awful doctrine. It can do a lot of harm. But maybe I’ve made my point with the things I’ve already said. And ultimately, the thing that will expose him is closeness with the Holy Spirit. People who pray in tongues receive understanding. The best solution would be for God to get Munsey himself to repudiate his claims.

A church is its people, and by that standard, my old church is incredible. I hope they begin to reach their potential. I hope they start to receive everything I’ve received, and more. They don’t need me; they need the Holy Spirit.

I think I should put one rumor to bed, before I stop writing. I didn’t instigate anything. A whole bunch of people left the church BEFORE I did. They surprised me when they took off. And they’re not all going to my new church. On top of that, many people have told me–with no prompting–that they are unhappy, or that they’ll be moving on. Truly, I am not the problem. I didn’t cause it, and I can’t fix it.

When I got to New Dawn, friends of mine were already there. And they NEVER recruited me. I pried information out of them, and I liked what I heard, so I checked it out. And the other people who left…I don’t even know where they went. I should call them and see how they’re doing.

I reached out to two or three people, because I thought they really needed a new spiritual home, but there is no secret drive to lure people away.

Anyway, I’m not going to be Satan’s Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robot. I’m all done. Let change and healing start.

Dr. Munsey Says So

I must take a moment to comment, again, on Steve Munsey’s disturbing ideas.

Munsey says “the Jews” (doesn’t say “men”) went to Jerusalem three times a year, for Passover, Pentecost, and the Atonement. The Hebrew names for these holidays are Pesach, Shavuot, and Yom Kippur, in that order. He says they brought their “very best offerings.” He says that, in exchange, God gave them “seven blessings,” which he has gathered from various corners of the Pentateuch.

I always thought this was funny, because only Jewish men went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage days, and they didn’t go on Yom Kippur. And of course, there were no big cash offerings, and there were no lists of rabbinically approved blessings which God sold the Jews.

It gets even funnier. Well, sadder, really, I suppose I should not laugh. Elijah got smacked down pretty good after he ridiculed the false prophets.

I thought Munsey was confusing Yom Kippur with Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. Sukkot, not Yom Kippur, was the third pilgrimage (at least in the Gregorian year; don’t get me confused). It turns out it’s much worse than that. He’s conflating Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets).

You really have to see this. It’s precious. Here’s a picture from Munsey’s website. As you can see, he says “the Atonement” is “the Feast of Trumpets.”

Click to read it.

I don’t know what’s in this guy’s heart. I’ve met him. He seems nice enough. But it looks bad, doesn’t it? If he were preaching this stuff in conjunction with a request for prayer or an instruction to read the Bible, it might not be so fishy-smelling, but he’s doing it in connection with a request to give HIM a big pile of MONEY, not once, but THREE times a year.

It’s always troubling when people make “errors” that work in their favor.

Anyway, you would have to be a fool to give money to a Seven Blessings drive. And I have done it, so I know what that makes me. I didn’t know this stuff came from Munsey, and also, I guess I was stupid. As a Christian, you get used to opening your mind and your heart, and that’s a good time for an enemy to shove something in.

Oh, Right. CHURCH.

Today I tried a new church. New Dawn Ministries in North Miami. A buddy of mine–a fellow armorbearer–has already moved there. He was there to welcome me. I was permitted to pack heat in the service, so right away, things were headed in the right direction.

I’m tired, so I don’t want to write a lot, but I can tell you I’m going back next Sunday, and I’ve told my church’s armorbearers I may be leaving.

Critiques: the service was WAY long. That’s fine when you can account for the time, but sometimes a service will have long periods where nothing much is going on, and someone needs to wake up and make a transition to the next thing.

Actually, that’s the only critique.

Positives: these people really believe in the Holy Spirit. They don’t just say they believe, while pushing positive thinking and stuff taken from motivational speakers and corporate trainers. The preacher taught from the word, not Dale Carnegie. The Holy Spirit clearly guided him; the lesson he taught was something I really needed to learn, and it came at a very appropriate time. The church is insanely clean, and you don’t see crazy problems like broken chairs and doors that don’t work. The music ministry is freer. The pastor has time to talk to people, and he is serious about serving. They don’t nag about money. They didn’t lay a guilt trip on the congregation for not doing enough for the church. I felt bursts of supernatural faith going through me in the service, to the point where my head actually hurt a little, and this has continued since I left. Parking is very good. The drive is shorter than the drive to the other church.

Here’s a big positive: no Steve Munsey craziness.

The church is tiny; I would say two hundred people were there, in sanctuary maybe sixty feet square. It goes without saying that they don’t have a restaurant, a dance studio, an ice rink, a movie theater, and all the other time-wasting, money-wasting, secular junk you are likely to find in a megachurch. That makes me happy. Like Jesus said, you can’t serve God and Starbucks.

People spoke in tongues onstage. That was nice. They didn’t stand up there and ramble for no reason, but a few spurts came out from time to time, and I consider that very healthy. If you’re ashamed of the Holy Spirit, you are in real trouble. My church tends to suppress manifestations of the Holy Spirit, which is pretty odd, considering it’s Assemblies of God.

Until today’s service was over halfway done, I did not realize how fatigued I had become at my church. I felt as though a great weight were sliding off my shoulders. I was actually getting something from church, instead of giving, giving, giving, GIVING. I felt like a sled dog being given a bowl after going a week without water. It was the exact same sensation you get after ending a major ordeal that has sapped your strength. If you’ve ever settled a lawsuit, you know how I felt on the way home. I felt like sleeping! Tension had left me.

Sometimes you can be under stress and in great need without realizing it. I had expected to continue at my church for several months, and I wasn’t really disturbed by the prospect, but now that I know I don’t have to, I feel overwhelming relief. I realize I have to go back to New Dawn, and if my perceptions are confirmed, I have to stay. I have to get a friend of mine to go, too. I know a young man who is so fed up with my church, he’s about to snap. I don’t want to be a recruiter who tries to gut one church in favor of another, but I’m going after this kid. His need is too great to ignore.

I learned that New Dawn has armorbearers, and they would probably want me on the team. Sounds okay, but right now, I just want to go to church again. For months, I’ve been spending my church time working or shooting the breeze with friends. I want to sit there and soak it in.

I feel like a refugee. Really. It surprises me.

I saw a couple of blog posts I wrote a few years back. I see that I was much more supportive of my church’s policies and actions back then. The Holy Spirit has really opened my eyes, and on top of that, the church has deteriorated spiritually. A lot of the more sincere Christians are complaining or leaving. We are seeing a power shift from a sixtyish pastor to his thirtyish son, and the emphasis is headed in the MTV direction. Increasingly, youth is exalted, and ignorant, worldly young people with zero humility and zero judgment are getting more prominence. People like me are not appreciated. It’s okay to spend a limited amount of time in an environment like that, for a good reason, but like I said last week, Jesus told us to shake the dust off our shoes and take our blessedness elsewhere. No matter how I try, my church will not let me bless it. Maybe this one will.

Zimmerman Prosecutor Fail

I watched the last 20 minutes or so of George Zimmerman’s bond hearing today.

You can get bogged down in the details and sniping, but it makes more sense to examine the dispositive issues.

In order to convict George Zimmerman, the state has to prove certain things. If Zimmerman did not start a fight, and he shot to prevent a forcible felony (aggravated assault or aggravated battery), or if he was in actual, reasonable fear of severe bodily harm, he walks.

People think you can only shoot if you’re in reasonable apprehension of severe bodily injury or death. That’s wrong. Look at the statute. You can shoot to prevent a forcible felony, including aggravated assault, IF you have clean hands. If someone is committing a forcible felony, you are PRESUMED to be in fear of death or great bodily harm.

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

That’s a cut-and-paste. Look at the last part of it.

Here is the definition of “forcible felony”:

Forcible felony.—“Forcible felony” means treason; murder; manslaughter; sexual battery; carjacking; home-invasion robbery; robbery; burglary; arson; kidnapping; aggravated assault; aggravated battery; aggravated stalking; aircraft piracy; unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb; and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

The state has to prove Martin was not in the process of committing a forcible felony when he was shot, AND that Zimmerman was not in reasonable fear of great bodily harm.

I now believe they have no chance. If the state has a bombshell that will convict Zimmerman, they haven’t shown it yet, and they have made it clear they can’t prove Zimmerman was the aggressor.

Sometimes it’s good to separate known facts from opinions and disputed facts, so let’s look at facts that can’t be reargued.

Fact (admitted by the state under oath):

1. Zimmerman and Martin fought.

2. Zimmerman had lacerations on the back of his head, consistent with having an assailant beat his head against a sidewalk.

3. There are no witnesses to the start of the fight.

4. The state has no evidence that Zimmerman was not attacked.

5. Martin was shot up close, possibly with the gun barrel against him.

You don’t really need more than that. Again, the burden of proof is on the state, and it’s very high. They can’t win by proving Zimmerman COULD have been the aggressor. They have to show that it’s the only explanation a reasonable person could accept.

Zimmerman only has to show that his version COULD be true. That’s it.

If you can’t prove Zimmerman started the fight, you can’t prove Martin wasn’t committing (or about to commit) a forcible felony. The beating took place. That can’t be disputed. If Zimmerman was attacked and Martin was beating his head on a concrete sidewalk, Zimmerman had every reason to believe the attack would progress at least to aggravated assault, and possibly to aggravated battery or murder. That’s just common sense.

If Martin attacked, it triggers the statute, and that would end the case instantly.

If Martin had merely punched him, there could be doubt. But he beat Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk, opening two long gashes, and he broke his nose. These acts may constitute a felony in and of themselves, and coupled with Martin’s persistence (shown by the number of injuries) they definitely establish the intent to commit a felony.

The only issue is who started it. And the state has affirmatively averred it has no evidence proving Zimmerman is lying about that particular fact. With no other evidence, his word is the most powerful guide the jury has.

What if Martin had been shot from a distance? It would cast doubt on Zimmerman’s story. You can shoot to put an end to a felony, but you can’t shoot once your attacker gets up and runs off. What if Zimmerman had no injuries, or the injuries were not consistent with a battery? He would have a hard time showing a felony had been in progress. But the injuries are there, and the state says they conform to his story.

What if a witness had seen Zimmerman attack Martin? That would be powerful evidence that he committed a crime. But no such witness exists. The state says so, under oath. Witnesses heard people argue. One witness said one “figure” chased another past her home, and she can’t identify them (and chasing is not a crime). Another witness saw Zimmerman on his back under Martin. No matter how you slice it, the state has a hard row to hoe.

The cops say Zimmerman claimed Martin covered Zimmerman’s mouth and nose, and that it was at this point that Zimmerman grabbed his gun and fired. The prosecutor say they have evidence that Zimmerman is wrong. That’s fine, but it wouldn’t affect the outcome. You can say something that isn’t true and still be innocent. Maybe Zimmerman stretched the truth or even lied, but if Martin was on top of him, and Martin was the aggressor, the state loses.

Remember, Zimmerman hasn’t been charged with perjury. Murder is the charge. He can lie all day and still be innocent of murder, as long as the physical evidence backs him up, and there are no witnesses to contradict him.

The longer this case goes on, the more disgusted I become. The arrest and charges are the result of the public outcry, not a proper investigation and determination of probable cause. The governor denies this, but look at the facts. Zimmerman was free and in the clear until people started raising hell. There was no chance of an arrest. It’s amazing that the governor would tell such an obvious lie. It is definitely a lie; there is no other explanation.

I doubt Zimmerman will be tried. If O’Mara is any kind of lawyer, he’ll get this thing dismissed. The judge may be a politician, and if he is, he’ll rule in favor of the state. I guess that’s the state’s only hope. But they still have to get a jury to buy their theory.

Anything is possible. Shocking new evidence could come to light, proving Zimmerman’s guilt. But right now, by its own admission, the state has nothing.

Relief is in Sight

As usual, too much is going on to write about.

First of all, I finished the JTM45 clone I was building for my friend Joe. The JTM45 is a Marshall amp which is a pretty faithful copy of the Fender 5F6A Bassman. The version my friend chose uses KT66 tubes, which are fundamentally similar to the Bassman’s 6L6s.

We had a number of problems. He bought a Mojo Tone chassis, and it didn’t fit the Classictone transformer he chose. I’ve been getting help from amp builders, and they have convinced me that Mojo is not a good place to get chassis. The cutouts and round holes are not well thought-out, so you can end up with things that don’t fit.

To make the power transformer work, I had to enlarge and move the existing opening, and I had to machine (from scratch) an aluminum spacer to connect the transformer to the chassis. This was a lot of aggravation, but the result was beautiful. Looking at the amp, you would never know the transformer didn’t fit. I’ll repost a couple of photos.

I also had a problem with one of the power supply capacitors. The JTM45 is a box of components that sits in a wooden cabinet with a flat bottom. The box is supposed to rest directly on the wood. But Mojo predrills holes that situate the capacitor below the box. It projects down out of the box about half an inch. This is just crazy. There is no way on earth to make it fit the cabinet (which Mojo makes). Last week I got the amp running, and Joe brought me the cabinet. I had never seen a JTM45 cabinet before. I just assumed there was a way to make it fit. But incredibly, there was not.

We looked at the chassis for a while. I loosened the screws holding the cap, and I swung it up out of the way. It fit perfectly. Here is the mystery: why didn’t Mojo drill screw holes that put it in this position? I thought there had to be a reason, but I couldn’t see it.

I got out a punch, and I made two dimples on the inside of the box. Then I used my Jobmax right-angle drill, some WD40, and a nice cobalt drill bit to make two new screw holes. We screwed the cap in place, and everything was fine. What a relief. If it hadn’t worked, we would have had to use different capacitors, or I would have had to undo a bunch of wiring and move the cap across the box.

We put the amp together, and Joe fired it up. The sound is incredible. Maybe as good as the Bassman. It’s clear. It’s pretty quiet. It’s sweet.

We had some noise problems at first, and that scared me, but it turned out the JJ 12AX7 in V1 was the issue. Evidently these tubes are inherently noisy. Joe put a Tube Amp Doctor 12AX7-SC in there, and the noise dropped, and the amp also sounded better. It had a sweeter, creamier tone, somewhat like a 12AY7. Lesson learned.

Here are a couple of photos I took that day.

The other guy in the photos is Zach. He’s a blues guitarist. He wants to build a Trainwreck clone.

I’m not totally sure what my next project will be. I want to build a Bassman-based amp with 4 6BM8 output tubes. A guy who calls himself “Da Geezer” designed a 6BM8 amp called the Little Wing, and it’s based on the Bassman, but it lacks the second channel and added inputs. It’s limited to 7 watts because it only has two output tubes. He says I can put the Bassman front end back and add extra tubes so I can have more juice when I want it.

I’m also looking at a wrecked Fender “The Twin” red-knob amp. This is a 100-watt amp with a switch that cuts the power to 25 watts. They were not popular, but they’re very good amps. I found one on Craigslist for $200. It needs about $320 in parts to get it working. I’m considering offering $50. I don’t think anyone else will buy it. It’s too messed up.

It’s nice to be able to rebuild and redesign basket-case amps. It really doesn’t matter what I buy, because I can turn anything into a good amp.

I’m also considering moving to a new church. One of my buddies–the head Armorbearer at my church–had some issues he had to address. His wife is a very nice lady, but she felt my church was too cliquish. She couldn’t really connect, even though her husband had a position of prominence. This is not a big shock. Our church tends to promote young, good-looking, hip people, as well as people who make money or have connections. There is a big concern with what’s cool and trendy. And it also helps if you can do something the church really needs. I don’t think she fit in the desired categories. She’s not an MTV type. So she may well have been excluded.

She found another church, and she started attending, even though her husband was still volunteering at Trinity. I started hearing good things about it. Lots of prayer during services. Focus on the Holy Spirit. No yammering about self-help and money. I envied my friends, but I thought the church was near their home, up in Coral Springs. I was not going to drive that far. Also, even though I’ve become completely disconnected from the teaching at my church, I have strong attachments to the people, and while I wasn’t receiving much from the church, I felt fulfilled with regard to giving and interacting with others.

Now my buddy is done with Trinity. He’s cutting ties and moving. And this weekend, he told me the church is in North Miami. I was shocked. How could I have been unaware of this? It’s a shorter drive than the one I make now. When I heard that, I felt like a weight slid off my back and a door opened before me. Maybe God had been preparing this place for me during the months when I was praying for a better church.

I had assumed that God wanted me to stay at Trinity for at least a few more months, and I was content with that. I love the people. It’s not like I’m miserable there. But it’s wonderful to know I may be able to get out sooner. I’m visiting the other church this weekend. I have very high hopes.

Ending a relationship is funny. Until you make the decision to quit, you may not realize how much you’ve wanted out. I still remember dumping a maladjusted girlfriend when I was in law school. Before the breakup, she didn’t seem all that terrible, but after I pulled the plug, I realized what a mess she was, and how annoying her nasty side could be. I had stifled those thoughts when we were together, in order to make it work. I guess the same thing happens when you leave a church. You realize it’s okay to feel relieved, so the stress just melts out of you without warning. Suddenly you feel like you’re standing straighter.

I can tell you what I look forward to.

It will be nice not to have to hear Steve Munsey’s self-serving money-based doctrine. There are no authentic lists of “seven blessings” associated with giant cash offerings at Passover, Pentecost, and Yom Kippur. That’s something he made up, and we hear about it all the time. Jews never had to give big cash offerings on the feast days, and they were never promised “seven blessings” in return. If your church is in debt, the answer isn’t manipulation, legalism, Judaizing, and gimmicks. The answer is to please God and obtain his help. My church can’t get prosperity the way we’re supposed to, so we’re trying to do it the Munsey way. And it doesn’t work. We still have debt.

It will be nice to be able to talk. Kids run our sound and media department, and a young, headstrong pastor is in charge of them. That means we hear obnoxious disco music even between services. It drives people crazy. Many, many people complain about it. People come to church and leave on the first visit because of it. It’s probably killing our growth. The new place has loud music, but they shut it down after worship, the way you’re supposed to.

I look forward to having my freedom back. If I were doing what was demanded of me, I would be serving at two services on Sunday, attending a Saturday service, attending a volunteer “DNA” meeting once a month, attending a 6 a.m. Armorbearer training session once a month, serving several days in a row at our yearly Rendezvous conference (for which I would be expected to buy a ticket), serving extra days when asked (with short notice or no notice), and cooking on demand. That’s too much. We’re told we have to tithe our time. Well, I pray two to four hours a day. That’s 14 hours right there, minimum. I guarantee I spend at least 16.8 hours a week with God. So anything I give my church is above the tithe. And prayer is much more important than anything I do at church.

I’m hoping I will never have to hear the word “VIP” again. It’s disturbing that I ever heard it in church. We reserve seats for holy people like Luther Campbell and Tim Hardaway (a basketball player). We chauffeur visiting speakers around, and it’s understood that we’re not supposed to talk to them too much, because…they’re VIPs. Which makes you wonder what we are. I call us “VUPs.” Figure it out.

We have actually had secure areas for VIPs, with special food other people can’t have. Aren’t VIP areas for strip clubs? Am I crazy? Why would you have one in a church? I can understand having a place for people to put their feet up and collect their thoughts. But that’s not the same thing. We have never had a lounge for volunteers, even when we worked 15-hour days.

I hope I’ll actually be able to talk to a pastor once in a while. And I don’t mean talking about volunteer work. I’d like to KNOW these people. Right now, I don’t talk to any of our pastors. They’re busy. Half the time, they’re on planes or staying in other cities. And they have no interest in talking to me. They say hi and so on, but when I go home at the end of a service, I know for a fact that I won’t have any communication with a pastor for seven days.

I would like to know that I won’t be badgered for money. Christians talk a lot about tithing. Here’s a terrible secret: God doesn’t require us to tithe. Preachers hate hearing that, but it’s true. Tithing comes from the Jewish law, which does not apply to us. It’s a good IDEA to tithe. But really, you’re supposed to develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit, and you should give (or withhold) as he directs. I am really tired of being goaded. Every Sunday, we put a pastor on the stage to give a pitch, and they tell us God will give is a big ROI. I realize we have a lot of cheap people who need to learn to give, but if we introduced them to the Holy Spirit and helped them grow, the giving would come naturally. We wouldn’t have to jawbone them like reluctant car buyers.

I want to hear about the Holy Spirit, and I want to experience his presence in church, as I do at home. I’m tired of backward self-improvement nonsense masquerading as doctrine. I can’t believe we let Brian Klemmer come to our church and teach the same stuff they used to teach at EST seminars. Find that in the Bible for me. I’ll give you a hundred years to look it up.

I guess this is a horrible thing to say. Brian Klemmer came to our church (selling expensive secular self-help seminars), and he told us he had a 500-year plan for his life. As a Christian, he had plans for what he would be doing hundreds of years into the future. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but can anyone seriously believe that right now, he’s working on that plan? He died from a torn carotid artery a while back. Is he really in heaven, carrying out a plan his tiny human brain made, in a place he could not understand when the plan was made? Is anyone stupid enough to believe that? But we sat there and lapped it up.

I know there are no perfect churches. But not all churches are sick. There are ministries you can support and be part of without feeling like a sucker.

The main thing that bugs me about my church is that I can’t recommend it to people. New people come in, and I’m glad they’re trying to get to know God, but I know they’re headed for some serious disappointments if they stay. I have friends who get discouraged. I can’t tell them to stick it out. Not in good conscience.

I’ve been praying for the church to change, and my faith has been telling me it will, but I still think I’m leaving. I think a bunch of us will leave. Two Armorbearer families are gone. I’m on the way. If it works for me, I’m going to go after my friends who are discouraged. Maybe the heart of the church will leave, and that will provide a much needed wake-up call that leads to restructuring under new leaders.

Man, I look forward to dropping the loads I’ve been carrying. I want to be in a church where I can support what they’re doing. I don’t want to bite my tongue all the time. I don’t want to have to tell my friends what they’re hearing is wrong, or that they’re right to feel used or mistreated.

I told the Armorbearers I would not be in church next week. I have learned not to ask permission. I informed them I would not be there, and I said it would be nice if someone filled in. One of the young guys volunteered. I’m covered. At our church, there’s a lot of pressure to show up and work, as if it were a job, so we really feel like we have to get approval to take time off. I managed to get over that.

I may not be able to wait for Sunday. There’s a Tuesday night service. While the kids at my church are dancing to secular music and trying to hook up, I may be at a normal church service.

Here it is, the week after Passover, and I may be on my way from a place of profitless servitude to a place where I can work for God. How appropriate.

A Mighty Fortress is My Garage

The Garage of Blues has undergone yet another metamorphosis.

I could not deal with my old Clausing lathe, so I started shopping for a new lathe that actually worked. I got tired of shopping, and I prayed for God to send me a good lathe at a good price. The next day, I got a sudden email message advising me that a reputable seller had knocked thousands off the price of a machine, and that it had been equipped with some stuff I like, and that stuff I did not want had been removed.

SOLD.

I took some photos while the riggers were moving it in. They gouged it slightly, but having seen what BAD riggers do, I was still satisfied. Here it is.

That thing is a 16 by 40. It can swing a part almost 17″ wide. It’s not packed with features, but the quality is very good, and the construction is heavy. It only has 12 speeds, but the range is nice: 20-2000 RPM. The motor is 7.5 horsepower, which is insane. The threading options are a little limited, but change gears can be had. The ways are a foot wide, the castings are Meehanite. It came with a neat light and a DRO. No complaints here.

Og told me to get a 12 x 36, and he was probably right. He was right when he told me to get a Grizzly instead of the Clausing. But come on. This baby has a 2″ bore. I can part stuff that would otherwise require a saw. You know I needed that.

I actually wanted a 14 x 40 with variable speed, but the seller I had in mind would not give me a quote. He kept saying he’d get around to it. He said he sent it, but it must have gotten lost in cyberspace. After two months, I gave up on him. I think the smaller lathe would have been fine, and it would have had a big bore on it, but I can’t hold people at gunpoint and force them to do business with me.

I could not get him to sell me the smaller lathe I wanted, and once I had decided on the big lathe, people told me not to use a VFD, which is the cheapest way to run a big lathe on single-phase power, without derating and other potential issues. They told me I needed a digital phase converter, which is pretty ridiculous. They cost a lot. I was determined to get a VFD, but over time, I decided to bite the bullet and do it right. So now I have the phase converter on my wall. Right now it’s only connected to the lathe, but if I feel like it, I can add the mill to it and bypass the existing VFD, which does absolutely nothing except provide three-phase power. I can also put up sockets and run whatever three-phase stuff I get later. This is advantageous, because a lot of great three-phase equipment goes on the market for low prices, and it’s generally better than single-phase machinery.

I went with Gator chucks. Ordinarily, the lathe would have come with no-name Asian chucks, but they were not included, so I got to pick my own. Gators are made in mainland China, but the company has a very good reputation. I got an 8″ adjustable 3-jaw chuck, which is practically my fiancee now, and I also got a 10″ 4-jaw which I haven’t even tried, because the 3-jaw is so great. I can’t measure the runout on the 3-jaw, and so far, that has held true on diameters of 1″ and 1.5″, so it appears to work well, at least within that range.

I was going to get cheapo Chinese carbide holders, but I got yelled at when I mentioned this to actual machinists, so I found a great deal on two Kennametal 3/4″ holders, and the seller threw in 10 inserts. Very nice. Super rigid.

The lathe isn’t leveled yet. I was going to use the famous “Rollie’s Dad” method, but research led me to conclude that it wasn’t really that great, so I reluctantly ordered a good level. I went with Tools4cheap. I’m hoping the level lives up to the hype.

The lathe is a DREAM to run. It scared the crap out of me when I first got it going. I accidentally started the giant chuck spinning at 2000 instead of 500. But it does what it’s supposed to do. The repeatability on the 3-jaw chuck is a wonder to behold. The worklight is bright and very easy to position. The controls work MUCH more smoothly than the ones on the Clausing. It just does what it’s supposed to do. I don’t fight all day to make the tool work. It’s just like my gorgeous milling machine.

I finished up my 304 stainless garlic press. It works great. You stuff it with garlic and whack it with a hammer, and pureed garlic poomps into a little chamber. Then you pump the piston again, and the garlic pops out on your cutting board. This is the first decent garlic press I have ever seen. And I’m improving it. I’m making a big base that includes the pulverizing holes and the chamber for the crushed garlic, and it’s going to thread onto the main housing. It will come off easily to go in the dishwasher. I love it. It’s so cool I can’t stand it.

After this I may make a nutcracker. I don’t need one. I just hate nutcrackers. They’re wimpy. They slip and shoot nuts across the room. They break. I’m going to make one that will open a golf ball, if that’s what turns you on.

Today I used the lathe to bore out a 1 1/2″-wide piece of stainless, for the garlic chamber. I saved my old 1/2″ Albrecht chuck from the Clausing, and I got an adaptor sleeve to make it fit the new tailstock. I drilled the work with three bits, creeping up to 1/2″, and then I went to a boring bar that would fit in the hole. Then I put it on the mill and flattened the bottom of the bore. Going back to the lathe, I turned on the DRO, put in a bigger bar, and set the bottom of the bore as zero. After that, it was a simple matter to open the bore up until the walls were about 3/16″ thick. The bar screamed like hell–nothing I do seems to change that–but the finish is really nice, so I guess it’s okay.

I have to figure out what to use for the internal threading on the end that joins the press body, but other than that, this will be a cakewalk. God willing.

I wonder if cooks would pay for stuff like this. It would be pointless to make these things for less than thirty bucks. But they would last forever and work like nothing else on the market.

I love the garage more every day. I have a guitar amp out there, which I’m halfway done building. I have my tools set up in a nice ergonomic way. I have peace and quiet. I have air conditioning and comfy chairs. I have hundreds of albums on the MP3 player. And I have the ultimate place to pray. I generally do at least an hour and a half out there in the evening.

I have been asking God to tell me what my job is. Crazy as it sounds, I think he answered. I think prayer is my job. Some people go to Calcutta. I go to the garage. It suits me to a tee. Prayer is the most powerful thing anyone can do, even if no one appreciates it. And if you’re in God’s presence every day, for long periods, good stuff is going to happen to you, regardless of whom you pray for. It’s a little like being God’s treasurer. You’re distributing his supernatural wealth. Some of it is going to stick to you.

I believe God has given me a fortune, and the substance of that fortune is faith, which is much more valuable than money. If God gives you a fortune, you have to share it. So, unless I’m wrong about what he wants me to do, this is going to be my primary function for a while. Pray for others. Pray for the country. And of course, pray for yours truly. Come on, man. I need a little piece of the action. You can’t muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.

Life has changed a lot. Things work better. Things that used to cause me stress are turning into blessings. Even the collection calls from student loan servicers and collection agencies are kind of pleasant now. I executed a release, so they can never get another dime out of me, but they still call from time to time and ask–very courteously–if I know where they can find the borrower. Now I feel I can relate to them, instead of seeing them as relentless sources of aggravation.

If you’re a cosigner for someone who won’t pay, for God’s sake, ask about executing a release. Not a settlement. A “release.” Trust me; this advice is gold. I got my freedom. Get yours. They will negotiate. You may lose some money, but thereafter, you will sleep well while the person who took advantage of you has to worry about things like wage garnishing, lawsuits, and debts bankruptcy doesn’t affect.

I don’t think I’m going to be here too long. My faith tells me I will find a better place to live. I don’t want to budge until I get a clear indication. I truly look forward to kissing Miami goodbye forever. My family endured so much sorrow here. I don’t need to look around me and be reminded. My life is in the future, so I don’t want to be wrapped up in the past. I think God has given me the Garage of Blues so I can have a little comfort while I wait.

I think my dad is coming around. He sees how I am blessed. That has to have an impact. My sister…another story. Some people are extremely hard for God to teach, so they go through shocking trials. I’m not worried. I keep asking God to do specific things to bring her around, and he keeps doing those things. Whatever happens, she will have the best shot prayer can provide.

I have to go work on the amp. I can’t wait to hear it!

MORE

People are asking about the garlic press. I have really bad photos. The end result is what matters, so here are two photos of the garlic on its way out. This should give you an idea of what it does to the garlic. The press is one inch in diameter, to provide scale.

The garlic may look solid, but that’s because it was mashed into a cylindrical space. It has passed through several 1/8″ holes.

No Evidence Required; No Appeal Possible

More and more exculpatory evidence is coming out in the Zimmerman/Martin case.

This is only evidence. It’s not necessarily proven. But the burden of proof is on Florida, not George Zimmerman. He doesn’t have to prove a thing.

1. The police say Zimmerman was found with lacerations on the back of his head, plus a broken nose.

2. The police say Zimmerman had grass stains on the back of his shirt, and his shirt was wet in back.

3. Martin’s size has been upped from 140 pounds to 150 pounds and 6’3″, and Zimmerman’s height is said to be 5′ 9″. I’m wondering what Martin’s weight will turn out to be, after the medical examiner reports. The figure of 150 is pretty low for someone that tall, especially a football player.

4. Martin’s girlfriend’s remarks suggest Martin accosted Zimmerman (Martin spoke first).

5. Zimmerman claims Martin was trying to grab Zimmerman’s gun.

6. A witness saw Martin slamming Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk repeatedly.

7. A witness named Austin Brown says that in the moments before the shooting, Zimmerman was lying on the ground crying for help.

8. Zimmerman told police he was on his way back to his vehicle when Martin accosted him.

9. Zimmerman said Martin initiated physical contact by delivering a sudden punch which broke Zimmerman’s nose.

People are saying the “stand your ground” law applies. I don’t see it. It looks like Martin got mad, chased Zimmerman, and attacked him. It also appears pretty clear that Martin used deadly force. Slamming someone’s head on concrete repeatedly will eventually kill them.

If the facts are as they appear to be, Zimmerman didn’t stand his ground. To “stand your ground” is to stay where you are, when you have the option of leaving. If Zimmerman was on his back, helpless, with a taller assailant beating him, he could not leave. That would mean this is a very routine self-defense case. Not only that, it would show that our laws worked exactly as they should have. If the published evidence is not misleading, Martin was a violent criminal, and Zimmerman was a model citizen trying to protect his community.

That’s a far cry from what we heard last week. And I saw it coming. I knew it was stupid to judge this case before the facts were published. Nevertheless, everyone from Jeb Bush to Al Sharpton has condemned Zimmerman without trial, and they have elevated Martin to a status resembling sainthood, when he may turn out to be a common thug. We now know that he was in Sanford because his school suspended him for possession of drug paraphernalia. He was found with a bag that had contained marijuana. At the age of 14.

Even at this point, I’m not going to judge. Lawsuits and investigations have many twists and turns. Things look very good for Zimmerman, but I am not as close to the evidence as the professionals are. I’m not going to repeat the sin I criticized. Maybe Zimmerman will be convicted of something. Maybe even murder. Maybe a recording will pop up, and we’ll hear Zimmerman tell his buddies he’s going to kill a black kid for fun. But I’ll bet he is never arrested for homicide. Obama’s feds may try to nail him on some other offense, but my best guess is that the authorities will realize they can’t touch him, because he did nothing wrong.

The claims of police bias aren’t holding up, either. I’ve read the police report. It appears that they originally intended to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter, but the facts led them to conclude he was innocent, so he was not arrested. If they showed up and found a live non-black “gunman” and a dead black teenager, and they fully intended to charge the non-black man, they can’t be credibly accused of anti-black animus. And we don’t know the races of the responding officers. Won’t it be interesting if one or more of them are black?

The Miami Herald has demonstrated what this case is really about. Sorry to say it, but I was right about that, too. They put a huge story up in Sunday’s paper, with a half-page staged photo full of crime scene tape. The story was not about the Zimmerman case. It was about our “dangerous” self-defense laws (which–remember–appear to have no application to this case). From the word “go,” the press’s dishonest coverage has been aimed at getting the “Castle Doctrine,” “Stand Your Ground,” and concealed-carry laws repealed by the legislature or gutted by judicial interpretation. That’s all the folks at the Herald care about. If the ghetto has to burn, and if black people have to die or become felons or lose their homes or jobs, that’s okay with our liberal nannies, as long as gun control increases.

Thanks to the press and people like Al Sharpton, we have hundreds of thousands of people who firmly believe Martin was martyred, and they are going to expect payback, and it’s probably not going to come. What then? Will TV heads spend as much time correcting their slanders as they did publishing them? Yeah. Right. They’re famous for that. We all remember how they trampled each other, trying to get to the cameras so they could correct the claim that George Bush lied about uranium ore.

I think violence is inevitable. If the authorities admit Zimmerman didn’t break the law, there will be trouble. It may be full-blown rioting, and it may be individual acts of hate and racism, but barring an extraordinary turn of events, it will happen. And the liars and gossips will be guilty of the very thing of which they falsely accused Zimmerman. The blood of the dead will be on their hands. But bloody hands are nothing new to some of them. Certainly not Al Sharpton, who seems to think rioting is a healthy way of expressing dissent.

If rioting comes, white people will sit safely in their homes, and people of color will die and suffer. Great work, liberal press. Is that your plan for helping minorities? Gun-hating journalists appear willing to sacrifice black lives and use well-meaning black people as pawns, as long as it advances the left’s agenda.

I wish people would shut up and let qualified professionals interpret the law and the facts. I’m a lawyer, and law is not simple. I had to get a doctorate in order to get a license to practice law. If you’re not a lawyer, you have no business arguing with me or any other legal professional. For that matter, most lawyers should be quiet. I’ve noticed that a lot of them are weighing in without thinking. An education is no advantage unless you put it to use.

Even though I’m a lawyer, in matters like this, I will defer to people who have actually studied the case and the law. I’ve looked it over briefly, but there is no way I’d ask a client to rely on the smattering of work I’ve done. If I were working for money, I’d get the books out for a few days and THEN talk. So while I’m light years ahead of 95% of the people who comment in the media, what I’m writing here doesn’t begin to live up to a real standard of professionalism. It’s just idle commentary.

It’s shocking how few people understand these things. Ignorant lay people are spewing worthless opinions so devoid of merit, they remind me of what Wolfgang Pauli said: “That’s not even WRONG.” Sometimes an argument is so stupid, it’s actually counterproductive to acknowledge it. It’s like trying to have a rational discussion with Charles Manson. This is why we are told not to cast our pearls before swine. It’s why we spank toddlers instead of debating with them.

I feel like we’re on a ship headed for a mine at three knots, and no one cares.

New Lathe Falling Into Place

I am sitting here waiting for the new lathe.

I didn’t know if I should get a new lathe. Sometimes I feel like I spend stupidly. Other times I feel like I don’t spend enough. A month or two back, I felt like God was telling me to let GO already. When I wanted or needed something, I scoured Ebay and Craigslist. I bought used stuff. Sometimes I went without stuff that would have made life easier, or I bought tools that were one size too small. I felt like God told me, “You are praying for stuff I already gave you. Just SPEND THE MONEY.” I felt like I was serving my money, instead of it serving me.

I had that silly Clausing lathe. It wasn’t small by home shop standards, but it wasn’t big enough to be versatile and convenient to use. I couldn’t part long stock bigger than about 1 1/2″ in diameter. I couldn’t find rests for it. I couldn’t do a single metric thread. I thought I should give up and get a Grizzly in a comparable size or bigger, and I looked around and checked out models.

I found that you had to spend some dough to get a 2″ bore, which is a big convenience. And I learned that good used lathes were so expensive, it was hard to get anything bigger than a 25% discount over new. You can get stuff other people consider too old to use, and it’s cheap (like the Clausing), but it’s not the same as a new machine.

I got fed up with shopping. I prayed for God to send me a good deal on a new lathe, and the next day, I got a surprising email from a seller. I’ve written about this. New machine. Thousands off. Lots of good added equipment. Things I didn’t want to buy, removed. I had to jump on that. It took two days to get my nerve up, but I prayed about it and bought the machine.

Now it’s about to be delivered. I thought I would have to change some wiring to make it fit. I have an interrupt box and three 220 sockets in the area where the lathe will go. I thought I would have to move everything three feet to the right and remove one socket to allow for a phase converter. I took a few screws out, took down my air hose reel, and looked at the lathe measurements. It turned out the lathe is not tall enough to obstruct the wiring. In fact, the wiring, which was not really in the right place for my old setup, was exactly where it needed to be for the new arrangement. How about THAT?

I screwed everything back together and went in the house.

God prepares you for stuff, when you don’t even know it’s coming. He’s like Mr. Miyagi. One day you’re doing “wax on, wax off” ten thousand times. The next day, you’re using what you learned to wipe the smirk off some punk’s face at a karate tournament.

I have some work in front of me. I have to wire up the converter, and I have to move all the other tools in the garage (except for the mill) after the lathe is moved in. I have to put a cord on the lathe. I have to find a place to put the hose reel. But that’s about it. I probably won’t even sweat.

I have been praying for God to help me organize the garage. I came up with a surprising plan which is going to make life much easier.

Yesterday I opened up the garage floor and moved the Clausing out of the way, all by myself. All I needed were some pieces of conduit and a crowbar. I won’t have to pay the riggers to move it. They should be out of here in twenty minutes.

It will be a week before I can turn the lathe on. The converter people are VERY slow to ship. But I’ll be able to lean on it and turn the dials and go, “VROOM VROOM” all I want.

Don’t let anyone tell you prayer in tongues won’t order your life. It works, and it’s amazing. And it does other stuff for you. I sit out there in the evenings and pray, and not only does God give me faith, he gives me different flavors of faith. He gives me faith that rushes through me like water under pressure. He gives me a type of faith that feels like a mountain of lead falling on my doubts. It’s so strange. I never expected it.

Now if someone will just buy that Clausing. I’ll have my garage back, and I’ll be able to use my tools instead of working on them all the time.

Skip the Sideshow and Enter the Big Tent

I have been trying to gather info on the Jewish feast offerings, because my church is promoting Steve Munsey’s “seven blessings” craziness. The idea is that you give your church a pile of money on Passover, Shavuot, and Yom Kippur, and God gives you seven blessings as a result.

So far, only one Jewish source I’ve contacted has responded. I leave it to him to identify himself in the comments. The Jewish law concerning offerings and feasts is very complex, and it would be pointless for me to try to learn all of it and try to explain it, but I can give you the highlights, with considerably more authority than the “seven blessings” guys.

1. Gentiles did not take part in Passover, Shavuot, or Yom Kippur.

2. Munsey relies on Deuteronomy 16:16-17 to justify asking for money, but that passage refers to “gifts,” and it means things like excess livestock, not cash.

3. It is unlawful to bring produce (fruit, grain, etcetera) tithes or firstfruits as offerings, if they come from outside Israel.

The New Testament teaches us that we are not required to obey the Jewish law. It also says that if we rely on part of it, we have to practice all of it in order to be saved. Clearly, we are not doing that. Steve Munsey can’t even get the holidays right; he confused Yom Kippur with Sukkot. There was no gathering of Jews on Yom Kippur. It makes no sense to try to put us under the law, and even if it did, it would make no sense to do it incorrectly.

I have heard other Christian teachers talking about this kind of thing. Larry Huch is famous for it. He says we should wear prayer shawls and have shabbat dinners and so on. Totally wrong. The New Testament makes it clear that we obey the Holy Spirit, not the Jewish law. Paul rebuked Peter–a Jew–for pretending to follow the Jewish law and for trying to make Gentiles follow it. What more does a Christian need to know?

Jews believe our ideas are completely wrong, yet even they agree that we are not required to live under their law. If the Jewish law says Gentiles don’t have to obey the Jewish law, why on earth would we want to live under it? To pretend to live under it is to ignore it!

My church is also telling people to pay “God” (the church) before paying their electricity and car bills. I asked my Jewish source about this, and here is what I was told: “[I]t’s utterly inappropriate to donate if one has debts. That’s using the property of others. Better to pay off a debt than to bring an optional offering. This refers to unsecured debts. Someone who carries a balance on his credit card has no business making donations.”

This is exactly what I figured. If you take money you owe Macy’s and give it to your church, Macy’s should get God’s blessing.

Why be so critical of this silly teaching? So what if people want to give money to their churches? Won’t God bless them for it, even if they’re wrong? Won’t it be a blessing to others? Won’t it go to the poor and to good causes?

First of all, I don’t think God will bless you for giving stupidly, especially when the truth is easy to learn. Jesus told us he approved of people who searched the scriptures to test the teachings they heard, and the Bible is full of examples of well-meaning people who were punished for trying to please God in the wrong ways. See Saul and Uzzah. Second, if your church is teaching craziness, is it really a good thing to endorse and facilitate it? Third, a church that teaches greed-based doctrine is not too likely to use its money in ways that please God. I would not count on seeing your misguided donations reach good causes.

Those are comparatively trivial concerns, though. The main reason to criticize is that this nonsense distracts people from God’s power and help. The only way you’re going to get help from God is to pray, a LOT. Daily. This is the single most important thing you do. Everything else flows from it. If people believe they’re pleasing God by funding Steve Munsey, what motivation will they have to pray and humble themselves and get to know God? None. In fact, in their minds, the wrongheaded things they do will justify living apart from God and ignoring his commands. As long as you make your pointless offerings, you can go to the clubs, fornicate, smoke weed, and live it up, because God is going to make you rich!

Jesus told us misguided leaders would not only miss the point; they would prevent others from finding the way. That’s what the church has been doing since about 300 A.D. God wants us to get baptized with the Spirit, pray, and be transformed. The church wants us to do everything BUT.

The old churches told us we were not smart enough to read the word and deal with God personally, so we had to go through priests and saints. The Protestant churches told us we were to sit around suffering and losing until we died, and that God wouldn’t do much for us, and that it would be made up to us in heaven. The charismatic churches teach us God wants us to have perfect lives here on earth, and that it all revolves around money. This stuff isn’t “second best.” It’s not even acceptable. It comes from Satan himself. God wants us to know him personally and to live by faith, with his power and character flowing through us into the world. This other nonsense prevents us from living that way. It cripples the body of Christ. It’s not a small problem. It’s THE problem. Churches are actively blocking people from becoming what God wants them to be.

I don’t participate in the wacky offerings. My faith keeps increasing, supernaturally. My life gets better and better. My character keeps improving. I get more and more answers to prayer. I spend more time in prayer every month. I am healthy. I have no debt, except for the debt I owe God. I have no mortgage, and the properties I stand to inherit have no mortgages. It seems to me that my way works, and that it came from God. Meanwhile, my church has crushing debts, internal strife, and plenty of godly people who are looking for other churches. I believe the evidence shows that what I believe is better than the “seven blessings” mess. I got it for nothing. I do give, but the real giving was done 2,000 years ago. That’s when the price was paid.

If you’re a charismatic, look around you. I promise you, you know people who give to ministries and still fail financially. What does that tell you about the empty promises of the TBN preachers? I know someone who gave a great deal and ended up destitute. Maybe instead of giving money to Kenneth Copeland, she should have paid off her gigantic student loan, which she ignored. I wonder what Kenneth Copeland’s phone operators would say if she called and told them she was indigent. My guess: they would not offer to send her a check.

The body of Christ must surely be like any other body. Surely it expects its parts to obey the brain. If you’re not in line with the will of Jesus, why would you expect him to make you strong? If you had an arm that did as it pleased, and you knew you could grow another one, you’d have the first arm amputated. You wouldn’t look for ways to increase the blood supply.

I guess it seems like I do nothing but criticize, but so much is being lost, and there is no good reason for it. The land of milk and honey is right in front of us, but we persist in walking in circles, in a dry place where nothing satisfies. Our leaders are like the ten spies who kept the Jews out of Canaan. They have no faith, so they can’t teach faith to anyone else. And they have no vision. When there is no vision, the people perish. Proverbs 29:18.

People think I’m not a team player. That’s a huge lie. I’m on the Holy Spirit’s team. The other day I realized God is the only authority I’ve ever been able to trust and to give myself to without reservation. If you’re waiting to exhale, God is what you need. But if you follow him, powerful men who don’t know him will argue with you for the rest of your life. Fortunately, they will lose.

Everyone else can sit on the deck of the Titanic and listen to the band. I’m going to stay in the lifeboat. I may be a fool, but I know the difference between salvation and doom.

The Judge, Jury, and Jailer Will be Back After This Commercial Message

I wonder if anyone in the Blogosphere is paying attention to the Trayvon Martin case. It’s a classic example of prosecution by media.

A kid named Trayvon Martin was visiting relatives in Sanford, Florida. He went out to get candy and a drink. On the walk home, he was spotted by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, who was armed. Zimmerman followed him, thinking he might be a criminal. There was a scuffle. Zimmerman shot and killed him.

Zimmerman is Hispanic. Martin is black.

Naturally, the press is crucifying Zimmerman. Because there is strong evidence that he committed a murder? No. Because he is now the face of a good law liberals hate.

Under Florida law, you don’t have to run away when you’re attacked. If it’s legal for you to be where you are, you don’t have to jump into the ocean or out in front of traffic. You don’t have to leave your own home or leap across train tracks while your assailant laughs and sees how far he can make you run. You’re allowed to kill him without running. It’s not your job to exert yourself and subject yourself to more danger in order to save the criminal’s life. That’s just common sense. If the law were otherwise, criminals would be permitted to chase you all day, and while the law would offer you some protection, it would be of no practical use. Few people are going to prosecute criminals for picking on them and chasing them around, when no physical harm is done.

Liberals hate this law because it puts teeth in the centuries-old right to self-defense. Liberals like punishing law-abiding victims, and they want to protect stupid, violent people.

Because of their bias against self-defense, liberals are all over Zimmerman, and they’re lying about him in order to stir up the public. I feel very sorry for him. It seems like no one is defending him.

Zimmerman may be a murderer, but the truth is, we don’t know that, and the facts so far suggest he is not. We should be allowing law enforcement to make a careful investigation instead of jumping to moronic, unfair conclusions. We are supposed to have courts in the United States. We are supposed to investigate shootings and use reason to determine the rights of those involved. Zimmerman is in danger of going to jail simply because talking heads don’t like the laws of the State of Florida. That’s a terrible situation to be in.

Here are the facts.

1. Martin was unarmed.

2. Martin was walking around Zimmerman’s neighborhood.

3. Zimmerman followed Martin, believing he might be casing the houses.

4. Martin approached Zimmerman.

5. There was a fight.

6. A witness saw Zimmerman on the ground under Martin.

7. After the fight, Zimmerman had grass stains on his back, and his face was bloody.

8. No one saw the shooting.

9. There is a recording of someone screaming for help, followed by a gunshot, but the recording is of very poor quality.

10. Zimmerman claims the person screaming was him.

That’s really all we have. The Miami Herald is adding in inflammatory garbage. They pointed out that Zimmerman called the police a lot. Hello? He’s a neighborhood watch captain. That’s what they do. Other media outlets are pointing out that Zimmerman was once arrested for battery on a LEO and resisting arrest, but he was not prosecuted, and no one has bothered digging up the facts.

People are also saying that a police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow Martin, as if that has some relevance. First of all, it never happened. The dispatcher said, “Okay, we don’t need you doing that.” Second, the law doesn’t say police dispatchers have the authority to order you to avoid contact with people.

Why are we trying this case on TV and in the newspapers? What happened to due process? What is the point of having courts and investigators, if we’re going to let heartless media halfwits decide who goes to jail?

If there are facts that suffice to put this man in jail, presumably, the police will make an effort to uncover them. If not, he should be left alone.

It’s odd that “journalists” aren’t making more of Zimmerman’s ethnicity. He is clearly not white. Look at his photo some time. His father says he comes from a multi-racial family with many black members. He is part of a highly diverse social circle. He’s not a blue-eyed Aryan with swastikas tattooed on his forearms. It seems obvious that the press wants us to see this as a white-on-black execution, committed by a bigoted vigilante. So far, the only white people involved have been cops and journalists.

If someone knocks you down and starts beating you, you are allowed to shoot him. That would not change, even if Florida imposed a duty to retreat. You can’t retreat when you’re on your back. If Martin was beating Zimmerman, and Zimmerman feared severe INJURY (it doesn’t have to be death), then Zimmerman had the right to shoot. Believe it or not, even in 2012, you don’t have to allow criminals to beat you, just because you probably won’t be killed. We haven’t sunk that low yet. And if Martin was beating Zimmerman, he was a criminal.

If I had to guess–and that means GUESS, because unlike the other armchair detectives, I’m willing to admit I don’t know what happened–I would say Martin got mad because he was being followed. His race was probably one reason he was followed, and even if it wasn’t, it would be understandable for Martin to assume it was. He probably lost his temper and did something stupid. He probably attacked Zimmerman, not knowing he was armed. This is the most reasonable explanation.

Some people say Martin was screaming on the recording, begging for his life. If you listen to it, though, you can’t tell what the person is saying. It sounds like the word “help,” but it isn’t clear. And who is more likely to yell for help? A man lying on his back with a bloody face, like Zimmerman, or someone who is on top of him, inflicting damage?

If Martin is innocent, why is Zimmerman injured? Why were there grass stains on the back of his shirt? Did he beat himself up after he fired, in order to claim self-defense? His accusers have no explanation.

The only anti-Zimmerman explanation that makes any sense at all is this: Zimmerman attacked, Martin overcame him, and Zimmerman fired. That would not be self-defense, if Zimmerman’s attack was unprovoked. But why would he do that? What’s the point? Imagine yourself in his shoes. In thirty seconds, you can send the cops a cell phone photo and retreat to a safe distance to maintain observation. If you attack, you take a risk that your gun will be exposed to your attacker, and he’ll use it against you. There is no reason to do it, unless you’re an idiot.

Zimmerman might be an idiot. It could be that he made some kind of effort to restrain Martin, and Martin defended himself, and the fight escalated into an illegal shooting. And maybe Zimmerman somehow gave Martin time to scream for help repeatedly. But that’s a stretch.

Whatever the truth is, it should be uncovered through a professional investigation. It shouldn’t be buried under media hysteria and racist craziness. And we shouldn’t be ruining a man’s life in order to put our laws themselves on trial. If he’s guilty, he should pay. But I don’t trust ABC News to make that determination.

They DID Exist

This is an interesting day.

For a long time, I have been criticizing Steve Munsey’s “seven blessings” doctrine. He claims all the Jews went to Jerusalem on Passover, Pentecost (Shavuot), and Yom Kippur (not Sukkot) and brought “their very best offerings,” which means money, and that God gave them seven blessings (Exodus 23:20-30) as a result. He says Christians have to do the same things, except for the Jerusalem part. We have to give God money three times a year, and he will give us seven blessings.

My church is doing this now. They’re asking us to sign offering pledges. I know vows were big in Judaism, but Jesus told us not to swear unnecessarily, so I will not sign one until I find a scriptural basis for doing so.

It’s pretty disturbing. We are being told to give our money to the church before paying our electric bills, car loan bills, and other just debts. Steve Munsey is known for this kind of thing. He told his church God wanted their tax refunds.

Of course, paying for blessings does not work. The blessings of Exodus 23 don’t appear to have any direct connection to offerings. Read it for yourself and see. And Munsey got one of the holidays wrong. MALE Jews (only) went to Jerusalem on Sukkot, not Yom Kippur. That, alone, should tell you what you need to know about the solidity of his doctrine. If you can’t tell the difference between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, why are you teaching about Jewish holidays?

Still, today I learned that I was wrong about something. Or that I may have been wrong. I’m checking it out, and I don’t have all the info yet. It turns out there WERE “gifts” at Passover, Shavuot, and SUKKOT (not Yom Kippur or “the atonement,” as Munsey teaches). I studied this stuff a lot, and I asked Jews, but I missed this anyway. The Bible says that at these feasts, the Jews had to bring gifts, in proportion to how God had blessed them (Deut. 16:16-17).

So now I’m trying to find out what the nature and size of these gifts were. I know the offerings of the ancient Jews were not always monetary. A prayer is an offering. Animals were sacrificed constantly, as offerings, and then eaten, which is something money-hungry preachers don’t talk about. I don’t think they want people to realize the Jews sometimes benefited directly from their offerings. People would bring buckets of chicken to church as offerings and then eat them in the parking lot.

There were monetary offerings, but were Jews expected to give big sums of cash on these holidays? I don’t know yet. It seems to me that “as God has blessed you” means you give what God has given you, or maybe a sum reflecting that. But I’m no rabbi.

Interesting questions: were Jews required to give offerings after the Temple was destroyed and the people were scattered? Were Gentiles allowed to give at the feasts?

As far as I know, the Jewish laws governing giving NEVER applied to Gentiles, and some only applied to Jews while they held Israel and had a functioning Temple to support. But there were Gentiles known as “God-fearers” who were involved with Judaism without becoming Jews. I wonder if they gave at the feasts.

I believe the Holy Spirit tells Gentiles when to give. We have never had sacrificial laws or a schedule of offerings. I think tithing is a good practice, but I do not believe anyone has ever shown that it’s mandatory. I think that if you listen to the Holy Spirit, you’ll end up giving more than the tithe, so it’s somewhat counterproductive to tell people tithing is required.

I also believe alms are extremely important. Charismatic preachers RARELY talk about giving to the needy, except through their ministries. That’s because they want control of the money, so they can take what they want before passing it on. Sorry to say it, but that’s the obvious truth.

You can’t be like God unless you give, so you should give as he inspires you. But giving mechanically, based on laws that aren’t found in the Bible, to ministers who may or may not use your money to help the poor…that seems stupid to me. And it takes the human contact out of giving. There is a big difference between giving to someone you know and swiping a credit card at your church. I believe God wants us to have that connection from time to time, because he has it every time he gives.

My church doesn’t do a whole lot for the poor. We have a sister charity, but it gets government grants, and it’s really a referral service. I know a guy who went to them for help. He said they send you to other organizations. We give away things like frozen Thanksgiving turkeys and free toys for Christmas, with lots of fanfare, but if you go to my church on a quiet Thursday and ask for help with your rent, they probably will not pay it. So the church and the charity are not my vehicles of choice for getting help to the needy. I think this is a major problem, but as long as we are spending money we don’t have, we are going to have bills to pay, and that doesn’t leave much for the poor.

Steve Munsey is almost certainly wrong about the “seven blessings.” He is wrong about Yom Kippur. And I’m 98% sure it’s wrong to tell people not to pay their bills. It seems to me that if you cheat your landlord to give your church money, and a blessing follows, your landlord will get the blessing, and God will give you a boil or something. But I want to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. If God wants Gentiles to give cash offerings at Passover, Shavuot, and SUKKOT, I don’t want to get in the way. And I don’t want to come across like someone who opposes supporting churches.

I want to be honest about my mistake. Still, the “seven blessings” business seems legalistic, scripturally wrong, and greed-based. I’ll post more info if I get it.

Let Yourself be Machined

Yesterday a rigger came by. Riggers are people who move big machines. I got a very good rate on shipping my new lathe to Miami, but I can’t have it shipped directly to the house. I had to ship it to a commercial address with a loading dock. It will be unloaded there and moved to another truck, and that truck will bring it here.

It has to go to a facility with a loading dock because freight trucks don’t come equipped to lower two-ton loads three or four feet, from their beds to the pavement. You have to have a forklift and maybe some other stuff, like pallet jacks and things called “skates.” So the easy way to deal with this is to ship your stuff to riggers. They put it on the ground and slide it into your garage for you.

The rigger sent a guy over, and he looked around and essentially said they were going to shove it in there in one move and go home. He did not seem intimidated at all. I guess they’re used to moving things like 20,000-pound turret lathes, so a comparatively tiny manual lathe must seem like a joke.

I listed the Clausing for sale. I don’t know if it’s going to move without an Ebay ad. I may have to do that. I don’t know how to put it on a pallet. That will be great fun, I’m sure. I found places that give pallets away, so I should be able to come up with a fair amount of free wood.

Yesterday the 3-jaw chuck arrived. This is kind of interesting, if you’re a tool person. It’s Chinese. Not Taiwan. Mainland China. The land of sand-filled castings and pot metal screws. But it’s a very good chuck. The brand name is Fuerda. Their chuck line is called Gator. Ask anyone who uses one. They have a great reputation. They’re not as cheap as other Chinese chucks, but they beat the pants off Bison and Toolmex, who manufacture in Eastern Europe.

Fuerda and Phase II both make good tools in mainland China. I think we’re going to see other brands moving in behind them. Even the Indians are making some good stuff.

I decided to go with an adjustable chuck. These things have screws that let you move the chucks until they’re very concentric with the spindles. It’s a little bit like having 4-jaw accuracy with 3-jaw convenience, except that you don’t adjust them for every part you chuck. As I understand it, it’s not qoing to be quite as good as a 4-jaw chuck, but it will be considerably better than an ordinary 3-jaw of comparable quality.

It also has two-piece jaws so I can turn the jaws around for big parts or remove them to use soft jaws. When I started looking for a chuck, I thought adjustability was the most important thing, but people corrected me. You want those 2-piece jaws (just like that cowbell). I thought they were just for holding bigger stuff; you don’t have to take the jaws completely out and reverse them, because you can turn the upper parts around. But that’s not the whole story. If you have one-piece (“solid”) jaws, you can’t screw anything to them. The screw holes that remain when you remove the top parts of two-piece jaws allow you to attach other things, and soft jaws are the primary examples. You can make special jaws to hold unusual parts and to give you good repeatability (I think).

The chuck looks good, and the jaws move well. The machining is nice. Not perfect, but I think it’s more than adequate. My big complaint is that there was grit on the adapter plate that allows you to put the chuck on a D1-6 spindle. I think it must be grinding residue. It’s greasy and gritty and black. When I tried to put the cam pins on the plate, the grit prevented them from going in all the way, so I had to clean the plate with brake cleaner, hose everything with Eezox, and start over. It looks like there are some grit spots that will never go away, but they won’t interfere with the chuck’s functions.

I got myself a couple of tool holders and some 1/2″ HSS blanks. The tool post on this thing will accept 1″ carbide holders, and I was afraid that meant I had to buy everything in that size. Then I found out 3/4″ tool holders were fine, and I could use 1/2″ blanks. There are a lot of Kennametal holders (with extra inserts) out there for good prices, so that’s what I got. The ones I bought don’t have clamps to support the inserts, but I am told they should be fine if I’m not an idiot when I use them.

I truly look forward to using the lathe. The Clausing was a huge compromise. I couldn’t find tooling for it. It was worn. It had no metric threading. It’s fine for people who are more worried about saving money than getting things done, but I wanted to be able to use my lathe. The new one has very nice rests, good threading options, an insanely heavy bed for rigidity, and good speed options. It has a clutch and a brake, a feedscrew AND a leadscrew, and a DRO. I can already sense the relief I’m going to feel when I use it. So many frustrations will be things of the past. I won’t have to stick indicators on the lathe to find out where I am. I won’t have to take tiny cuts. I’ll be able to machine thin stuff with the follow rest. If I have a metric thread to do, I may actually be able to do it without shopping for dies. It should be just like using my mill. I’ll concern myself with machining, not with clever ways of making dubious tools work.

The garage’s existing wiring will power this thing. I’ll have to use a machine to provide 3-phase, but I won’t need an electrician. The motor, truthfully, is way bigger than I will ever need, and I should probably put a smaller one in, but it will run without major surgery on the house.

The Garage of Blues is getting weirder and weirder. I feel like I have to get out there and pray in the evening, or nothing is going to go right. God manifests himself to me there, more powerfully than anywhere else. When that happens to you a few times, you get to the point where you have to have it. Maybe this is why so many early Christians, who greatly exceeded our familiarity with the Holy Spirit, were so willing to die rather than renounce the faith. The more of God’s presence you get, the more value it comes to have. Jesus said the kingdom of God was like a pearl of great price which a man bought after selling everything else he had. No matter how great the value of eternal life is, the promise of salvation will not give you the inner strength to face execution. Daily intimacy with God is probably where that kind of determination comes from. When they offer you a choice between the axe and renouncing God, it’s like asking a junkie to quit cold turkey.

Sometimes I have strange sensations when I’m out there; partly physical and partly spiritual. I can literally feel the Holy Spirit doing things in my body. Sometimes I feel a strange pressure in part of my skull, as if something is being moved. It’s very odd. I don’t understand it.

Very often, I’ll feel God’s power lifting me up, like a stimulant. I’ll go in there feeling down and lethargic, and something will rise up inside me and make me sit up in the chair. It doesn’t come from me. I can’t tell when it will come. Usually, it starts to happen after about twenty minutes of praying in the Spirit.

I can’t handle stimulants any more. I can’t drink a cup of coffee or smoke a cigar. I’ll stay up all night. I can drink Coke and tea, in limited amounts, but that’s about it. Something inside me is making me alert and energetic. It’s as if the Holy Spirit is a drug, and he doesn’t want other drugs taking his place.

I was right when I started to believe that Christians do not emphasize the supernatural enough. We talk about character and hard work, but that’s stupid. Heathens can have character and do hard work. If these things were what mattered, Asians would be the most spiritually advanced people on earth, but they’re not. Christianity can’t break 2% in Japan. The Bible doesn’t tell us how hard Jesus and Moses worked. It tells us that God did powerful things through them by supernatural means. Not as a reward for what they did, but for what they believed.

The other day I was reading the Gospels, and I noticed that Jesus defined God’s work. He said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” That amazed me, even though I had surely seen it before. Obviously, you have to try to do good things, but the real work is done by your faith. To this day, all man’s technology and effort can’t part the Red Sea and dry the bed, but the faith of Moses did it in an instant.

Christians hate this message. We are just like the ancient Jews. We LOVE talking about how hard it is. We love tightening up our little pinched faces and wagging our fingers at people and telling them nothing comes easily. We love citing the passages about the persecutions that will come to us. What a great way to persuade people to run from God! Give up everything you like doing, hang out with stiff, uptight people, and live in constant defeat! Who wants to sign up?

We act this way because we’re arrogant. We want to think we do things for God. Secretly, we want to think he owes us. We love thinking we’re better than THOSE people…the ones who don’t sacrifice and pray and do. But Jesus said we would come to him at the end and point to the good deeds we had done, and he would tell us he had never KNOWN us. He wants us to take on HIS projects, not ours, and he wants us to succeed at them by HIS power. That only comes through the Holy Spirit.

Think about Samson. What did he do to deserve his strength? Let’s make a list. He chased heathen women. He violated his Nazirite oath by handling unclean things. He married a woman who worshiped Dagon. Yet God gave him the strength to kill a thousand men in one fight. God remained with him until he voluntarily gave up the source of his supernatural power. If God only gave power to people who consistently did right, he would glorify us and not himself. Over and over in the Bible, we see God giving assistance and power to people who forsake other gods and admit they need his help.

God resists the proud but gives success to the humble. How can you be humble if you think you’ve earned God’s help? Seriously, now.

So anyway, things are getting stranger and stranger, and I am seeing more power and change. I only wish I could put other people on the same track. I keep a diary of things I think God has said to me, and the other night, I felt that he had told me this: “I no longer have needs; I only have desires.” I think that’s true. My health is good. I enjoy life. I have things to do. I am not worried about money. God heals me. He gives me his help every day. Usually, when I pray for something for myself, it’s something I really want to have, not something I actually need. That’s great, but it seems to me that if I’m stabilized, I should be able to devote considerable strength to helping other people who are still in trouble.

The biggest obstacle I’ve found is people’s insistence that they already know the way. Nobody wants to hear that God wants them to believe more and do less. Some people want to drive. Others derive a perverse pleasure from pushing the car. “Look at me, pushing the car in the hot sun, all sweaty and holy! I’m so wonderful! Thank you, God, for making me so great!” Personally, I would rather admit I’m a nothing and enjoy the air conditioning.

I have some friends who listen. The worst thing I can say about them is that they’re just like me. They develop a good routine of praying in the Spirit, and their lives improve fast. Then something distracts them, and like a manic depressive who forgets his lithium, they stop praying. And things go downhill. Then someone has to remind them how it works, so they’ll get back to prayer. It’s frustrating, dealing with people who are no better than you are.

God compares us to bits of clay on a potter’s wheel. That’s funny. If you think about it, a potter’s wheel is actually a lathe for clay, and the cutting tool is the Holy Spirit.

I hope I haven’t offended anyone, but I probably have. I hope the people I haven’t offended will take this and run with it.

Meet God, Over by the Band Saw

The Garage of Blues is turning into a real sanctuary. I opened it up and made it a place where I can work and even just hang out comfortably, and now I find myself going out there in the evenings to pray.

I keep telling people to pray in tongues. I keep telling them it will build their faith and change their lives. Every once in a while, a little voice tells me I might be wrong. But it keeps WORKING and WORKING and WORKING. Maybe it only works for a few years in a row!

I thought the garage would be a place where I could use my talents and spend time with friends. That was not the real purpose of the place. I keep my hideous camo backpack chairs out there, and I listen to Julie True and Grace Williams, and I pray for long periods. I am drawn to it. Finally, I feel like I’m spending enough time in prayer. And over the last week or two, amazing things have happened. I’ve felt power running through me. Faith has poured through me like water through a fire house, and I know it didn’t come from me.

I haven’t written much about the ridiculous lawsuits I faced a couple of years back. I am not interested in stimulating the plaintiff further. But I can tell you one interesting thing. I knew they weren’t going anywhere.

When I looked at the first complaint–I am not going to insult the plaintiff’s skills here–all I am willing to say is that I did not see it as a threat. As a lawyer, I saw nothing there that I thought was worthy of concern. Read into that what you will. The same thing is true of the complaint in the second suit.

Strangely, though, I went through periods of anxiety. I was sure I had nothing to fear–intellectually, I was sure–but sometimes I was worried anyway. It drove me to pray. It helped motivate me to find a church. One day, I was driving home from the grocery store, and I decided to pray about the latest lawsuit, and suddenly I felt faith gushing through me. I grabbed the center console of my truck, because I felt as though I would be swept away. I had to hang on in order to keep my balance, even though I was sitting.

My faith told me I was in the clear. It was a shocking experience. It was strange and unexpected, and I knew the power didn’t come from me. And it turned out my faith was right. In fact, God answered some very specific prayers about this situation later, and he did it in front of my father, whom I have been trying to reach for God. It was nothing less than astonishing.

Why tell you this? Because it demonstrates what prayer in tongues does. It’s like putting air in a compressor. Faith isn’t just belief. It’s a supernatural substance. It leaves you and goes to do its work when you pray, just like air powering an air tool. When you pray in tongues, you build up a supply of faith, or maybe you just widen the channel through which it travels. Then later, when you pray with your understanding, that faith is on tap. It will come out and surprise you. It will bully your doubts and fears. You have to experience it to know what I mean.

It may not happen until you’ve been praying in tongues for months or years; you shouldn’t expect to get it the first day. But it does happen. And now it’s happening to me several times a week, in my garage. It actually scares me sometimes. I want it. Don’t doubt that. But it’s unnerving when God manifests himself boldly. It’s rewarding, and it’s also humbling, because it reminds you that there really is a God up there who sees the stupid things you do.

I’m getting a new lathe. The old Clausing isn’t cutting it. So to speak. The search has wasted a lot of my time. I get obsessive when I have to spend a big sum, and I shop a lot. I was tired of being caught up in the quest. Last week, in the garage, I prayed for God to bring me the machine I needed, at a good, but not predatory, price. If you believe in the Golden Rule, you should not go out of your way to pay people as little as possible. I finally realized that a few weeks back.

A lathe is an insignificant thing. It’s not a new leg or relief from blindness. It’s something that brings me pleasure, like a new pistol. I don’t really need it. You would not expect God to be highly motivated to bring me one. Nonetheless, I got that same blast of faith as I was praying. It shook me; literally.

That was Thursday. On Friday, I got a surprise email from a machine salesman I had been talking to. For some reason, his company had knocked 10% off the price of a lathe that interested me, and they had removed some stuff I did not want, and they had added things I did want. Not for me. For the general public. They put it on Ebay. The salesman found out after the fact. I knew this was the best deal I was likely to see for months. It was much better than it sounds, because of the expensive accessories that were added and subtracted. I prayed about it, and I felt like I had the go-ahead, so I pounced.

I have no idea why they cut the price. They could just as easily have sold it for full value.

If God will send faith through me to help me find an extravagant toy, what will he do when I have a real problem? It’s pretty exciting to think about it. We don’t understand how good God is. We can’t help but underestimate him.

I don’t have time or a good enough memory to list all the other improbable things God has done for me after sudden bursts of faith, but believe me, it’s more than lawsuits and machine tools.

During my time in the garage, he has sent faith through me for some other things, so I am waiting and watching.

I should not be surprised that God helped me out with something I didn’t need. My church has its faults, but our pastor was right when he told us this: God responds to faith, not need. Think of all the Jews who cried out to him during the Holocaust. Who could have needed him more? Yet they were not saved. How many children die of cancer every year? How many rapes are permitted to occur? Think about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were full of women, old people, pets, and babies.

God is the personification of compassion and justice. If need were what counted, the world would be a much safer place. The Bible tells us faith, not need, is accounted to us as righteousness. I can’t defend it or explain it. I am not God. But because I am not God, and I know my place, I will not criticize it.

I get things I don’t deserve, and God withholds bad things I do deserve. That is the reality of my life. I am not gloating. I’m stating the remarkable facts. Over time, it’s becoming more consistent. I don’t claim I’m immune to adversity, but he truly does take extraordinary care of me, and I believe he will do it for you, if you do what I do. It’s not a matter of permanently ceasing from sin. It’s not a matter of doing great numbers of good deeds or of being exceptionally virtuous. Those are all wonderful things to aspire to, and you should try to be good, but faith is what makes the wheels move.

People tell me I’m wrong, and that life is not supposed to be easy. But Jesus said his burden WAS easy. Christians will encounter persecution and mistreatment, but we get victory. Look at Jesus himself. He was persecuted all his life, and people tried to kill him on a number of occasions. Until the time when God was ready to give him up–for his own purpose–he was safe, and he had inner peace.

I don’t think I’m wrong. I think this is the way I’m supposed to live. Maybe one day God will let people who hate me take a hand in sending me to paradise, but I don’t think I’m going to live in defeat and suffering in the meantime. I think I’m going to win when I should lose.

Of anyone who would offer to correct me, I would ask, “What is your testimony? How many healings have you had? How many visions? How much peace do you have? How often does God’s overwhelming presence–not a mind-manufactured feeling of peace, but his supernatural, palpable presence–come to you in a week?” If nothing supernatural is happening in your life, you’re not living in God’s power. You’re trying to do it on your own. You’re living on pride and portraying it as a deep understanding of how undeserving you are. The fact that you’re undeserving does not mean God doesn’t want you to have it. What if he took that attitude toward salvation?

If it makes you happy to make pilgrimages on your bloody knees, and to live in poverty, and to talk about all the things of which you deprive yourself, so be it, but you should know that you’re really saying God owes you. God doesn’t owe me a thing. I get things I don’t deserve, all the time. I can’t be aware of more than a tiny fraction of the things he does for me, but even that fraction is overwhelming. I am a charity case. A trust-fund baby. I am only too glad to say so. There is no way I can earn this.

Why do you think the angels and the dead praise God incessantly? Because they were told to? Because they’re afraid? Of course not. It’s because you can’t be near him without being blessed. We say God is good, but do we really know what it means? It doesn’t just mean he never sins. It means he never stops doing good things for others, and he always does far more than we deserve or expect. The God who ordered us to go the extra mile goes the extra light year. If he didn’t, he would be like the teachers who laid heavy burdens on people, yet refused to touch them with their little fingers. He would be a hypocrite. Does that sound like God to you? If he asked anything of us, it’s because he was already doing it for us, himself.

Try it yourself. Try it for a week. No charge. Nothing lost. I won’t give you a money-back guarantee, because money is not going to change hands. Just do it. If it doesn’t work, go be an atheist. I’ve been getting results, and so have other people who have listened to me. I don’t think your experience will be any different.