Propheting Ain’t Easy

In my last post, I failed to point out that I made the test pizza at my church, not here. I had to go talk to a Sysco guy who grew up in Queens. He approved of my pizza.

I do not claim to be a prophet. I am not one of these people who run around saying, “God told me [insert self-serving claim here]” or “God said I should [insert preexisting self-serving intention here].” I think God moves me to do things from time to time, and I think he gives me little nudges about what I should pray for, but I am not crazy enough to claim I’m always sure.

A few months back, I had a weird urge to pray for God to let me give a really big sum of money to my church, to get rid of the mortgage. Maybe it was God. Maybe it wasn’t. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask for it and then move on.

Today I was thinking about the pizza situation, and I realized I may have something to give the church which is worth a gigantic pile of cash. I might be able to put them in the pizza business.

I don’t know anything about nonprofit law. I assume it’s okay for a nonprofit to make money, if it uses the money to fund its activities. Otherwise, it would be pretty hard for a church to run a gift shop.

If I can draw a customer base, maybe we can get serious. Don’t the Moonies own Worldnet Daily and Kahr Arms?

This would be perfect. I’d love to sell pizza, but I don’t want to do it alone, because I’m not exactly sure how a sole proprietor starts running a multi-employee business from a dead start. And I don’t want to partner with non-Christians.

I’m not worried about the money part. Right now, I can buy a pizzeria in an amazing location for $33,000. But the church already has a kitchen.

I thought I should document the whole thing now. If it amounts to nothing, no harm done. It has never surprised anyone when one of my schemes turned out to be pointless. But if it’s real, I don’t want to be one of these guys who has a testimony he can’t prove. I don’t want to show up three years from now, after the fact, and say, “By the way, God showed me all these signs BEFORE I got it going.” No one believes a prognosticator who only speaks after his predictions have come true.

I am tired of preachers coming to my church and claiming extraordinary things happened to them, without providing any evidence. If God made a lady grow a leg or whatever, can’t you give us her name? Can’t you put up a Youtube, at least? Anyone can show up in church and say God flew him to Mars and back. It takes a real prophet to show up on photos at NASA.

Nutty things keep happening. My recipe gets better and better. People at church are arranging the kitchen to suit me. I got supernaturally delivered from gluttony, so I can cook all I want without exploding. It’s just weird!

Suddenly I wish I had eaten more than one slice. Oh, well. I can go have an orange.