Learning to Trust Happiness

I can’t get used to being in a church that works. The farther I get from the degrading experience I had at my old church, the more I understand the depth of the hole I was in.

It’s a little like a failed romance. While it’s going on, you know things aren’t right, but you try not to argue and complain, because you know relationships take work. One day you realize it’s over, and you move on. Weeks later, you start to feel angry at the other person. The resentment you buried comes to the surface, because you’re not trying to like that person any more. You see things more clearly without the rose-colored glasses.

My old church didn’t pass out glasses, but they ran a brainwashing campaign. They harped on positive thinking and submission to authority so that the people they abused would think it was wrong to mention or even think about the corruption in the church. It takes a while for the effects to fade. When my friends and I got out, and we talked about the old church, we soft-pedaled our criticism. Now the gloves are off. We’re not absorbed in bitterness and resentment, but we’re clearing the air and dispelling the illusions.

One reason this is happening is that the new church–New Dawn Ministries–is so healthy. It’s very hard to get used to. I guess if you’re pulled into a lifeboat after a long time in the ocean, if you doze off from fatigue, you will probably start trying to tread water any time you’re awakened. The mindset is taking a while to fade. It’s like being raised in a crawl space and then coming out into the open air. The natural thing is to crouch for a couple of months.

My old church has been teaching “the Abishai anointing,” which, summed up, says ordinary church members will never be acknowledged or rewarded, and that they should do everything they’re told to do, without complaining, in order to support the “Davids” in the leadership who get all the money and attention. Meanwhile, New Dawn is teaching the opposite. They’re teaching about the kingdom mindset. Each of us is royalty, appointed by God to rule the earth, and God’s help increases as we identify ourselves with his purposes, as his uncomplaining, faithful servants. We’re supposed to grow and then move on to our own ministries.

You can see the difference. My old church teaches unquestioning loyalty to human beings. New Dawn teaches unquestioning loyalty to God.

The Abishai anointing is a spiritual castration. It turns us into palace eunuchs. We serve the king and queen so they and their seed can increase, but there is no possibility that we will bear fruit of our own or have our own kingdoms. It’s exactly what Satan would teach if he managed to succeed God on the throne. God has absolute authority, yet he is humble and exists to serve and give. He receives worship for an unselfish purpose. If Satan were on the throne, he would accept the honor and worship and give nothing back, just like the leaders in an Abishai church. All the blessings would flow UPWARD.

Yesterday our pastor told us the gospel wasn’t about getting our needs met. He openly disagreed with the idiots on TBN, who live to tell us the more money we give God, the more money God will give us. I loved it. He said we are to put the kingdom first, as Jesus taught. God blesses his servants so they can do his work, just as the military provides care, training, and weapons to recruits.

He also pointed out that Jesus told us we were to go out into the world and make DISCIPLES, not “converts.” This was a major issue at my old church. They didn’t care much about teaching. They were seeker-friendly. They talked a lot about all the things they were willing to do in order to get people saved. The head pastor refused to criticize Barack Obama, who is an enemy of the church, Israel, and the unborn. His son went on the stage and said, “I love Obama. I think he’s great.” They didn’t teach much about prayer. They didn’t tell people much about repentance and holy living. So the church is full of people who think they can do absolutely anything, because they’re forgiven. They quote Matthew 7:1 all the time. Just don’t ask them if they know any other verses.

Here’s something funny. I know people at my old church have said some horrendous things about me and other people who left. Lies and accusations. Today the pastor’s son put this on Facebook: “There is nothing you can do about people who talk behind your back, so focus on the people who talk to your face.” I could not resist “liking” it. Maybe that was wrong. I think God will forgive me.

The brother of a friend of mine came to New Dawn yesterday. His name is Carlos. He had a couple of huge knife wounds that were healing. Some guy mugged him for four dollars and a bicycle. An usher put him next to me so I could talk to him. The pastor’s father came and sat down and got a conversation going. Carlos said he had been offended at another church, because they threw money on the stage and told people God would not bless them unless they gave a certain amount.

My old church has done this kind of thing. They squeeze unsciptural Passover, Pentecost, and Yom Kippur offerings out of people, and I’ve seen the pastor stand on the stage and say, “If you don’t want to give, that’s fine. But you’ll miss out on the blessing.”

It’s funny; Carlos, who doesn’t go to church regularly, knows more about Christianity than my old pastor. At least in some aspects.

The pastor at New Dawn started speaking after we talked to Carlos. He did not know what we had talked about. He spent a good long time telling us how wrong it was for a pastor to teach that God won’t bless people unless they give money. I loved it. This is what happens when a pastor listens to the Holy Spirit instead of trying to build a monument to himself. The Holy Spirit will tell him what to say. I’m sure Carlos will be back.

I had an interesting experience last week. A few months back, my dad hired a guy to fix his deck. He found him in a local publication called The Flyer. It has ads for services in it. I never use it. I prefer Angie’s List. My dad needed some drywall repairs, so he tried to find the same guy. He could not find the check he used to pay him, and he had no record of the man’s name. He searched and searched. Finally, he gave up and got out the latest edition of The Flyer. It had 18 ads for general handymen and dozens of ads for various specialties. He picked an ad and made an appointment.

On Monday, the person who posted the ad showed up. It was the man who had fixed the deck.

I oversaw his work during the week. On the last day, there was some conversation, and he asked me some things. I mentioned my religon, and that I was hoping to write Christian books. He started telling me his testimony. He knew God was there. He didn’t like Catholicism because the church protected sexual predators. He felt God’s presence outside of church. It had brought him to tears. One day when he was very discouraged, he was walking in the ocean, and he saw something shiny near his feet. He picked it up, an it was a medal with the word “manna” on it.

He said he didn’t want to live by rules. He thought we should become good on the inside, so good behavior was a consequence. I told him about the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I told him he was right. God wants to work inside us and change us. The rules aren’t enough.

My dad, the unbeliever, witnessed all this.

I told him about New Dawn and gave him the address and service times. He said he would come by himself. He didn’t want his family to go until he had checked it out. I thought that was smart.

I said something about hoping my dad would eventually go. My dad said what he always says. He said he agreed with Albert Einstein, who said something about a sense of the mystical making him religious in the truest sense. The handyman pointed out that Einstein spent most of his life on a wild goose chase. His work gave rise to quantum mechanics, and he tried in vain to discredit it. That amazed me. How does a handyman know a thing like that? It’s exactly what I tell my dad, but I have a degree in physics.

I’m hoping this guy will show up on Tuesday night for Bible study. I think God has a heavy-duty purpose for his life.

In other news, I’m going to be an armorbearer again. At my old church, the pastor had a habit of trying to make influential people armorbearers, and I believe this is how I got on the team. They were hoping to attract more affluent white people, and I think I looked like a prospect. I think it shocked the other ABs when I worked out. At the new church, I was accepted on the team because I had proven myself at the old church. I spoke briefly to the team leader yesterday–the guy in the trenches, not a pastor looking to network–and he said he was “one hundred percent” sure they wanted me. That was an honor. Not an Abishai moment.

I probably won’t serve as much as I did at the old church, because I’ll be doing other things, and it won’t be quite as much like police work, because the congregation is different. But I look forward to it. I don’t think they’ll take advantage of me.

I hope I get used to this soon. Sometimes I feel like I’m carrying an invisible prison cell around with me.

God has Moved me to a Wide Place

Over the last week or two I read the best Christian book I’ve ever seen. It’s called Fire on the Altar, and it was written by Fred Stone, the father of TV teacher and evangelist Perry Stone.

I love Perry Stone’s work, but if I have to be honest, I’ll say I think his father has helped me more. I think his father was somewhat more humble and closer to the Holy Spirit.

The book is full of remarkable testimonies that illustrate the kingdom principles he teaches. As a young man in West Virginia, he accepted God in a time when revival was washing over Appalachia. He learned about the gift of tongues, and the power it carries. He dedicated his life to God. He spent much of his life pastoring churches, and he exhibited many of the gifts of the Spirit, including tongues, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, supernatural faith, and miraculous healing. He writes about these things as a witness and practititioner, not as a spectator or theorist. His accounts are helpful. A person who has never done a certain thing can’t teach as well as someone who has done it.

He spoke to foreigners in languages he did not understand. He saw God put an iris and pupil in a deformed eye. He had visions in which he left his body to learn from God. He saw angels. You really need to read the book to get a picture of it.

It confirms so many things God has taught me. It’s great when God corrects, but it’s even better when he tells you you’re right about something.

You can get the book at the VOE website, which I linked to, above.

My own adventure keeps unfolding and improving. The progress never stops.

For a long time, I’ve been telling people prayer in tongues would fill them with power and bring them closer to God. As time passes, God confirms that message over and over, more and more strongly. I was not wrong about it. It came from him.

God’s power and presence fall on me more and more often, and they do so with increasing intensity. Some people call this the “anointing,” but anointing means authority, so I just say “power and presence.” I feel that the veil between me and him gets very thin at times. Here’s a peculiar truth about God: the ability to perceive him and to believe him is not natural. It’s not something you can manufacture by trying really hard. It comes from the Holy Spirit. You may have a little faith before you are baptized with the Spirit, but it’s nothing compared to the faith that develops in you over time, as you maintain a regimen of prayer in tongues.

You can pray for increased faith, and for God to reduce your unbelief. It works. It’s a shame people don’t know this. Faith is the currency of the supernatural realm, and God wants you to have it, because he wants you to be able to do his work. He is ready to give it to you; you are not required to do it all on your own, like the Hebrews who had to gather their own straw to hold bricks together.

I am now spending a minimum of 1 1/2 hours a day in prayer, much of it in tongues, and most of the time I do much better than that. As a result, God is teaching me more and becoming more obvious. And good things are happening around me. The closer you get to God, the more you are identified with him. The more you are identified with him, the more you do his work and invite attacks from his enemies. That makes you part of him, and he will increase his interaction with you, and he will increase the provision and protection he gives you.

Sometimes I can’t pray in English. The Spirit won’t allow it. I’ll try to stop praying in tongues and go on in English, and he will not permit it. The Spirit knows the will of the Father. There are urgent needs I have to pray for, and only the Spirit knows what they are. Apparently, sometimes they are so important, they take precedence over anything I could ask for in my own language.

The Bible tells us the Spirit knows the will of God, and it tells us God will grant us what we ask for, if we pray according to his will. It’s obvious that letting the Spirit pray through us will bring results.

It’s important to get information from people who know God. The Bible says we perish for lack of knowledge. God will literally let you die, when you don’t know what to do about your situation. Our predecessors were supposed to gain and preserve knowledge of God and pass it down to us, but they didn’t do it, so now most Christians are ignorant. They don’t know their rights. Teaching us was not God’s responsibility. We’re supposed to make this world work; it’s not his job. You have to listen to people who have knowledge, and you have to store it up and apply it.

The new church is very satisfying. I’m probably going to do some armorbearer work there, but it won’t be quite as hairy as working at the other church. Less like police work. That would be nice.

It’s hard to get used to being in a church where people mean what they say. Jesus said we would be judged for every idle word. In most churches, they’ll let idiots go on stage and “prophesy” and “bless,” and everyone knows none of it means anything. It’s like incense that fails to rise toward God. But at New Dawn, they really expect things to happen, so you have to pay attention and take it seriously.

The other day, one week after my old church taught the ridiculous “Abishai anointing,” which is basically intended to neuter everyone but the pastor, my new church taught that we were supposed to think in kingdom terms. We are supposed to be kings. We have authority. I am always a little nervous about “speaking” things into existence, but the Bible does say we can prophesy, declare, and bless. The pastor decreed that we would come to think in kingdom terms, and he asked us to receive it, and I went for it.

Ever since then, I’ve felt the authority inside me. We really are supposed to be kings. As I said above, God put us here to run the earth. What is a person who runs a planet? A king, obviously. We were supposed to be on top, but we sold out and ended up on the bottom.

Paul said Satan had principalities and powers on his side. Satan has never had an original idea. He copies everything; he was even copying when he said he would be like God. Clearly, Satan stole the idea of supernatural powers and authorities. So who are God’s principalities? Angels? Presumably. But also human beings. The Bible tells us we are God’s children. What is the child of a king? A prince and future king.

I now feel more confidence in my prayers, which is saying a lot. I feel more serious about my purpose. I don’t just have a right to ask for things. I have an obligation. A soldier wouldn’t turn down a machine gun or body armor. God expects to supply and help me.

Here’s something interesting. Last night, a pastor taught us that Jezebel had castrated men in order to dishonor them. I had never thought about that. I had read that eunuchs had thrown Jezebel to her death, but I had never thought about the incongruity: castrated men in a Jewish castle.

The Jews did not castrate. The practice has been done in other places, like China and Babylon. The idea is to prevent gifted subordinates from impregnating the queen or raising up sons to challenge the incumbent dynasty. It must have been considered disgraceful for Jezebel to have castrated men in her service. Did they volunteer? Were they forced? Did ambitious parents send them to be castrated? Was Jezebel such a slut that Ahab had her servants castrated? I don’t know. But it was an anomaly.

At my old church, they taught people they were supposed to be lowly “Abishais.” They could not comment on church policy, or on corruption in the leadership. They were not to expect rewards or recognition. They were to dedicate their lives to promoting the pastors.

By this definition, what is an “Abishai”? It’s a eunuch. Greedy, abusive pastors do not want their subordinates to flourish, especially if they’re talented or capable. They pretend to offer their underlings promotion, but somehow, the pastor and his family end up getting all the glory. Eunuchs serve until they get fed up, and then new eunuchs who don’t know any better come along. Eunuchs get limited authority. They don’t get to succeed pastors. They don’t bear fruit, because the pastors undermine them. Pastors want to stay on top, and then they want their sons to take over.

Now think about David, who was a king. He started out as a shepherd, and then he became an armorbearer. An armorbearer is supposed to be promoted eventually. Some succeeded their masters. Others went on to their own domains. An armorbearer isn’t sterile. He is expected to go on and bear fruit. He eventually becomes a king, and the cycle repeats.

My old church gave me an Abishai award. I was gracious when I received it, but I never knew what to do with it. I eventually used the frame for a photo of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and me, at the National Day of Prayer.

Now I feel the award was an insult from a principality. The people at the church intended to honor me, I suppose, but that’s the natural understanding. In all likelihood, there was a supernatural reason for the award. I think it was the enemy’s way of saying, “You are stuck here, and you will not grow or expand God’s kingdom in your own right. Keep your head down, continue making those bricks, and then die.”

I have realized I can’t be stopped. I have God’s favor. The kingdom of heaven is like a tree, and while you can try to stunt a tree by putting it in a small pot, the roots of a tree can break stone in order to grow. As long as I water myself with prayer in the Spirit, I will grow, and God will always move me to a place where I can continue to expand. People have tried to stop me, but they lost, and they will always lose, because I’m not the one they’re actually fighting. They are fighting someone so great, in his presence, they don’t even amount to specks of dust.

I the end, I will have fruit, but their fruit will dry up and die. I want to say, “unless they repent,” but I don’t feel it’s correct. Maybe that just means I should pray for them.

Another interesting thing: Fred Stone died without much money. He was a wonderful servant of God, but by his own admission, he did not have faith for financial help. He believed this had hindered his ministry. His son built a multimillion-dollar ministry which is always solvent, and Fred Stone believed his son was able to do this because he had no problem believing God would supply him.

I am not a prosperity buff. I am disgusted by the way charismatic preachers talk about money all the time. But I do believe God wants us to do well. I’m not practicing law now, and I don’t want to starve in the future, so I do pray for new sources of income. Reading what Fred Stone said gave me great confidence. I prayed about it last night while driving home from church, and waves of faith hit me, just like the time faith told me my ex-girlfriend’s crazy lawsuits were going nowhere. Now I know something is going to break. It’s done. It’s absolutely done. I’m telling this because it may be useful to someone reading this. I received the gift of supernatural faith through regular prayer in tongues, and you can see how it’s paying off. If it worked for me, it will work for you. Just don’t put your carnal desires ahead of your desire to please God.

It’s Okay; You’re not Special

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life filled with annoyance at fat, spoiled, lying preachers who cheat and enslave their flocks. I would much rather focus on the great things God does for me. Things like love, joy, peace, and success are available to everyone, and we don’t have to do all that much in order to receive them. Those are the things I’d like to spend time talking about (as a witness, not a plagiarist or theoretician), but how can you help people find the truth when they’ve been brainwashed by greedy liars who claim they’ve already shown them the way? You have to say something.

Today’s dose of aggravation: the “Abishai anointing.”

Abishai was one of David’s followers. He joined David in the cave at Adullam, along with other men whose lives were not going well. He was not a remarkable person, but he was brave and extremely loyal. He would have done anything for David. Naturally, the preacher-worship cultists have latched onto him as a role model. This is what the Abishai anointing is all about. You can read all about it in a little booklet written by prosperity preacher Denny Duron. I just finished it this morning. It was given to me a long time ago at a gathering at my former church. I believe it was a men’s conference.

The Abishai anointing is very big at my old church. They’ve even named an award after it. They have (or used to have) monthly meetings at which they gave out prizes to volunteers, and the Abishai Award was one of them. They had a Servant Leader of the Month award, which was the top honor. With that, you got temporary custody of a huge trophy, and you got a parking space for one month. They also had the Lionheart Award. Smaller trophy. I forget what you had to do to qualify for this award. There was a fourth award which I no longer remember.

I actually received an Abishai once. I think it’s safe to say I destroyed my chances of further awards when I quit working in the church kitchen. After I made that scriptural and intelligent choice–actually, God made it for me–I felt that I was pretty much outside the circle of wagons. That’s good, because the award thing was a little creepy.

Basically, the Abishai theory goes like this. Anyone who complains or even looks at practical considerations is a whiner who is–I suppose–full of demons or something. You are supposed to serve “the king,” not “the palace,” so no matter how badly a ministry fares (after God curses it for stupidity, for example), you stick with it.

Here’s the beauty part. You don’t get to be a “David.” He was handsome and talented and smart. You’re more of a drone. The pastor is Hall, and you’re not even Oates. You’re like the guy who makes sure Oates has his favorite hair gel in the dressing room at the arena. You are God’s gofer. God’s chai walla. But God loves you for that, and you should be really happy that your function in life is to promote “David,” who is–no, not Jesus–the pastor! David is special and wonderful in ways you can’t really understand, so don’t analyze his motives, and be really proud you get to take his jackets to the cleaners and trim his hedges and lie about his girlfriends and so on.

I can’t even tell you how many things are wrong about this. First of all, David was “a man after God’s own heart,” and he was a great prophet. He made mistakes, but he was not a fool whose main goal in life was to build a megachurch with its own cruise ship dock. David was generally worthy to be followed. And he truly was anointed; he had God’s approval, and that’s all that really matters.

Many of our modern megachurch and wannamegachurch pastors are cut from cruder cloth. They are of a lower class. They tend to be insincere, unconcerned with the poor, oblivious to the problems of the people they are supposed to serve, vain, greedy, rude, and so on. They pay themselves, their unanointed relations, and their buddies big money, and they tell poor congregants God wants them to give huge, unscriptural offerings in order to keep the show going. It’s okay to be an Abishai when you’re following a David (or Jesus, whom David actually symbolized). It’s not okay when you’re following a Robert Tilton or a Kenneth Copeland.

Second thing: the idea about serving the king and not the palace is a little ridiculous. In fact, the office is more important than the man. That’s obvious even in the secular world, where incompetent CEOs get the boot all the time. Venal preachers need to be cast down so they can’t continue doing harm, and those who follow them need to find better leaders. You don’t dump a pastor the first time he does something dumb, but if he’s an utter fool, you don’t waste an inordinate amount of time getting him replaced or moving on. It’s probably okay to put up with a bad pastor for a year, if he is teachable and humble, but if he thinks he knows everything, eventually he has to go.

Look at the Bible. When Saul screwed up, did God get rid of the king’s office? Of course not. He got rid of Saul. When Eli’s sons screwed up, did God get rid of the priesthood? No, he destroyed Eli’s line. Over and over in the Bible, we see unworthy people kicked out of office. It’s as Biblical as salvation.

Third thing: the book has an accusatory tone worthy of Satan, who accuses us before the Father day and night. This is a classic and cheap debating tactic of which Satan has always made good use. When a righteous person stands up for God and opposes men who are in error, the smart thing is to accuse him of wicked intentions. Then he’s on the defensive. And if you’re a preacher, the congregation will presume he’s right.

Good preachers don’t spend their days making up doctrines they can use to silence their just critics. This tactic is something we’ve seen in Nazi Germany, Islamist regimes, and the former USSR, not to mention Scientology and other cults. If you disagree, you are wicked, and if you choose to defend yourself, the burden of proof is on you. And defending yourself is just more proof that you’re wicked, because a real ABISHAI would admit he was wrong!

The Abishai anointing is a brainwashing tool. It’s a typical cult doctrine. In a real church, leaders put people in contact with the Holy Spirit, and he grows in them and unites them. They don’t need mind-control tactics. In a church where the Holy Spirit takes a backseat to greed and pride, you have to have a cheat in order to keep people in line.

Last night I realized my old church was teaching this nonsense again. I can show you some tweets and Facebook statuses I saw.

Submission will take you to places that ambition will never take you

Sure, but you have to submit to people who are, themselves, submitted to God.

It’s either shut your mouth or leave, support the vision or leave! -Sermon Title: The Abishai Anointing

All I can say is, “Find THAT for me in the Bible.”

You do not owe your friends an explanation! -Sermon Title: The Abishai Anointing

Right. We all remember that verse in Proverbs. Do whatever you want! Accountability is for the little people!

But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord ‘s anointed. Now get the spear and water jug that a… http://bible.us/1Sam26.11.NIV

So now if I compare sermons to the Bible and point out the glaring disagreement, I’m laying a hand on the Lord’s anointed. That’s great news.

“The seeds you sow as a follower, you will reap as a leader.”

So if the leader abuses people, and you put up with it instead of calling him out, I guess you get to abuse people when you become a leader.

Actually, that seems to be true. When Mr. Burns dies, Smithers will probably be the boss from hell.

You can probably see why I was unhappy. This stuff is not about God. It’s prophylactic preaching. Its purpose is to shield the pastor from accountability.

People need to be taught about fasting, prayer, Bible reading, and the promises of God. Instead, the pastor is putting out landmines in case anyone tries to challenge him when he does wrong. Is this why people come to church? Do addicts in base houses sit up and say, “Man, I feel a burning need to be told not to criticize bad preachers! I have to get to church NOW so I can become a mindless butt-kisser! I know this will fill the gaping void in my soul!” Of course not. They want to know God and see his restoration and redemption.

I hate to spend so much time criticizing, but how do you fill a vessel with something good if you don’t empty out the pus and corruption that already fills it?

In my own life, things continue to improve. The more I pray in the Spirit, the more faith I have. The more God speaks to me and guides me. The more success I have. He fixes my faults. He helps me become like him. He defeats my enemies. Anyone can have these things, but they won’t get them from sitting in a blind church maxing out their credit cards.

Last night I asked God if he could limit the anger to what is necessary to get his work done. Righteous anger is a very good and necessary thing; anyone who says otherwise is a liar. But I don’t want it in me one second longer than it has to be, and I don’t want it to give rise to bitterness or self-righteousness. I don’t want it to make me forget my own sins and iniquities. I don’t want it to overcome love. I hate to see my friends taken advantage of by sleazy, unworthy people. I hate it. But I can’t let anger linger in me all the time.

I suggest we all pray for a change in leadership, not just at my old church, but at churches across America. Good leaders are everywhere, but unfortunately, many are not running churches. We need God to beat the dogs until they get out of the mangers.

Keep it Moving

I’ve had some interesting experiences lately.

The Bible tells us to covet the ability to prophesy: “Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues (1 Cor. 14:39).” I’ve experienced a number of the gifts of the Spirit, but I am not really up to speed on prophecy. Once in a while I get a sentence or a phrase which, I’m pretty sure, comes from God, but I’m not one of these people who just flow like a river.

I don’t believe in saying this or that came from God, unless I’m on solid ground. The Old Testament said the Jews were to kill false prophets, so mistakes were not tolerated. Actually, they were tolerated, now that I think about it, because the Old Testament contains examples of a number of liars who were not executed, but still, the principle applies. It occurs to me that actual prophets were not tolerated. They were put in pits and sawn in half and so on, while the butt-kissers got parades. But that’s a rhetorical rabbit trail which I will avoid. What I’m getting to is this: I’m not going to run my mouth and claim God’s authority and HOPE I’m right.

A lot of “prophets” in the church are not so punctilious. They go around preaching and telling people wonderful things about the future…which are not true. You never hear them say, “Pastor, God says you need to stop dyeing your hair and skimming from the church’s charity wing.” They always say, “You’re going to do mighty things! You’re going to have a powerful TV ministry! Your stretch marks are going to go away without surgery! You will be so rich you’ll live on the tithe and give away ninety percent, and you’ll have an orange helicopter in your yard and a tennis court in your living room, just like your megachurch buddies!” They point to people in the congregation and say, “God is going to give you [insert profitable business here] and send you around the world!” Of course, none of this stuff actually happens, but no one keeps track, so there is no correction.

Nobody wants to end up like that. Nobody with any integrity.

Anyway, over the last couple of nights, I’ve felt words rising up inside me during prayer. It starts with praise which seems to exit under pressure, as though it did not come from me (anyone who prays in tongues a lot will understand this), and then out come the statements of fact.

Prophecy isn’t always about the future, and it’s not always highly specific. Sometimes it’s strong encouragement. It can be vague, as the ancient prophets demonstrate many times. The stuff I’m hearing isn’t extremely focused; God isn’t telling me to go to locker number 582 at the airport where I will find an orange kewpie doll filled with Bolivian money. And I’m not hearing that I’ll be on TV with a giant lacquered Christian hairdo and a purple suit, paying myself an eight-figure salary. But I hear good stuff. I’m hoping it’s true. Some of it is about an increase in God’s love flowing through me. That would be nice. I’m not totally unaware of my faults, so I do ask for more empathy, and I would like to receive it.

Perry Stone has a wonderful teaching out this month. Boiled down, it goes like this: spirits need bodies in the earth in order to get things done here. Satan used a serpent. Jesus came in the flesh, and he was killed, and now he is coming again, inside each of us, through the Holy Spirit. This is why he calls us his body.

I agree with this. The fruit of the Spirit are his character (or “righteousness”), put inside us through grace. The gifts are his power (or “kingdom”). In the past, Christians got by with accepting salvation and trying to be good. But we are expected to be little replicas of Jesus, complete with his supernatural characteristics, and that only comes through the Holy Spirit.

If we don’t prophesy, and if we don’t have his knowledge and wisdom, and if we don’t receive and interpret messages in tongues, where will we be? The ancient Jews used to communicate with God in the Holy of Holies, unless I am seriously misled. I am told they could inquire of God, and he would give them answers by miraculous means. This is one of the ways they found out whether they would succeed in battle. It seems a little silly to expect modern believers to try to get by with their own meager understanding. Satan’s servants haven’t lost their supernatural power, yet somehow, we are not expected to develop our own. Does that make sense? Of course not. Paul said we battle supernatural beings in high places. Are we supposed to do that by earthly means alone? It’s like the Polish cavalry, riding out to attack German bombers with swords.

I think supernatural power is what draws martyrdom. Satan doesn’t care all that much if you get people saved. It’s a defeat for him, but he still gets to rule the earth, as long as we’re weak. And it is widely believed that believers have to reach a certain level of power and righteousness before Jesus returns. It may be that keeping Christians weak prolongs Satan’s reign and postpones his destruction and humiliation. In any case, martyrdom is pretty rare in times when Christians deny the Holy Spirit, and it was very common back in the beginning, when tongues and miraculous manifestations were considered routine. The bigger the threat, the bigger the earth’s immune response.

I keep seeing the things God told me 25 years ago confirmed. Prayer in the Spirit is vital, and you have to do it a lot. The amount matters a great deal. You have to fast. You have to read the Bible. You have to pray with your understanding and analyze and admit your faults. You have to get the supernatural juice turned on. These things are easy to do, because God does most of the work. They will bring power into your life. They will end hopelessness and depression. They will put your life on track. And of course, heaven waits at the end, with rewards you have accumulated.

I think it’s this simple: you can grow, or you can rot. There is no such thing as sitting still. And like a plant, you will not grow without water. That water is the living water of the Holy Spirit. It has to flow every day, just as a plant has to be watered over and over.

Take it for what it’s worth. It has never stopped working for me.

Don’t Get Stuck in the Afterbirth

Last night I got somewhat depressed. Various things got me thinking about the predicament the earth is in.

This world is ruined. We manage to enjoy it a good part of the time, because human beings can get used to anything. I’m sure there were moments of happiness in the Nazi death camps, because there is almost no limit to what the human mind can learn to tune out. We aren’t always miserable, but that doesn’t change the truth. This place is so full of innocent blood, it might as well be a temple. The world is cursed.

Try and imagine the suffering which is going on right now. As I type this, children and old women are being raped. People are being murdered in front of their families. Billions and billions of animals are tearing each other apart. Crops are failing. Careers are ending. People are dying young. Babies are being born without arms. There is no way for a human mind to comprehend the pain that exists in the world.

None of this was supposed to happen.

We chose to rebel. God gave us free will, because he wanted real love and obedience, and we wasted no time in misusing it. As far as we know, Adam knew God personally and could speak to him face to face whenever he had a problem, and God was always with him, so whatever he did prospered. He did not lack knowledge or help. But he threw it away because he thought his way was better than God’s way, and as a result, succeeding generations knew less and less about God, and Satan’s ability to torment and control us increased, just like the population of the crop-killing weeds that followed the curse.

We used to have plenty. We used to have peace. Now we have cancer, the black plague, venereal disease, birth defects, war, poverty, perversion, natural disasters…we fail when we should succeed, and the evil succeed when they should fail. And the strange thing is that no matter what God does to help, we decline in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.

God came to Moses and told him how people should live, if they wanted success. God didn’t owe this to us. Running the world is our job, not his. But he did it anyway. And God couldn’t even get half of the Hebrews to listen. Most of them died in Egypt. Then they rebelled on the way out, and God threatened to kill everyone except the family of Moses. God had to kill 3,000 Hebrews before their journey really got started. And when he appeared to them as a cloud and a pillar of fire, to lead them to the Promised Land, they refused to trust him, and a whole generation died in the desert.

God sent Jesus, who took the extraordinary measure of sacrificing his body so that we could receive the Holy Spirit and become like him. He allowed himself to be tortured to death in front of his jeering enemies. He died on Passover and sent the Holy Spirit to his followers on the same date on which God sent the Torah; could anything be more obvious? Is there anything more God could have done to convince people he was there for them? Nonetheless, within a few centuries, the church had abandoned the Holy Spirit, and they had adopted a doctrine of increasing God’s kingdom through human strength and effort. It was as if they preferred striving under the law to having things given to them under grace.

Around a hundred years ago, God practically forced the Holy Spirit on us again, descending in places like Azusa Street. We could have listened. We could have prayed in the Spirit, fasted, studied the word, and tried to serve God, using the incredible power he had given us. But Spirit-filled churches turned into televised whorehouses where oily men and women in gaudy clothes wheedled worthless cash offerings out of us. They’re still at it. We hear about “seed gifts” all the time, but only rarely is charity mentioned. We hear about positive thinking, which is utterly worthless, but we hear very little about sin, repentance, or the need to put God first.

Look where America stands now. Our young people are so enamored of the appearance of evil, they actually try to look like prison inmates. The shaved heads, bad tattoos, and chin beards we see today are the fashion statements of yesterday’s born losers. Thirty years ago, you had to go to a penitentiary to see that kind of thing. And of course, modern sex is coming to resemble prison sex.

We now celebrate homosexuality. Women are especially guilty. They adore homosexual men. They can’t believe God could disapprove of their cute, witty little friends. We promote abortion–murdering the unborn within their mothers’ bodies–as a necessary tool to assure the success of young women. We teach arrogance as though it were a virtue. Our entertainment is filthy. We love possessions and pleasures. We call people who stand up for God “haters.” We even teach that Jesus–an Orthodox rabbi–was a pervert. We project our goat-like values back on him, and we claim he was essentially the gay Jewish Buddha. One of many enlightened saviors. I don’t want to get sidetracked, but as the Dalai Lama says, Buddha was against homosexuality and sexual excess. Even Buddha has been watered down. No god is lenient enough for today’s spoiled Americans.

I thought about all this, and I realized how little I liked the world. Strangely, I enjoy life more than I ever did, but I really don’t like this place. I want to live in a world where good succeeds and evil is not rewarded and does not even exist. I don’t want to see sick people any more. I don’t want to see animals suffer. I don’t want to see deformities and diseases. I want to hear an end to the hate-filled lies ignorant people spew about God and his people. It would be so wonderful to be able to look at the TV listings and know I wouldn’t see Bill Maher’s name.

The Bible tells us Christians are not part of the world. We are really missionaries, or, as the Bible calls us, “ambassadors.” The ship is sinking; we are just here to pull willing people into the lifeboats and help them become like God. When I think about the problems this planet has, these truths become more real to me.

I am tempted to say we are not worth saving, but that’s not really right. Many must be worth it, or God would not be working so hard at it. But in the end, it will turn out that the people remaining unsaved are not worth trying to reach by humane means. There will be dregs that have to be filtered harshly. We know that, because God is going to remove the flesh from his people, shaking the dust from his feet, and then he is going to remove his remaining protection from the world, and the Tribulation will follow.

Weak Christians will be here to suffer; many of those who lack the Holy Spirit and deny the gift of tongues will be like Peter, who denied Jesus before the Romans. Those who have filled their lamps with the oil of the Holy Spirit (symbolized by the lamps in the Holy of Holies), and who have managed and cared for the flames, will be gone. Noah and his family were separated from the earth by the earth’s waters. We will be separated by the waters of heaven, which are mentioned in Genesis.

Because America has gotten so filthy, and because we are developing technology which is rapidly giving us power only God should have, I am wondering if the Rapture is closer than I had expected. How much power will God let us have? How much longer will he let his people cast their pearls before increasingly vile and abusive swine?

Our technological boom reminds me of the Tower of Babel. That tower was a religious edifice. It was an observatory dedicated to astrology, which was very powerful in the ancient world. When God saw that man had such power within his reach, he intervened. I think we have seen similar things in the modern era. The people who design computers and software have done things so stupid, they are best explained by supernatural interference. The Apple versus IBM mess. Apple versus Google. Our gadgets would be a lot more dangerous had we made a unified, coordinated effort. I truly suspect that God has slowed things down, and that he will not let us get too strong. He wants to preserve a certain amount of liberty, in order to allow us free will. Technology is reducing our liberty very quickly.

We’ve already lost privacy. The Founding Fathers gave us the Fourth Amendment, but now when you want to travel, you are presumed guilty of terrorism, so you get searched and even molested or photographed naked without probable cause. Unmanned machines can fly over your property without warrants and take photographs at will. Google cars can come to your driveway and photograph your house in the woods, and if you happen to be getting dressed by a window, too bad. The government and creepy private entities run by mischievous punks now have unprecedented power over us. In the near future, things will get even worse. It will be possible to wage conventional war by remote control. When we don’t fear casualties, what will happen to our humanity? People show their true colors when they have no fear.

Part of me wants to avoid looking like a kook holding a “The End is Near” sign, but now that I think about it, Jesus was such a person. He warned us to be ready, and so did Paul. If you don’t know when things are going to get sideways, the rational thing is to live as though it could happen today.

It’s very disconcerting. It makes me sad, knowing that so many of us will never live our earthly dreams. A happy marriage, kids, a nice house, good health, financial abundance, success…these things come unpredictably, to a certain percentage of people. The rest have to be content with the blessings of the afterlife. That makes sense. Each generation is a crop, and in a cursed world, we are subject to blights, droughts, and weeds. It’s natural that many of us should be stunted or barren.

The other day, I realized that chaff is the afterbirth of grain plants. A mammal’s afterbirth is useless flesh that accompanies a birth and then dies and rots. The Bible compares the ungodly to chaff. When the harvest comes, anyone who gets left behind will be like discarded afterbirth.

I am torn between wanting to see it over with and wanting to please God by helping with the harvest.

I was once told that God was displeased with Noah’s weak efforts to reform the wicked people around him. It was good that a few righteous people were saved, but it would have been better had they been able to persuade others to repent. I think Christians should be mindful of this. It’s great to know you’ve got a golden ticket, but we remain on this planet primarily to increase our numbers.

I guess this is a gloomy post, but when this is all behind us, surely the pain we’ve witnessed will no longer distress us.

They Bring a Knife; You Bring a Cuisinart

I’m working on Chicago-style pizza today.

I already made a pie with my usual Sicilian crust. That crust is so good, I figured it couldn’t miss.I made it the usual way, but when I stuck it in the pan, I formed a wall around the edge, maybe 1.25″ high. Chicago pizza is a bowl of cheese and sauce, so you have to have sides on the bowl.

The pizza was very nice, but I learned one important thing. There is a reason they put sauce over the cheese in Chicago. They bake their pies nearly forever, so the cheese burns if you leave it exposed. I ended up with brown cheese. It tasted good, but obviously, it was far from optimal.

The crust itself was nice, but truthfully, conventional Sicilian is better. A big layer of yeasty bread under the sauce is better than thin crust swimming in tomatoes. When you make a high border around the pie, you automatically reduce the thickness of the bottom of the crust, and that’s not good.

Somebody pointed me to the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Chicago-style pizza. It’s the same recipe I linked to the other day, on another site. The crust is the same, at least. You replace around 1/8 of the flour with corn meal, and you blend butter into the dough. Then you let it rise, roll it out, butter it, roll it up, flatten it somewhat, and stick it in the fridge. That hardens the butter, so when you form it into a pizza, you get layers separated by butter.

I think that’s the idea, anyhow.

Right now I’m making a pie with this method. Obviously, I changed a couple of things, because that’s how I am. I used the Cuisinart to “knead” the dough, and I halved the recipe. It was a recipe for two pies. What do you do if you only want one? The solution seemed simple.

I expected the corn meal to make the dough gritty, but oddly, it’s extremely silky. I mean, to the point where it’s weird.

I just threw it in the oven. I rolled it out, put it in the pan over olive oil, and added cheese, sauce, more cheese, pepperoni, spinach, and ricotta. I think I have the cheese covered well enough to keep it from burning.

We’ll see how it comes out. Maybe I’ll put up photos.

More

The first pizza was pretty good, apart from being burnt. Part of the problem was my failure to cover the cheese. The other part was an oversight with the oven. I set the temperature too high, and then I corrected it before putting the pie in. I believe it was still too hot when the pie started baking. Anyway, here it is.

The second pizza looked fantastic but tasted sort of like a burned souffle crossed with a waffle. About one eighth of the flour was replaced with corn meal. That screwed up the flavor. I think it also contributed to the burnt taste. Corn meal burns easily.

I ate most of one piece, just to analyze it, but the rest is going in the trash.

I’m wondering if this is how it’s supposed to taste. I have heard the taste of Chicago pizza described as “buttery,” but my guess is that a lot of people can’t tell the taste of butter from the taste of corn.

It seems to me that corn just doesn’t work with tomato sauce and mozzarella. The flavors are incompatible. It’s like cornbread instead of biscuits with fried chicken. Maybe you have to be raised eating it to think it’s good.

I’m thinking I might do it again, using lard instead of butter and getting rid of the corn meal. Anyway, it was bad.

The Incompetent Can Only Rise so Far, Even in the Church

I keep thinking about something someone said this weekend. Someone who has heard a lot of sermons at my old church was listening to my current pastor preach, and he was impressed. He said the message wasn’t about careers, because unlike my old church, the new one was not a business.

That interests me, because the leaders at the old church talk constantly about leadership principles and success strategies and so on. I suppose this is because the head pastor is a motivational speaker, not a prophet or prayer expert or healer. I didn’t know he was a motivational speaker until recently, or at least, I didn’t know he listed “motivational speaker” in his promotional verbiage.

I wonder how many people will agree with me when I say this: some of the worst leaders and managers on earth talk constantly about the secrets to success. They talk about leadership and management as if they know everything. And they are still incompetent.

If you were to check the Facebook and Twitter accounts of people at the old church, you would see them repeating garbage from Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill, and lots of other success “experts.” They recommend books with titles like The Energy Bus. They repeat crap they hear at conferences, with little comments like “so good!”. But the church is run like Boss Hogg’s bar on The Dukes of Hazzard. It’s full of nepotism, cronyism, laziness, and denial. And it’s a huge failure.

Maybe I shouldn’t knock motivational experts and success gurus. Their stuff does work, to a certain degree. I don’t think it’s evil. I’m sure Tony Robbins has helped millions of people make more money. For that matter, I think Scientology, a vile cult, makes people more successful. Positive thinking and corporate training will help you out in life, if you are the kind of person who acts instead of merely hearing.

The thing that bugs me is that these things are taught as substitutes for the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the only thing that will put you on exactly the right track and bring you exactly what you need in order to be fulfilled.

I’ll put it this way: I’m glad there are oncologists out there, and it’s good to have a cancerous leg amputated, but it’s better to have the Holy Ghost show up and destroy your tumors. I think that sums it up.

It’s funny; human beings use training and knowledge as tools to avoid using training and knowledge. We do this with scripture, and we do it with secular wisdom. The people who talk the biggest game often do the least.

I still remember my experiences at the church cafe. They preached responsibility, punctuality, cleanliness, professionalism…you name it. They said that as an Armorbearer, I was supposed to go in there and show them how Armorbearers rolled. We were considerably more responsible than most other volunteers, so we were supposed to teach them our ways.

I rounded up several really great kids to teach. I started making reasonable, intelligent rules about my workspace and the way the food was to be displayed and sold. And in the end, the drive-by pastor who ran the place gave me a very rude lecture in front of half of the staff, telling me I was possessive and overly demanding.

Here are the things I wanted: people were not to pile hundreds of pounds of boxes on my workspace before I came in. They were not to throw out items I brought to church and put in the freezers and fridges. I was to have at least two steam table pans to display the pizza and rolls I made, because I was required to sell two kinds of pizza plus rolls, and the other trays were full of gross deep-fried Sysco chicken offerings which were nearly identical. I expected every day’s work to start with prayer. I expected people to be clean.

Obviously, I was channeling Hitler. At Burger King, this list would have been considered unsatisfactory because it was so SHORT, but at my church–the church of success and positive thinking–it was way over the top.

The pastor violated every management rule you can think of. He refused to communicate with me so I could adapt to his vision (or even be aware of it). He was rarely present on the job. He “corrected” me in front of others before giving me any private input. He gave someone less senior authority over me and my workspace without informing me. He tried to get me to continue there, doing things way below my skill level (frying wings and so forth). He essentially eliminated profitable items in order to focus on embarrassing crap that lost money. He never listened; he knew nothing whatsoever about business, but he did know that everyone else was wrong.

Name a principle of good management; he violated it. There was no possible way for him to succeed in his ignorance and stubbornness, and the advice I gave him was ancient, accepted wisdom guaranteed to work. Of course, the cafe failed miserably, and it was taken away from him, which is what he wanted all along.

They turned the cafe over to a guy who is so ineffective, he stands out even at the church. People marvel at his ineffectiveness, but he’s very close to the head pastor’s family, so he can never be removed from the chain of command. Whenever a problem arises and his name comes up, because it appears necessary to go through him, people are likely to give up or look for a way to go around him. He is extremely effective at one thing: preventing progress.

Before he was put in charge, he was already taking care of the physical plant. When I needed a key to the kitchen, he said he had it in a drawer with a bunch of other keys, but it was too much trouble to dig it out. That went on for months. I never got the key from him.

When he got control, I was told he was going to go in and clean house. Oh, boy. I talked to him a little bit about problems with the junk that was piled up in the back room, and he made fun of the previous regime for failing to conduct an inventory. Like he was going to go in there and do everything the right way! After all, he had been to a bunch of Brian Klemmer EST-derived seminars. He was all about having the intention and finding the mechanism, like Klemmer used to say.

And the cafe failed again.

Like Aaron says, fish rots from the head. The head pastor was no different. He knew how to line up speaking gigs and get paid for telling people to be effective, but he seemed to work at avoiding managing the church. I believe he did that deliberately, to stay free to promote himself. And the people under him seem to do the same thing, which is not surprising, since that’s the example they’ve seen.

We had a vermin problem in the kitchen. I guarantee you, without even looking, it’s still there. I would be amazed if anything had changed. There was a low cabinet about twenty feet long, alone one wall of the back room. It had drawers in it. The drawers were packed with urine, feces, and the odd dead mouse. This stuff can kill you. Look it up. When a place is that full of mouse filth, you’re not supposed to clean it without special gear and sanitary protocols.

I went to the head pastor and other bigwigs and told them the filth needed to be removed. This would be about a four-hour job, given a crew of ten people. It was nothing we could not handle. I informed them that it was a severe health hazard, and I even showed them corroborating information on the Internet. The head pastor responded as though he was concerned. He’s good at that. And he did absolutely nothing.

When I talked to the pastor who ran the cafe, he acted like I was suggesting we build a full-scale replica of the Panama Canal. I guess he was comfortable with mouse urine and feces near the stored food and the equipment, and I know he didn’t want to spend any additional time in the cafe. We’re talking about a guy who usually said, “Walk with me,” whenever I tried to talk to him; I think that tells you what you need to know.

He bought a couple of mouse traps and put them on a shelf, still in the box. I never saw one deployed. There was no cleaning. No one lifted a finger, as far as I know. Out of exasperation, I got a couple of kids to help me clean out and bleach a couple of drawers, but I think it’s safe to say no one else has done anything like that, and those drawers are surely full of excrement again.

When I quit, there was flour and sugar stored in that room. I left it sitting there, figuring they would do something about disposing of it or sealing it up. Weeks later, it was still there. A big bag was open to any animal that wanted to go in and feed. How can you bless a manager who lets things like that happen?

There was a complete leadership vacuum. It was as though the people in charge were only there to loot the place. Now that I think about it, it was a lot like the scene in Goodfellas, where the restaurant owner became a partner with a mafioso. Once the gangster was in charge, the place became a vehicle for pillage. Food and liquor came in the front and went out the back so crooks could sell it and pocket the cash. When the restaurant went broke, they torched it for the insurance and moved on, and the owner was left with no business. That’s what the church reminds me of. You go in and use it as a way to meet influential Christians and business leaders, you get yourself on TV, you get your sons on the payroll, and you teach people to GIVE, GIVE, GIVE. Then the church fails, and you move on to your next demolition job.

One of the fundamental rules of success is that you put the interests of the enterprise above your own. At this church, they did the opposite. Or at least it seemed that way to me.

What I’m saying is that they failed at the nearest thing they have to a mission. They don’t teach much about the Holy Spirit or repentance or deliverance. They teach a great deal about motivation and success. And they end up demotivating and suppressing.

If they weren’t Christians, they’d be in public housing. They could never make it in the real world. Luckily, they have an easy job, which is to convince people to give them money. As long as they do okay at that, they will fail upward. They don’t have to make a product or sell a service. They don’t have to be good at anything, the way real entrepreneurs do. They just have to persuade people to write checks every week. They’re not doing very well at that, which is probably why the head pastor is leaving, but they’ve done well enough to stay in power and hold onto the building for a number of years.

It’s funny; a CEO who does badly has to say things like, “We had a bad year, but please let us stay and fix things.” A preacher who runs a church into the ground can say, “We are facing a special financial challenge, and God is telling me that if you will just GIVE, he will provide a return: thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold! A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over!” Instead of seeing him as a bum and an incompetent, the congregation will want to help him defeat this “attack of the enemy”!

What does this all boil down to? I guess it reminds me of what I already know: never judge a person by his words. Always look at the actions. A nincompoop who spouts Sun Tzu and Dale Carnegie quotes is still a nincompoop. People who actually have what it takes don’t read that junk, because success is already part of them.

I think the church is going to disappear, unless God spares it by sending new leaders. The head pastor is leaving, and there is no way he would do that if it was even close to succeeding. The mortgage is eight figures, and the congregation is not paying it off. They get some government grants, but I don’t think the Obama teat is generous enough to keep the place on its feet, especially if people are going to get nice salaries and jobs for their kids.

Supposedly, the pastor’s son is going to be in charge. He draws big crowds, but they’re young, and they don’t give much. Many of them go to church to hook up for sex. It’s a lot like a nightclub, and the kids don’t have money for clubs, so it makes a good substitute. Some people I know think he’s going to take his Tuesday youth service methods and move them to Sunday. It will be Disco Soul Train Church. That will mean older people (with jobs) moving out. So he’ll have 6,000 people a week and 15 tithers.

They get something like $50,000 per month in rent from business tenants, but the power bill is around $35,000, and the staff has to be paid.

I probably irked them more than I suspected when I publicly debunked the Steve Munsey fundraising tactics they were using. Every chance I got, I went on Facebook and told about 150 people there was no such thing as “Seven Blessings of Passover” or “Seven Blessings of the Atonement.” I even went after “Seven Blessings of Pentecost,” although it turned out they were actually teaching “Five Victories of Pentecost,” which is equally crazy and wrong. They were getting big offerings on these Jewish holidays, promising health, money, and other stuff in return. I don’t know if I had an impact, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I made them nervous. I know some people listened to me. I didn’t want to see my friends cheated, so I spoke up, and I’m glad some were spared.

The dynasty in charge of the church could turn it all around. They could start teaching about the Holy Spirit. They could attend to people’s needs instead of using offering money to fly around promoting themselves. If your church is floundering for lack of leadership, what business do you have flying to other states to spread your failed message? Shouldn’t you stay home and get things under control? They say a captain is supposed to be the last person who leaves a sinking ship, and now that I think about it, the rats leave first.

If people knew they would meet the Holy Spirit there, they would show up and tithe. There are rich churches that succeed that way. But I don’t think the leaders of the church have much faith in God. I’m not sure they believe in him at all, given that they are willing to teach made-up doctrine, but even if they do believe, I don’t think they expect God to come through and establish their church. If they did, they’d be doing things his way already.

They might succeed, if they sell their souls completely and teach nothing but prosperity. They could compete with Rod Parsley. But I don’t think they’re as smart or as talented as the people who make it in that game. Their work is generally third-tier. No, I think it has to be God’s way or selling cars. I don’t think they have any other options.

Jesters of the Food Court

I decided to try the Food Network’s recipe for Chicago-style pizza. This was brave of me, or just stupid, given my bad experiences with FN recipes. I tried Emeril’s Bearnaise sauce recipe, and it was utterly heinous. The first time I made prime rib, I tried Bobby Flay’s recipe, which suggested an insane temperature of 325°, and I ended up with several pounds of something resembling rubber.

Here’s something you really have to get through your head. I haven’t been able to do it, but maybe you’ll succeed where I failed: CREDENTIALS DON’T MEAN SQUAT IN THE KITCHEN. I don’t care where Emeril cooked. I don’t care where a given chef went to school. You can develop great credentials while cooking really bad food. Look at Mario Batali.

I can’t help being impressed when I meet someone who has a cooking resume, but that only proves I’m dense, because their food generally fails to live up to the curriculum vitae. I should know better than to trust the Food Network. Just the other day, I watched Alton Brown choose and ruin a badly cut rib eye, after telling the audience the wrong way to season a pan. And he’s supposed to be the king of culinary hype-destroyers.

Truthfully, I’m being too hard on myself (for once). I knew the pizza recipe was probably going to be disappointing. I didn’t try it because I thought it would work. I tried it because editing is easier than starting from scratch. I knew that once I had made a pie, I would be able to come up with improvements and end up with a great product.

The recipe comes from a place called Malnati’s. I have never been there. I have never had Chicago-style pizza, unless Uno counts. I’ve been to Uno once, and I can’t understand how they stay in business.

I want to be fair. I changed the recipe somewhat. I made it smaller, and I altered the proportions of sauce, dough, cheese, and toppings. But I know I didn’t cause any new problems. I think that will be clear as I describe what I did.

The recipe calls for “sauce.” That’s all the info you get. I decided to use my usual recipe, but since Chicago-style contains chunks of tomato, I opted for Cento Italian tomatoes instead of commercial sauce (paste) made by Stanislaus. The Cento tomatoes make wonderful sauce, but it’s a little more orange than Stanislaus, and it’s not as fruity. Also, the tomatoes are watery. So I boiled the sauce down a little.

I have read that you shouldn’t cook Chicago-style sauce once it’s mixed, but I didn’t know that when I made the pizza. The result was really delicious, but next time, I’ll boil the tomatoes first and add the other stuff later. You can’t use the tomatoes without removing some water, because you’ll get a tomato soup in a big bowl made from watery bread.

The recipe says to use a very basic dough recipe. Flour, oil, water, salt, yeast, sugar…I think. Something like that. I forget. I did some Googling and decided to change that a little. I made my usual oil-free sauce, and I substituted 1/4 cup of semolina for some of the flour. I had read various claims about corn meal and semolina figuring heavily in the crust, so I decided to see what semolina would do. Generally, in pizza, corn meal is a cheap, crappy substitute for semolina, and I had semolina on hand, so I used the best ingredient I had.

Here’s what you do. You dust the bottom of a deep pan with semolina or corn meal, to prevent sticking. I could live without the added grit, but I complied, using semolina. You stretch the dough out and line the pan. You pile in a layer of mozzarella, and you add a fair amount of Romano and Parmesan, which is a little silly, since you’re never going to be able to tell the difference between the two cheeses in this recipe. Next time I’ll use a single hard cheese. Once the cheese is in, you dump in your sauce and toppings. I chose to put the sauce in and then add the grated cheese and the toppings, in that order.

Once that’s done, you bake the whole mess for 30 to 40 minutes at 425°. That’s what I did.

Here are photos.

This was really delicious, but I still think the recipe is a loser. I’ve been consulting and Googling, and it’s my understanding that the crust is supposed to be flaky and buttery. It gets that way because they butter the dough and fold it, sort of like croissant dough. Naturally, the Food Network didn’t mention this. And the only reason the sauce was good was that I already knew how to make it.

I’m not really that interested in making perfect Chicago-style pizza. I can’t really hope to do it until I’ve tried the real thing, and I don’t think that’s possible without a plane ride. But I would like to make something really good, BASED ON THE CONCEPT. That’s a reasonable goal.

I found a link to a site which supposedly has the real, gold-standard method for making the crust. Here is the link: LINK. It seems to confirm that the Food Network has failed again, with no plausible excuse.

If you look at the above link, and then you Google Malnati’s recipe over at the Food Network, I think you’ll see that the changes I made aren’t the reason the crust isn’t the canonical Chicago crust. The Malnati recipe isn’t anything like the one I linked to above, so if I had followed the Malnati recipe faithfully, I would still have a homogeneous crust instead of layers.

I’m going to try something similar to the method I linked to. I plan to make some dough, roll it out, cool it, butter it, and fold it a few times. Then I’ll roll it out and stick it in the pan. It ought to work pretty well. I should get layers, plus some butter flavor.

This pizza seems to call for a lot more sauce and cheese than plain old Sicilian, so I think I’ll jack up the quantities. And I am tempted to shove some ricotta in there.

I would be truly amazed if I ended up with Chicago-style pizza, but I think I can produce something incredibly good. I don’t think I’ll make it often. Who wants to do all that work? I make the best Sicilian pizza I’ve ever seen, and it takes about ten minutes of work, plus eight minutes in the oven. I don’t see myself fooling with this new stuff very often, but I think it’s well worth trying.

I am tempted to use plain old croissant dough, but I might as well try my idea first.

More

Here is the latest. I made my usual dough, adding butter to the recipe. Then I rolled it out very thin, buttered it, folded it, buttered it, and so on, until I had several layers. Then I stretched it out and put it in a Teflon pan, over semolina.

The bottom layer is around four ounces of provolone. Then another five ounces of Costco mozzarella. Then ten ounces of sauce. Then half a cup of Parmesan. Then seasoned ricotta, spinach, and pepperoni.

I know it will taste good. But will it be anything like the real thing?

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The pizza came out very well, but it convinced me to quit putting semolina in the crust. It makes the crust smell like Graham crackers, and it makes it too much like a Stella d’Oro breakfast treat. I think my own Sicilian crust would work a lot better. And I need to add fat to the outside of the dough.

The inside of the pizza was fine, but too deep. It should have been hotter inside, and the depth kept it from getting where it needed to be.

I think I’ll layer the crust again next time, but no semolina, and I’ll put oil in the pan, the way I usually do. Maybe I’ll add some butter with the oil.

Get Off the Sand

I am beginning to think the people who run my old church are pure fakes. I have come to believe that the church’s primary function is to promote one family.

It’s very sad. The more I know about them, the less I respect them. In fact, I have no respect for them whatsoever. In my mind, a selfish preacher is worse than a sincere prostitute.

When you live by faith, it’s not easy to accept the notion that a Christian leader is depraved. We are taught to believe in God unconditionally, and that’s correct, because God is perfect. He never lets us down. He always makes the right decision, so we can trust him without reservation. The faith we have in God tends to mingle with our opinions of our leaders, so when they do stupid things, we do what we do when God seems disappointing. We tell ourselves they must have their reasons. In God’s case, this makes sense. But with people, it’s not always appropriate.

Because Christians are conditioned to believe and be patient, we are often too patient with scoundrels. We explain away the things our common sense tells us. And we don’t want to be guilty of self-righteousness, so we are slow to condemn. The result is that we end up putting up with charlatans way too long.

What’s the answer? How do you avoid this problem? Truthfully, I don’t think you can escape it entirely. A skilled weasel will pop up from time to time, and no matter what, they will occasionally fool you temporarily. But the Holy Spirit will wake you up and unmask them, if you stay in touch with him. The Bible says he provides wisdom and knowledge, so while your little tiny brain may lead you into the bushes for a time, the Holy Spirit will eventually lead you back out.

These people told me what they were. Sometimes they were arrogant, in spite of their limited educations and their fairly ordinary abilities. Sometimes they were rude. They were often ungrateful. One of them admitted he would not say certain things in front of the church, because it was “suicide.” They seemed greedy. They sucked up to prominent and powerful people, even seating Luther Campbell in a place of honor. They let utter fools preach in their church. They did things that seemed to demonstrate a startling ignorance of the principles laid out in scripture.

They told me what they were, but I didn’t listen at first. I think this is because I was too much like them. I wanted God to fix my problems. I thought about that more than I thought about love or sacrifice. I was not strong in the Spirit. I had not been praying in tongues as much as I should have, and I had neglected the Bible and good teaching. In short, I was carnal, even though I had good intentions. Carnal people are blind. Only Spirit-led people know the truth. The more I built myself up in the Spirit, the more I saw the problems, and the more I felt I had to be honest about them.

If there is one difference between them and me, which I am willing to state without feeling self-righteous, it is that I am not a hopeless egotist. I will listen. Eventually. I don’t think I know everything. I don’t dismiss other church members when they offer their ideas. I don’t think I’m more important than other people. I believe that’s why I’m doing so well, while they appear to be stuck in the mud, in declining ministries.

They probably don’t see their ministries as declining, but that’s how it is when you surround yourself with yes-men. You don’t know there’s a problem until the earth opens under your feet, because everyone is telling you God just can’t get enough of you. Attendance is good; things must be going well! But people who serve at the church are very unhappy, and at any moment, vital individuals could take off, leaving the central family with the difficult job of reestablishing relations with a huge congregation mostly comprised of poor blacks (who are staying poor in spite of the prosperity gospel).

They will never be on TBN regularly. They will never have a giant church like Keith Craft’s. They don’t have the natural talent, they alienate people who do, and they don’t have God’s help. That’s what I think. They are going to be lifelong also-rans from a third-tier megachurch that can’t pay its debts.

This is starting to sound depressing. I intended to write a message of hope, so let me turn it around. The point I wanted to make is that we are all in danger of being conned, unless we have guidance from the Holy Spirit. That guidance will come, if you pray in tongues for a good long time twice or more each day. You have to do other things, but those things will follow on their own, if you pray in tongues and maintain a submissive, teachable attitude.

Paul referred to tongues as “living water,” and one function of water is to cleanse. This is what the Bible refers to as “sanctification.” Carnal preachers will try to stuff you with filth and garbage. The living water will wash it out, over time. This is what is happening with me, and I know God didn’t create me to be the only one who got the benefit. If you reject the Spirit, expect to be fooled for the rest of your life. You have supernatural enemies who are smarter than you are, and they don’t play fairly. You will lose.

This works for me. It works for people I know. It will work for you. But it’s not going to happen if you’re praying in tongues once a month for twenty seconds. Get up to an hour a day and see what happens.

I hope someone will read this and give it a try. I would really like to see other people get what I’m getting, instead of chasing their tails and saying they don’t understand why God won’t help them.

If you’ve been asking for God to show you the way out, maybe he just did.

Plus a Pork Tour de Force

I should be working on my amp cabinet, but I just can’t. I’m high on pork.

I made an impulse buy at Costco the other day. How shocking. They had two pounds of smoked pulled pork for eight bucks. How could I turn that down? Besides, I think I would buy a leaky bag of anthrax spores if it said “Kirkland” on it.

Today I decided to prepare it.

I was considering putting it in a calzone. It would work as lechon asado, so I could make pan con lechon with Swiss cheese. That’s an unbelievable sandwich. Or I could experiment: BBQ pulled pork calzone.

In the end, I went with Texas toast.

I made a loaf of homemade bread, which takes about four minutes of work. I threw some cole slaw together, and I bought a baking potato, which I nuked (cheating) and then stuck in the oven to finish. I made my own BBQ sauce, and I sliced an onion.

I fried the onion in some old beef fat/peanut oil I used for fries. I used cast iron. I tossed the pork in, flambeed it in Jack Daniel’s, and tossed it with sauce. I fried two slices of bread in butter, which is just plain wrong. Then I sat down and ate.

Oh, man. I can’t describe it. As sold by Costco, the pork is not quite as good as pork you smoke on your own. But it’s more than adequate. It’s tender, and it has a nice hickory flavor. The stuff I put in it just melted into the meat. The bread was crunchy and drippy and buttery and yeasty. I think I may faint.

The cole slaw was also a cheat. I bought shredded cabbage and carrots in a bag and added my own stuff. I don’t think it makes much difference. I can’t shred cabbage any better than a factory can.

The potato was not quite right, but the wonderful thing about potatoes is that screwing them up can make them better. This one ended up with parts that were a little too chewy, and it may sound stupid, but they were wonderful. If I were cooking seriously, I wouldn’t go near the microwave, but this was just lunch, and the potato was great.

This sandwich was so good, it was sobering. Sometimes food makes you giddy. When it’s really good, it’s almost scary. It will make you serious. It will make you wonder how good food can get. That’s the situation I am dealing with today.

I can’t believe God lets me cook like this. What is the purpose? I can’t eat it all. I threw out a lot of my lunch because you can’t eat like that and expect to live.

I have an idea. My new church is thinking about feeding the poor. I’m all for this, and I’ll help, PROVIDED they do it right. There is no reason the poor can’t have the best food in Miami. The cost of food has no relationship to the quality. It’s all in the preparation. I’m thinking pulled pork sandwiches might be a good way to go. At most, the pork will cost $1.50 per pound. Homemade bread is almost free. Sauce ingredients aren’t expensive. Neither is slaw. For three bucks a head, we should be able to pretty well stun the poor, as well as the volunteers and anyone else who comes around.

We would need a couple of chafing dishes plus a big propane skillet. That’s about it.

Speaking of the poor, I learned something about a local nonprofit today. My old church has a charity wing. I know someone who went to them for help. He claimed they sat him in front of a computer and showed him links to places that could help him out. Did they give him money or groceries? He said no, although he had given money to the church in the past.

In the recent Pentecost fundraising drive (“Five Victories of Pentecost”), the leadership said they were going to give the special Pentecost offerings to the poor, via their charity wing. I ran that by my dad, the non-Christian attorney. He said, “So he’s paying HIMSELF.” The conflict of interest was not subtle. If you run a church, and you ask the congregation to give money to a charity, and you run the charity, and the charity pays you, what are you really doing? Maybe you’re not taking any money out, but what if you are? Shouldn’t donors be told how much and for what?

Out of curiosity, I Googled, and I came up with a PDF of some Canadian government documents. They say the church’s charity wing lost its nonprofit status in Canada in 2010, because they failed to respond to requests that they open their books and show that they were doing what charities do.

Okay, let’s be fair. This could be irresponsibility. This would not be a big surprise, given what I have observed personally. So far, what I’ve said doesn’t prove dishonesty. But here’s something one of the letters said: “The Organization’s only expenses for the period under audit were for non-charitable ‘Professional and consulting fees.’ The Organization did not report any expenses in support of the ‘ongoing programs’ as described in question C2 of its T3010s.”

You run an outfit which is supposed to be a charity; it’s supposed to give stuff to the poor. But as far as the Canadian government can tell, ALL–not some–of your expenses are for “Professional and consulting fees.”

You can see why it disturbed me. “Consulting” is a good excuse for organizations to funnel money to people who don’t really do anything of value. Michelle Obama made huge money “consulting.” And I think it’s fair to assume that none of the fees mentioned by the Canadians were paid to the poor (who are rarely hired as consultants). If a charity pays consultants, yet it gives nothing to the poor, what, exactly, is the point of the consulting? What are the consultants helping them do? Consultants are supposed to give advice. I think the obvious suggestion would be, “Stop giving all of the money to consultants and professionals and give something to the needy.”

Other websites say the charity received six figures a year. How can all of that money go to consulting and “professional” services?

Maybe there’s a legitimate explanation, but it doesn’t look good, does it?

A full-blown grifter–a charlatan with no intention of doing anything but getting rich–might leave a trail just like this. Money in, no services provided, and lots of expenditures for vague “fees.” So while the PDF doesn’t prove anything crooked is going on, if something crooked WERE going on, it would not look much different. I have decided to show the PDF to some friends and see what they think.

In any case, it shows I was right to quit giving them money. A long time ago, I realized they asked for money and then told donors nearly nothing about how it was spent. By “nearly nothing,” I mean I did not receive accountings showing how much money was taken in and how it was spent. I cut them off, apart from church offerings. I found transparent, trustworthy ministries and charities to give to.

They didn’t tell me where the money went. That’s bad. Reputable charities send out reports accounting for their donations. But failing to cooperate with the government of Canada…that’s another level of bad. It shows they don’t deserve money from anyone. If they’re that irresponsible or incompetent, how can you expect them to spend their money effectively?

What if they’re really helping the poor? Shouldn’t they keep books that prove it? What’s the down side? Jesus told us we were to keep quiet about giving, but he was referring to individuals, not ministries. Besides, before Pentecost, the pastor got up and told the congregation he and his wife were giving a thousand dollars in the Pentecost drive. Obviously, he is not concerned about hiding his good deeds.

This isn’t the only nonprofit that keeps things quiet. Kenneth Copeland refused to open his books when Congress came calling. On Youtube, there’s a video in which Copeland explains that Congress is full of evil people who do Satan’s bidding, and that he, as God’s representative on earth, is not accountable to them. That’s not really what he said, but it’s not that far off. If he’s not open with Congress, he’s not open with his donors, either, because if the donors had the information, it would have been impossible to keep it away from Congress, so he would have complied.

How can anyone give money to a man like that? What possible reason could he have for refusing to tell retirees and people on disability what he does with their money? He is incredibly wealthy. It didn’t all come from penny stocks and brilliant commodity trades made on a pastor’s salary; I guarantee that. Why won’t he tell us how he got where he is?

It’s sad, but Christians are so brainwashed about submission to authority, they can’t see it when the devil himself walks up the aisle and picks up the collection plate. Jesus said we should be as harmless as doves, but he also said we should be as wise as serpents. A man who won’t explain himself to his flock has no business handling other people’s money.

I pray for God to help the leaders at my old church get it together, but I also pray he throws them out and brings better pastors in. I hope they improve, but I don’t think the congregation should suffer while they learn. They’ve had a long time to get it right, and it’s not right for thousands of people to have poor leadership just so a few folks can hold onto their jobs.

My faith tells me God is replacing them, and as I have noted before, the scuttlebutt is that the head pastor is on his way out. I didn’t hear about that until after I prayed for the leaders to be replaced.

In other news, my latest amp now almost has a home. Here’s a photo.

I am not a great upholsterer, but it looks wonderful. I don’t know how to handle the inside corners in the ivory panel. I am considering experimenting with a heat gun. The vinyl will have to be stretched, if the job is to look professional. As it is, I may have to mask it with some sort of metal or plastic things I screw into the corners, over the vinyl.

The amp sounds magnificent. I can’t stop playing it. It sings. I still have some 120 Hz hum to get rid of, but it’s not bad enough to be a major concern. Once I get it fixed, I’m moving on to my 4-EL84 version.

Stay away from that Costco pork. I am just now starting to come down.

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I’m really not sure what’s going on. I have been re-reading the Canadian government’s documents, which you can find here:

Link to Canadian gov’t documents.

The organization that had its nonprofit credentials revoked is headquartered in Miami, and it belongs (or belonged) to the head pastor of the church. But it doesn’t have the name the church’s charity wing uses. The Canadians were puzzled by this, too. In trying to get information, they looked at the current charity’s website.

Now I have to wonder: is it even the same outfit? Is it possible they let this organization lapse (irresponsible, but not inherently crooked) while setting up the new one? That would explain why they ignored inquiries from Canada.

If we were talking about a responsible organization like The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, there would be no questions. They publish and mail an annual report to their donors, and it accounts for all of the money they receive. I know Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s salary, because of that report. With my old church and its affiliates, who knows? Maybe they generally let people look at their books, but for some reason, they decided to shut Canada out. Maybe everything they do is legal and ethical. I have no idea. I don’t recall receiving any annual reports.

The organization the Canadians disqualified used this language in describing its purpose:

[T]o evangelize and educate young people and their families regarding drugs, suicide, and moral values

That doesn’t sound like what the current charity is purportedly doing. As far as I know, they occasionally round stuff up and send it to Haiti, and as I’ve said, they refer poor people to organizations that give them assistance. So maybe it’s a different body entirely.

Here is how the charity’s website describes its activities:

When a person in need enters our office we will immediately hear the person’s need and respond with appropriate resources. Often the response will be a referral to another resource. [Italics mine.]

Anyway, I don’t want to be unfair. The church’s charity has one name, and the organization in the Canadian documents has another, so they may be different entities, and it is completely possible that the church’s charity is doing more for the poor than I suspect.

Time to Flush

Life just gets more and more interesting.

Maybe instead of a relatively cohesive narrative, I should go over some highlights.

I had tendinitis in my left hand. It was caused by guitar practice. There is no cure for tendinitis. It is one of the most annoying ailments there is. You have to stop whatever it is that caused it, and then you wait. If it goes away, great. If not, there is nothing you can do.

I quit playing for a few weeks. The tendinitis didn’t go away. Of course, I prayed, and my faith said it would be healed. In my prayers and in my mind, I always said I was healed. I never went back on that.

Last week I started talking to the musicians at my new church. They may want me to play guitar. I don’t talk about this a lot, but if I could choose any career, music would be it. And you know God. He gives us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). I have some material to study, and we’ll see how it goes.

At around the same time I connected with the musicians, I resumed serious practice. I figured there was no point in waiting. Resting didn’t make the tendinitis better, and practicing didn’t make it worse.

Late last week, the tendinitis started going away, even though I was practicing again. Now I can barely feel it. God really does hand out miraculous healings, and I’ve gotten a bunch of them. My sister had extensive small cell lung cancer, and I fasted and prayed, and she’s still alive, with no detectable disease. Don’t ever think God doesn’t heal, or that it’s unusual when he does. You just have to know what you’re doing.

In other news, I started thinking about a mission my old church is pursuing. In 2010, the pastor got on stage and told us he had a “2020 Vision.” As I recall, he said God had told him to get 100,000 people saved by 2020. You can read about it on the web if you look.

I’ve seen so much cynical preaching at that church; they copy other people’s material and present it as though the Holy Spirit had just jerked them out of bed and dictated it to them. I thought about that yesterday, and I had to ask myself how likely it was that the 2020 thing was legitimate. So I entered “2020 vision” and “church” in the Google box. I had to exclude “vimeo” and “schools,” and after that, I got so many links to churches with “2020 visions,” it amazed me. And of course, my old church wasn’t the first one to get the idea. I found one outfit that has been preaching about it since 2001.

So discouraging. It makes you wonder if they ever believed ANYTHING they said. If they were willing to steal other people’s ideas and claim they came from God, were they totally incapable of getting a real message from the Father? Maybe so. There are plenty of preachers who hear from God in real time, but I guess the rest just steal from them.

Are they even Christians? If you are willing to make up doctrine, and you don’t mind stealing other people’s stupid gimmicks, can you honestly claim you believe in God? Could a real believer preach that garbage in front of Jesus, if he showed up in person and sat in the front row? Sometimes I tell myself the problem is that they’re not grown up in the Spirit, and they have a hard time discerning the things that really come from God, but that would not explain cribbing and fabrication. A person who lacks discernment may be fooled easily, but lacking discernment won’t cause you to lie.

I shouldn’t say they’re pursuing the mission. When I left the church in April, we weren’t hearing much about it. They have a way of getting very excited about things and then forgetting about them. That happened after the Haiti earthquake. We were TBN’s earthquake nerve center. Everything went through us. The pastor was on TV. We helped send a freighter to Port au Prince. We kept hearing that our church would be committed for the long haul, not just during the initial excitement. Then the cameras went away, and after a while, we didn’t hear much about Haiti. Even though the congregation is mostly Haitian.

The pastor may be moving on soon, to resume work as a traveling evangelist, so I don’t think the 2020 thing is going anywhere.

What else is going on? I’m angrier than ever at preachers who teach the get-rich gospel. It’s pure crap. I believe God gives people financial prosperity. I believe he rewards people with shalom, especially for giving to the poor and for helping the Jews and Israel. But I know he doesn’t make people rich just because they throw money at morons. Every Christian knows someone who has given money to ministries and ended up poor. It’s time to man up and admit it.

A couple of things occurred to me this week.

First of all, it makes no sense to go to God and tell him you gave stupidly and ask him to honor the offering anyway. You can’t ask God to honor your good intentions when you give money to an idiot.

Hosea tells us God’s people perish for lack of knowledge. The people who came before us lost a lot of knowledge, so now we walk in ignorance, and we do unproductive things. Then God lets the consequences fall on us, even if it means doing nothing while people die.

Why doesn’t God come in and teach us what our predecessors lost? Because that’s not his job. We are responsible for running the earth. We are responsible for teaching future generations. The system is set up so our failures can hurt our descendants. That’s just how it is. God isn’t going to round us up once a generation and tie us to chairs and teach us. We suffer because we don’t know what to do, even when our ignorance is not our fault. If you give to a fool, God isn’t going to come in and pretend the offering was a good idea, because to do that would be to permit the fool to manipulate God.

God is not all that interested in your intentions. Saul was trying to do a good thing when he took the place of the priests and offered a sacrifice, but God cursed him for it. Eve was trying to do a good thing when she tried to get wisdom from eating the forbidden fruit, and look how that worked out. Your good intentions don’t matter when you don’t do things God’s way.

This sounds pretty bad. But here is the other thing that occurred to me: God is a redeemer. He restores things that have been taken from us. He even restores things we’ve thrown away in stupidity. So there is no reason you can’t go to God and ask him to restore what you gave to greedy parasites. Tell him you were fooled and robbed. The way you characterize your prayer matters. God is a judge, and judges require people to ask correctly.

Here is something else: God DOES return to us once in a while to teach us the things our predecessors discarded, even though it’s not his responsibility. If you look at the story of Josiah, you will see it. The ancient Hebrews became extremely ignorant. They even forgot what Passover was. But God gave them new teachers. Lately God has been doing the same thing through the baptism with the Holy Spirit and tongues. John, a man who knew what it was to be in the Spirit (Revelation 1:10) said, “You need that no man teach you.” If you get into the Spirit every day, consistently, over time, God will teach you the right things to do. Like Jesus said, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, and as James said, if you ask God for wisdom, he will give liberally.

While this stuff was on my mind, I started to understand a strange scripture from the book of Mark:

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— where ‘Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— where ‘Their worm does not die,
And the fire is not quenched.’

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire—where ‘Their worm does not die And the fire is not quenched.’

This stuff has been the justification for a lot of horrors. Men used to castrate themselves based on this passage. I believe it actually refers to the body of Christ: the church.

Jesus has parts, according to scripture. Some of those parts become corrupt and cause others to become offended and fall away.

Greedy, lying preachers tell people God will make them rich for giving them money, and when people comply, the money doesn’t come. What happens then? People get offended. They decide that if they were lied to about one thing, Christianity itself must be a lie. Crooked preachers drive people away from God.

I believe that when Jesus talked about cutting off body parts, he was referring to preachers he would cast down. This is something I pray for every day. I really don’t care if a corrupt preacher loses his job and his reputation. That’s tough. If you’re stealing from the poor, you need to be stopped. You’re harming thousands or millions of people. What do I care about one selfish man? Let him eat from a dumpster and learn something. If it will save one family from giving themselves into the street, then praying for the crooks to fall seems like a good thing. Sure, I pray for them to be corrected and restored. But I don’t pray for God to keep them in their pulpits while he straightens them out. They are doing too much damage, too fast.

So that’s where that sits, at the moment.

I applied to be a member of New Dawn Ministries. These people are flat-out nuts for the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to expect too much of them. I don’t know them that well, so I don’t know who is really hooked up and who just goes to church to dance and yell. Experience tells me not to assume everyone there is a modern-day apostle. But it’s an amazing church, and I’ve already met more Spirit-connected people there, out of maybe 200 people, than I met in several years at my old church.

I want to do things for the church, but I’m going to take it easy. My prayer life is going crazy. A bad day contains only two hours of prayer. A good day goes over three. That, in and of itself, is a ministry. I can’t spend twenty hours a week at church. So I will pray, pick, and choose.

I believe we are headed into a new age when Holy-Spirit-empowered people are going to have more prominence. I think we’re going to see a lot of pampered preachers with hair plugs and pompadours leave their ministries. I believe God will drive them out, as Spirit-filled people rise up and ask for his help. Cliques and guilds will dissolve. Surely God will not let his people chase mirages forever, at the mercy of men and women who are so stuffed with the wealth of the poor, they’re like stiff, swollen Thanksgiving turkeys. When that happens, we’ll see people get restoration and healing, and they won’t have to go to ridiculous crusades to get them. These things will happen in people’s homes, as they happen in mine. That’s my impression.

I guess that’s all I have time to write. I hope this is helpful.

Emmanuel Goldstein, at Your Service

Today someone accused me of being homophobic. And he (or she) was very nasty and rude about it. I made a joke about “trying not to feel gay” in a fabric store, and this person ordered me to keep my “homophobic” comments to myself!

In a way, it’s funny. Obviously, the remark was not hostile toward gays. If it is, La Cage aux Folles (“The Bird Cage”) and Will & Grace are hateful, as is The Ambiguously Gay Duo.

In another way, it’s not funny. The accusation itself was hateful, and it reflects the increasing boldness with which the enemies of Christianity are spewing their rage.

Satan managed to kick the Holy Spirit out of the church around 1700 years ago, and for centuries, the church was no real threat to him. The power was gone. The courage was gone. Look at the lists of the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit. All those things were gone from the church, except in piddling quantities. We were disarmed.

A little over a century ago, the Holy Spirit returned, in spite of our foolishness, and since then, Christians have been getting more powerful. Not all Christians. Only the charismatics. We should have realized God was preparing us for battle. The world is becoming a sea of filth. Humanity is turning against real Christians. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the imbalance in power would put a quick end to us, and to God’s assault on Satan’s kingdom.

Now we have homosexual “pastors.” Not just the closeted kind we’re used to seeing. They are out in the open. We have “scholars” who twist scripture in order to justify perversion. The Old Testament and the New Testament condemn homosexual activity, and contrary to what the revisionists say, the criticism isn’t just directed to acts performed in rituals. It is a blanket condemnation.

It’s surprising, but it’s starting to look like this is going to be one of the biggest weapons that will be used against us when martyrdom returns. When unbelievers gas us and shoot us and loot our homes, this will be one of their excuses. Many of them will call themselves “Christians,” and they’ll say they’re doing God’s work. I guarantee it.

Do I hate gays? Of course not. Could anyone hate Nathan Lane or that kid who played Doogie Howser? I know some people feel visceral anger because other people are having gay sex. I don’t feel that way. When I was young, I thought homosexuality was perfectly fine. I have never felt rage toward gays. I admit, homosexuality can be funny, and the picture of two men entwined in passion will always be amusing to me, but that’s not hate.

Gays themselves realize how funny they can be, as The Bird Cage and Will & Grace prove. They joke about themselves constantly. Joking about feeling gay in a fabric store is not evidence of hate.

That doesn’t matter. People who point these things out will be told that the issue of whether a joke is hate depends on who made it. By that standard, all Christians (real Christians who do not endorse homosexuality) will be considered guilty, and persecution will be excused and encouraged. The presumption of guilt will not be rebuttable.

Here’s a funny thing about causes. People use them to justify cruelty and viciousness. Think of the PETA nuts who throw blood on women. Lots of people are against harming animals, but only a few use that conviction as an excuse to cause suffering. Homosexual rights constitute a cause, and that cause is already being used to ground hateful words and actions. It will get worse.

Today someone pointed out a scripture to me. Revelation 21:6. In it, God tells us the cowardly will “have their part” in hell, which is a lake of burning brimstone. Who are the cowards these days? Seeker-sensitive Christians. The people who let homosexuality (and positive thinking and cult methods and greed and…) into the church.

That’s sobering.

Hell is a hard thing to understand. The Bible doesn’t speak clearly about it. We know it exists. We know certain supernatural beings will be tormented in it forever. We know ordinary people will be placed there. What isn’t clear to me is whether it’s permanent for everyone. The Jews believe hell is a place where people go to be cleansed, and that we will not be punished forever. I’m inclined to believe that, and it makes me think there will probably be many self-proclaimed Christians there.

We know God punishes Christians. The Rapture will only take some of us, and the rest will be here during the Tribulation, when God’s ameliorating presence will be gone from the earth. If God would permit that, I don’t think it’s a big stretch to say some of us will suffer after we die.

If that’s right, it would make sense of Revelation 21:6.

In any case, you don’t want to be cowardly. Displeasing God and helping his enemies are bad things to do, with serious consequences for you and your house. The world is rapidly polarizing, and you don’t want to end up on the wrong side. God is the worst enemy you can imagine. There is absolutely nothing you can do to escape his anger, if he is determined to make you suffer.

How are we going to stand, when society changes and we are seen as parasites and troublemakers? When our Kristallnacht comes, how will we get the courage to affirm our Christianity before the mobs?

The answer is the Holy Spirit. He puts God’s character in us, little by little, as we pray in tongues, fast, read the word, and strive to listen and obey. Peter denied Jesus three times, after seeing him work miracles. That was before he received the fulness of the Holy Spirit. After Pentecost, he became a different man. He watched the Romans crucify his wife, and then he followed her, and all he had to do to survive was to renounce Jesus. Only the Holy Spirit could account for the change in him.

You can’t stand without the weapons and armor of God, and if you check the book of Ephesians, where these things are described, you will see that it refers to prayer in the Spirit. If you were born brave, that’s wonderful, but most people aren’t like that. God’s help is available, and we are expected–required–to accept it.

These things may sound crazy. So be it. I’m going to die, and it’s not going to be that long, because I’m already middle-aged. I can’t concern myself unduly with what people think of me here on earth. I have my future to think about. You are dying, too. You need to ask yourself how much you are willing to pay for temporary peace and approval from misguided human beings.

Corruption is already in the Spirit-filled churches. We teach greed and pride as though they were virtues. Other garbage will creep in through the cracks we have already made. One of these days, we’re going to see someone like Joel Osteen stand up and say he was wrong about gays or abortion or some similar issue. People who want to fill stadiums (and their pockets) will make up whatever lies they have to. They never cared about the flock. The desperation that drives them will eventually take control, unless they get into the Spirit.

Joshua was given to us as a symbol of Spirit-filled believers. He went forward to possess his inheritance–his place in the Promised Land–and before he did, he said this: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” You are going to make a choice, even if you do so by refusing to choose. You will be rewarded, with good or evil, depending on that choice. I say go forward with the Spirit. You can’t make it on your own, no matter how many positive thinking preachers you listen to.

Let the dogs bark. What’s right is right, and foolishness will not stand forever. Better to be slandered and insulted now, by simpletons, than to be blamed justly by God himself.

Homosexuality is wrong. If that looks like hate to you, it’s in your mind, not my heart. I don’t hate gays, gamblers, drunks, prostitutes, the greedy, the gluttonous, potheads, or anyone else who harms himself through iniquity. Believe it or don’t. God shares his power and his help with me every day, and he helps others through me. I am not giving that up so I can be your pal.

Little Box Full of Smoking-Hot Soul

I finished my latest amp.

This thing is called the Wingman. It’s a Fender Bassman preamp coupled with the output section from an amp called the Little Wing.

The Little Wing was created by an Internet forum dude who calls himself “Da Geezer.” It’s supposed to be a sort of small Bassman. It has two 6BM8 output tubes, and it dissipates 7 watts. I wanted more juice, so I built an amp with 4 tubes and two output transformers. Why two transformers? Because I failed to take the impedance into account. Going from two tubes to four, I messed things up, and by the time I knew it, I already had one output transformer on hand.

I mounted the transformers incorrectly. I got too close to the work, and by the time I pulled back and saw that the laminates on on OT were co-planar with the power transformer laminates, the holes were drilled. But there is a test you can do to determine whether this does any harm. You connect the PT to 120, and you hook a speaker up to the OTs. If there’s a problem, you will hear hum. I didn’t hear anything, so I knew I was okay.

I wanted to put a post-phase inverter master volume (PPIMV) on it. This is a potentiometer that allows you to reduce the signal from the coupling caps to the output tubes. It lets you run the preamp at full blast, without sending a huge signal to the output. In other words, you get the nice sound of a preamp working hard, without the incredible loudness it ordinarily causes.

Because I had four output tubes, I ended up with two PPIMV pots. This is probably unnecessary, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t take a chance. It seemed to work fine when I ran everything through one pot, but pots are cheap, so I bought two.

I machined the chassis out of 6-inch aluminum channel. I used the mill to make the holes. While I was doing all this, I realized I needed end mills exactly the right size for tube sockets, and I managed to find some on Ebay. Next time, the tube holes will be a wonder to behold.

I put the amp together, and it barely ran. I got oscillation and low volume. I fought with it for days. Finally I realized I had the output tubes wired up wrong. Each coupling cap has to go to both OTs, and I had it rigged up the other way.

When I fixed that, I found that the bass had a sound sort of like a synthesizer. I went through the amp, adjusting voltages. The Bassman uses a 355-0-355 PT, and this amp has a 275-0-275 job, so the preamp voltages were pretty low until I got rid of the Bassman-sized resistors.

I also had to adjust the cathode resistor on the output tubes, since I was running four tubes into one resistor. The Little Wing has one resistor for two tubes.

Even with all this work, the amp did not make me happy. The bass still sounded off, and the amp did not have the clarity I wanted, also, when I cleaned up the wiring, I got noise, including heater hum.

People said I needed a bigger PT, so I ordered one. The 6BM8 tubes suck a ridiculous amount of current.

I went back to the drawing board, and I reviewed some stuff I had learned about heater wiring.

The heaters on amp tubes run at 3.15 VAC. They generate 60 Hz radio waves. If you don’t run the wiring corrrectly, the amp picks up the waves, and you get hum. A well-known guru named Merlin Blencowe says you can’t have heater-wire loops around the tubes, which is the easiest way to do it. With 12AX_ tubes like the ones I used in my preamp, that means you have to run the wires across the tube bases. This is what I did. Stupidly, I would guess. A lot of people don’t bother, and their amps don’t hum.

It turned out I had gotten too close to the work again. I had made an obvious mistake. There are jumpers and resistors across the preamp tubes on this amp, and if you use heater loops, you can put the jumpers and resistors right down on the socket. This is what I did. Unfortunately, the heater wires were there. So I had a resistor lying ON a heater wire, and two jumpers running very close to other heater wires.

So I fixed that.

Strangely, it improved the amp in ways beyond the hum. Now it’s clear. The high-frequency noise is gone. It’s beautiful. Like a little Bassman, with less low-end grunt.

With the PPIMV, you can get all sorts of singing distortion. If you were quick enough, you would be able to play this thing without a distortion pedal. You can crank the volume and turn down the PPIMV to get loads of distortion with no volume increase.

It’s a very bluesy-sounding amp. Exactly what I wanted. It’s hard to stop playing it. It impressed me so much, I went back and stuck a PPIMV in the Bassman.

I’m not going to need the new PT, so I may use it to make a four-EL84 version of this amp.

Here’s the latest photo. I might actually put a cabinet on it. I got the normal and bright volume labels mixed up.

I may let my new church use this one. They have a cruddy old solid state Crate. I was talking to one of my friends–the new head deacon–and he said they might actually want to use me as a guitarist. That would be phenomenal. Lead is out of the question right now, but I might be able to do rhythm in a month or so.

I love the new amp so much, I’ve been working up arrangements and practicing more. It’s great for any tune that brings out the sound of the amp. I worked on “Secret Agent Man” today. Lots of grit and reverb. It may be corny, but I like it.

We’ll see where the amp business goes from here. I can’t wait to get started on the next one.

Pretty Brass; No Stench

You don’t get too many perks as a blogger. I remember when the Joss Whedon movie Serenity came out. I was invited to go to a special media sneak preview. Exciting! Then I read the fine print. They expected me to show up and wait in line, and if there were enough seats, they would let me see the movie.

Suddenly LESS exciting.

I’ve also received a couple of books for review. I turn those down now. I really don’t want to spend ten hours reading about Ivanka Trump’s tough road to success. I don’t want to wade through Pat Buchanan’s latest defense of Hitler. Saving money on a book you never wanted to buy in the first place is not a great blessing.

Not all blogger goodies are crap. A while back, I got a really decent offer. The folks at Lucky Gunner sent me an email and asked if I wanted to review free ammunition.

WHAT???

I guess you could say I was not totally opposed to the idea.

They asked me to name a few calibers I shot, and then they fired off two boxes of .38 Super, which is an expensive caliber. Not bad.

I got to shoot it last weekend, so here is my report.

The stuff they sent is made by Magtech. Here is a link, in case you want to buy a big pile of it: Magtech .38 Super +P at Luckygunner.com. It’s made in Brazil. I have never heard any negative things about the brand.

The brass looked nice, although I stupidly forgot to save it after I shot.

My friends and I went through 100 rounds of the ammunition. It seems perfectly fine. It doesn’t have the Russian stink, the casings are brass, and it fires reliably. The sad thing about an ammunition review is that you’re not likely to have much to say if it works well.

I did have two rounds which failed to eject. I am wondering if the rim is on the small side. For some reason, the ejector didn’t get a grip. But the other 98 worked fine. I was shooting a Colt .38 Super (government model) in bright stainless. I don’t know if these guns have ejector issues, but I tend to doubt it, since Colt is pretty much the iconic 1911.

I didn’t test it with a rest. I shoot to learn, not to see what the gun can do.

My shooting was not great. I don’t blame the ammunition. A long layoff, plus distracting conversation, led to problems with my trigger pull. Still, anyone coming within a hundred feet of me would have been in the zone of certain death, barring an ejection problem.

I shot a photo of the target, before I started wandering all over it with Mozambique drills.

That’s from seven yards. In my defense, I will say that the air conditioning made the target flap, but not enough to explain everything.

Kudos to Lucky Gunner, for having the class to send pricey .38 Super instead of a cheesy box of Brown Bear 9mm with cardboard casings.

Okay, they’re not really cardboard. I like Russian ammo just fine, but it’s nice to have real brass without that funky post-Soviet smell.

Milk and Honey for Some, Gall and Vinegar for Others

It looks like I have made a big mistake. I accused Steve Munsey of pushing a bogus doctrine involving the “seven blessings of Pentecost.” I apparently got a couple of things screwed up.

This particular doctrine may not come from Munsey. I believed it did, because he pushes the notion that we get blessings from cash offerings on Passover, Pentecost, and Yom Kippur. He claims we get seven blessings on Passover and Yom Kippur (which he wrongly thinks is the Feast of Trumpets). But it’s not clear that he pushed seven Pentecost blessings.

There are so many crooks and scoundrels in the charismatic church, it can be very hard to keep them separate in your mind.

David Cerullo claims you will get these jim-dandy blessings if you bribe the Lord on Pentecost:

1. An angel of God will be assigned to protect you and lead you to your miracles.
2. God will be an enemy to your enemies.
3. He will prosper you.
4. God will take sickness away from you.
5. You will not die before your appointed time.
6. Increase and an inheritance will be yours.
7. What the enemy has stolen will be returned to you.

Here are the relevant scriptures, presented in the order of the blessings they supposedly ground. They are all from Exodus 23:

1. Verse 23
2. Verse 22
3. Verse 25
4. Verse 25
5. Verse 26
6. Verses 29 and 31

David Cerullo is not Steve Munsey. Oddly, however, he is offering Munsey’s seven Passover blessings in exchange for Pentecost cash. The above list is identical to Munsey’s Passover fantasies.

Charismatic gold-diggers like to plagiarize moneymaking schemes, so once one of them comes up with a juicy idea, the rest tend to glom onto it. Paula White and Benny Hinn are all over the Munsey stuff. I may have misattributed Cerullo’s seven Pentecost blessings to Munsey, and Cerullo clearly stole them from him in the first place.

My old church is not pushing the seven blessings. I was wrong about that. Here are the five blessings they currently offer:

1. God will break the debt currently hanging over your life – LEVITICUS 25:25-28
2. God will save and restore your whole family together in the Lord – LEVITICUS 25:39-42
3. God will reveal Himself to you in a new way – EXODUS 34:29
4. There will be a redistribution of wealth – LEVITICUS 23:22
5. You will have power over weakness – ACTS 1:8

I’m not completely sure what I should apologize for. Steve Munsey DOES push unscriptural Pentecost offerings, and he couples them with imaginary blessings, but I got the list wrong. I think. I’m not even sure of that, because of the content-grabbing that goes on amongst the jackals.

If anyone can figure out what I did wrong, I will apologize for it. I think that’s fair.

Yesterday was a remarkable day. It was Pentecost, and a friend of mine had a birthday celebration. His wife rigged up a surprise party for him at her mother’s house, and she convinced him she and her friends were actually having a Mary Kay party. As a distraction, he was encouraged to visit the gun range with a bunch of men from church. I was invited to both events.

In the morning, I prayed before church, as always. I spent over half an hour praying in tongues. Ordinarily, God’s power rises up in me when I do this, and by the time I’m done, I don’t need coffee. I feel alert and ready to take on the day. But yesterday I was still a little pooped, and I still had to pray with my understanding and then get up and get ready for church.

I arrived at church late, and worship was over. People were talking about the pastor. He was born on the same day as my friend, and folks were going to the stage to say good things about him. It’s good to honor people, but at that moment, this was not what I needed. I wished I had gotten there sooner.

He got up to give his sermon, but he couldn’t do it. He started the worship up again. He felt that God wanted him to do that. Everything cranked up again, and we fought until we felt God’s presence. It must have taken forty-five minutes.

He called my friend’s wife up to the stage, and he told her it was her day to receive the gift of tongues. He laid hands on her, and a bunch of people prayed, and before long, out it came! I hadn’t realized she needed it. Some people take a while to get it. It was exciting to see her begin her new life. I knew the changes it would make in her life.

After some more moves of the Spirit, the pastor told us there was no time left for the sermon. We would hear it next week. The Holy Spirit had to have his way, and I’m glad he did, because it got me where I wanted to be spiritually (after the problems I had had earlier), and my friend’s wife received a huge blessing. I went up to her and said, “Happy birthday.”

My friend Alonzo rode with me to IHOP for lunch with the other men. I made a real connection with the birthday boy’s brother-in-law. It turns out he’s a bona-fide food nut. Then we drove to the range, and Alonzo and I got to encourage each other and share insights God had given us.

I really didn’t want to go to the party. It was late. But I felt I should drop by, so I made an appearance. As I drove down I-95, the Holy Spirit hit me so hard, I felt like a basketball being pumped up with air. I was overwhelmed, and I wondered what it meant.

When arrived, I was very surprised to see other former Armorbearers from the old church. Two men who had been in leadership positions were there. The birthday boy himself is a former leader of the Armorbearers.

I was so happy to see them; I hadn’t seen one of them in weeks. I thought he had moved to another city. His wife and kids were there. I got reacquainted with his son, who used to work with me in the church kitchen, making pizza.

We ended up gathering around the pastor, telling him all the things we knew about organizing volunteers. We gave him the advice our former pastor had heard and rejected. He was grateful for it. He listened out of eagerness, not out of a desire to let us talk just so we would feel we had gotten a chance to speak. He wasn’t weighing our words to see how he could turn things to his benefit.

I spoke to several people from the old church. We discussed the way talented people had been shoved aside, ignored, obstructed, driven out, and treated disrespectfully. I gave my unvarnished opinion, which was that the old church was really an apparatus intended for the sole purpose of promoting the family that ran it. And I said it was remarkable how they wasted talent in their pursuit of church growth and self-promotion, because had they made good use of the people God had given them, they would have achieved the things they desired. That’s the ironic thing. They had all sorts of capable people waiting to work for them, and they consistently promoted insiders who were incompetent, while keeping able people out of the jobs they were created to do.

We had wonderful food. The sister of the guest of honor is a baker. She is starting her own company. She made a flawless birthday cake decorated like a Green Bay Packers jersey, and she surrounded it with all sorts of related items, like cupcakes and other confections. I couldn’t believe she made it herself. And there was a big buffet of Latin food.

We made plans. We talked about the things we wanted to do. And the pastor was all for it. He was not interested in promoting himself. He was looking to serve the Holy Spirit, using the abilities of all the people around him. He was approachable. He was not dismissive. He had time to talk. We didn’t have to measure our words in order to avoid upsetting him. We knew he would listen. It was as though a dam had broken.

I’m a lawyer, writer, and cook. I have tons of tools. The old church made me a security guard. We had one of the finest flamenco-style guitarists I’ve ever seen. They had him frying chicken wings and playing for little kids. We had a worship leader who went to Ohio State on a vocal scholarship. One day the pastor’s son–a nice guy who needs some professional vocal coaching–said he wanted to get involved in worship, and since then, the other guy has been teaching children. I could go on and on.

That was the attitude at the old place. With the new pastor, there was a different atmosphere. The walls had been broken down. There was opportunity to go forward and get some things done.

When I got home, I thought about the powerful presence of God I had felt, and I wondered what it had meant. Then I realized something. God had shown me a picture of heaven.

In heaven, foolish, hardheaded, selfish, hypocritical, arrogant people will be out of the way. They will not be present. They will not obstruct. They will not steal positions God anointed other people to fill. There will be no corruption and no nepotism. Our leader, Jesus, will be available to talk to us. He will encourage us. He will give us the right jobs. He will give us respect and support. We will succeed in doing the things he created us to do. Frustration will be back on earth, with the stiff-necked, carnal, greedy Christians who would not listen to the Holy Spirit. God will heap terrible obstacles on them, as a reward for the chains they put on his children.

We know that when we arrive in heaven, people we know will be there to greet us, just as my friends were waiting for me at the party. And there will be a feast–the marriage supper of the Lamb–just as there were food and drink at the party.

In heaven, things will work. That’s a succinct way to put it. I believe God used the party to show me what it would be like.

You have to live in this imperfect world, and you will never belong to a perfect organization, but some organizations are under Satan’s control to a very great extent, and you should not hang around hoping to fix them from the inside. Jesus taught us that it was wrong to try. He said we should shake the dust off our feet and move on, taking our blessings with us, just as he will do during the Rapture. He will shake the flesh (dust) off his feet (us) and take us to a place where we will be appreciated and allowed to succeed.

My old church was corrupt. I may as well be honest. They suppressed the Holy Spirit. They talked about helping the poor, but they didn’t do very much. They kissed up to celebrities, rich people, and politicians, while blowing off little people with needs. They taught self-help instead of Holy Spirit transformation. They disrespected and hobbled the servants God sent them. There is a limit to the success a godly person can have in a place like that. I know; Joseph made it in Pharaoh’s court. But he was the exception, not the rule. And after he died, his people were oppressed and murdered until they had to leave.

You may call this gossip, but I disagree. Gossip involves airing out confidences. It involves slander. It is done with malice. It serves no constructive purpose. There is nothing wrong with exposing the public behavior of the people controlling a confused church, especially when they should be aware they’re screwing up. Someone has to speak up. Jesus did it. John the Baptist did it. Jude did it. Don’t make me make a comprehensive list. You can’t accuse me of exposing your dirty laundry when you already have it hanging on your porch.

I thank God for what he showed me yesterday. It motivates me to carry on. Sooner or later, he rewards people. For good, but also, sadly, for evil.