Friday Funny
W. Bruce Cameron is one of my favorite satirists. You should laugh out loud at this and begin your weekend well with many unspeakable usherings from your corroborator. I know that didn’t make sense, but it will after you read “Spam-O-Gram.”
Spam-O-Gram
Copyright 2010 W. Bruce CameronI am pleased to announce that I have recently received an offer via e-mail to transfer $25,589,000 directly into my bank account—I’m rich!
I have no idea why I, among the millions and millions of e-mail users, was singled out for such lavish treatment, but I assure you, I will not be selfish—once I have the money, I plan to share it, generously spending it on highly visible luxury automobiles and enormous yachts so everyone can see my wealth and enjoy it.
Lest you doubt the veracity of this deal, allow me to quote verbatim from the e-mail in question:
Dear Sir: I am most unfortunate to thinking you may not suspect me as real for we do not now know or been introduced, but allow me to say I am Song Lou. I work for Heng Suck Banq, Ltd, and have the proposition for you of transferring $25.589 million USD directly to your bank account which will be of mutual benefit to you once we have established cordial cooperation and modality. Please GET BACK TO ME ASAP….Song Lou
Here’s how I know this is legitimate: (a) the dollar amount is very specific—I’d be suspicious of a rounded off figure; (b) he works for a Suck Bank—I’m a customer of a Service Sucks Bank, which is probably a subsidiary; and (c) he needs me to GET BACK TO him ASAP—legitimate business people are always in a big hurry. I responded to his e-mail the day I got it:
Dear Mr. Lou: So delightfully I am partaking of your recent e-mail! I would most cooperatively accept your transfer of $25.589 million because that’s exactly how much I need! With much insomnia I beg for your response….W. Bruce Cameron
He wrote right back!
Dear W: My associates are speaking most excitedly on this matter. We are requiring only of some informational proceedings for rapid facilitation of transfer. Please to forward bank account name, number, routing, and phone for reaching….Song Lou
Great! I decided I just needed a little bit more informational proceeding myself and I’d be good to go.
Dear Song: Most unctuous and florid greetings upon your eyebrows. My concerning is for how the transfer is working. Would you please snorkel your immediate describings of the next notes in the opera? Yours in lasagna….W.
Dear W: Some puzzlement has befuddled us during your last communications. However, we are confident with you as our partner in business for $25.589 million and can lay the goodness of an additional $10 million USD. However URGENT for response with banking informational details preceedingly requested. Yours truly….Song Lou
Dear Song Sung Lou: Blessings upon you and your puppies. I have spoken with high regard to all my appliances of your keen business skills and shavings. Though much of my lust is bestirred by the $10 million, I am requisite of a total of $50 million and am inquiring of any possibility you and your associates may emerge from their medications with this additional transfer. Also, through the subscriptions of their loins my parents have blessed me with a sister through all perplexity, and she, too, would be willing for a limited time only to accept a $50-million transfer.
Dear W.: Though our history suggests you can be trusted with our worthiness, many among us are suspect of you unseriously misdirecting our associations. Please be aware of our availability to the $50 million only if you can be convincing of your honesty! We have no wasting time! Yes, your sister please also bank information with 24 hours for transferring or we will be withdrawn to other matters. Yours truly….Song
Dear Song: All of my follicles are emerging from the dark winter of their trousers and turning their taste buds to your luscious wrists! Most joyously do I face the soup of your embalming of my sister. My beamings are upon all of the Suck companies, with wishes for continued integrity at every turn of the pipe. Yours most impeded….Bruce
They never wrote back, but I’m sure the transfer is coming soon!
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A new lens…”Suffer Well”
Often we see pain as a curse from God, but might it be His grace.
Might it be more cruel to live in a sin infected world without pain?
I follow a few folks that you may have heard of and if you haven’t then you should check them out. Not because I agree with every bit of their theology, but because each of them believe in a powerful, advancing, and beautiful Church led by Christ and gifted by God. If you wonder why we suffer, you are not alone. Why does God allow it? Is it possible to have hope in the midst of suffering?
Take the weekend and check each of these out. We have a great God!
Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in and around Dallas, is a 35 year old husband and father and unashamed Calvinist and Southern Baptist. I first heard him last year preach one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard at a conference put on by Desiring God. Matt, over Thanksgiving 2009, had a seizure and was eventually diagnosed with brain cancer. His response to that uninvited interruption in his life gained national attention. His blog is worth checking out and his sermons are rich. I’m not a sold out Calvinist, nor am I a sold out Arminian, but I agree with Matt far more than I disagree and I love to be challenged and he does not fear telling it like it is.
Mark Driscoll, is a Catholic turned Calvinist and pastor of a multi-site church based in Seattle. He started a church without seminary training or another job in ministry. He has appeared on Nightline with Depak Chopra and with a converted stripper in order to discuss the reality of Satan. He is preaching through the book of Luke and this week was the story of raising the dead son of a widow from Nain. Two weeks ago his sister miscarried and last week his wife miscarried and he preached quite possibly the most thought provoking sermon on suffering I have ever heard.
Tony Morgan, a United Methodist turned Baptist executive pastor in Georgia shared on Twitter that his friend had just died and linked to this video. It turns out that New Spring Church showed it to their congregation, which was Zac’s congregation 12 weeks ago.
Try using pain as a new lens…NEVER doubt the purpose of your pain…NEVER!
The Conversion Investment – the problem with Church economics (Part 2)
How long does conversion take?
An instant?
A week?
Six weeks, after taking a class at a church?
I don’t think that there is an answer, but that it is different for every person. So, some exchange their allegiance for Jesus in an instant and some over a period of years and some somewhere in between.
The issue lies in the fact that in order to determine where people are in their journey we need to hear their story, and sometimes it takes a while before you hear the whole story. We almost just rubber stamp the whole thing as if God really didn’t want to use humans to help other humans come to faith. So, they come, we listen, they pray, we dunk, and they leave unchanged.
We aren’t willing to sit with someone for an hour or two in order to witness the intersection of God’s story with the story teller’s. It’s emotionally exhausting. It’s mentally exhausting. It’s a battle with unseen forces to help people exchange their story for His story, and we’d just rather there be a pill to prescribe.
So, I am convinced that…
there are far more people who prayed a prayer after someone than are actually converted.
there are far more people who are baptized than are actually converted.
there are far too few churches that see this as fraud.
there are far too many of us, especially in the South, who refuse to challenge someone’s “I believe in God” to substitute for a real allegiance to Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
there are far fewer churches who are trying to change their “five minute, come speak to a pastor and before the song ends pray a prayer invitation approach” into bringing people to Christ so that they might be radically transformed by Him…who die and are raised to new life.
And so there are far less Converted People than we Church people might like to admit.