If you like the choir then won’t you come and sing in it….
Archives For August 2011
….I would give some of it to my church.
Lots of us say that, I think because we believe it will somehow please God and convince Him to rig the lottery in our favor.
Well, it looks like that may actually have worked.
Somebody won $80,000 in the Georgia lottery and decided to donate it all to a church that is need of some pretty expensive A/C repairs and they church has already cashed in the ticket. Which I think raises some interesting questions.
Now, I have no idea what this church’s stance is on gambling, but every church I’ve ever attended or worked at has taken a stance against gambling. Most pastors I’ve talked to also say they would never take lottery winnings if a church member offered them to the church.
So, my question for you is this: Is it ok for a church to accept gambling winnings as a donation?
And just to step things up a bit more: Is it ok for Christians who take a stand against gambling to accept state scholarships for college that are funded via the lottery?
Let us know what you think, and while you ponder these deep, deep questions, you can check out the story below.
Talk about tithing: Church gets $80K lottery ticket in collection plate
By Fran Jeffries
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Someone recently placed an $80,000 winning Georgia lottery ticket into the offering plate at a Columbus church.
The Cathedral of Prayer Inc. claimed the winning Georgia Lottery ticket worth $80,000. Gloria Rodgers, chief financial officer, said the winning ticket, Lemon Doubler Cashword, was dropped anonymously in the church offering plate.
Rodgers, speaking on behalf of the nonprofit, claimed the prize Aug. 26 at the Georgia Lottery’s Columbus District Office.
“It’s an excellent thing,” Rodgers said in a news release issued Monday by the Georgia Lottery. “People in the community have come by and put lottery winnings in the offering through the years.”
The $80,000 prize is by far the largest they’ve received.
“When we saw this, we didn’t know,” Rodgers added.
According to Rodgers, burglars stripped the air conditioning unit of its copper three weeks ago, leaving the edifice without cool air. The anonymous donation will go toward fixing the unit.
“Everybody is just thrilled,” she said. “We’re thankful.”
Jerrys Food Mart, 3874 Saint Marys Road in Columbus, sold the winning ticket.
You read that right. Russell Brand is an “ordained minister.”
We put that in quotation marks because not so shockingly his ordination comes via the internet.
As two guys who are legitimately ordained (possibly just as shocking we know) we are tempted to rant about online ordinations. Instead, we’ll just settle for a roll of the eyes, a light chuckle, and you can read the story for yourself.
A COMIC and actor, who once revealed he was addicted to sex, has become a lot closer to God – HERALD SUN
Russell Brand, who has spoken openly his sex and drug addictions, has become a minister with America’s Universal Life Church.
Brand, who once said he had sex with nine women in one night, can now perform weddings, funerals and even preach a sermon in church, the Daily Star reported.
He has already tested his skills by marrying a couple at one of his stand-up gigs. Scarlett and Will De Boor felt Brand’s holy power when they were pulled from the audience to tie the knot.
Almost anyone can be ordained in America, meaning the service was completely legal.
”Russell has had a total turnaround since he met wife Katy Perry as her parents are super religious,” a source told the Daily Star.
“He’s been reading a lot of theological texts, especially by the Maharishi, and he wanted to take it further.
“With the Universal Life Church anyone can get ordained online and Russell did it as a half-jokey, half-serious thing.
“When he talked about it at his gig, one couple stood up and said they wanted him to marry them.
“Unfortunately the words he used during their service can’t be repeated as they were somewhat unorthodox. But it was all 100 per cent legal.”
***If you want to check out the “ceremony” for yourself then click on the link here. BE WARNED. It’s Russell Brand and the “ceremony” is, well, exactly what you would expect from Russell Brand.***
We’ve never been saying this forever: “There need to be more video games based on Apocryphal prophets.”
Thankfully, somebody was really bored? listening and Enoch finally has his own video game!
From CNN:
“There’s “God of War” and “Devil May Cry.” “Kid Icarus” and “Battle for Asgard.”
Plenty of video games use mythical gods or other characters and creatures from beyond to drive their stories.
But notably absent, at least among mainstream titles? The Bible. At least until now.
“El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron” (Ignition Entertainment) is based on the Old Testament figure Enoch, a man originally written about in the Book of Genesis who, according to the story, is taken to heaven without dying.
In the apocryphal Books of Enoch, which appeared in the Ethiopic Bible, he becomes the chief of the archangels and protector of heaven’s treasures.
In “El Shaddai,” Enoch is a priest who attempts to stop seven fallen angels from destroying the world. Ignition’s director of business development, Shane Bettenhausen, said there have been plenty of games set in other kinds of mythologies, but “El Shaddai” developers wanted to tell a different story.”
The video quality on this one isn’t great, but still this may go down in the annals of history as the worst church performance ever.
We may only need to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” but there’s nothing joyful about this.
Wow.
Did Charlie Darwin make a monkey out of you?
Either way, the choreography at the end of this video is pretty epic. Everybody do the evolution dance!
Just came across this movie called Higher Ground and it doesn’t look like your “normal” Christian movie.
For starters it’s rated R. Except for Passion of the Christ I can’t think of another Christian movie rated R. So there’s that.
They also use the word “penis” in the trailer. Maybe it’s the Jr. Higher stuck in side of me that finds that mildly amusing, but once again, not sure I can think of another Christian movie that uses that particular word.
Finally, this movie seems like an honest portrayal of faith, at least from what little I can tell from the preview.
It starts with that wonderfully, awkward phenomena of raising your hand while “all heads are bowed and eyes are closed.” But then it appears to tackle some really interesting, often times taboo subjects like “sexual chemistry,” the bizarre phenomena of speaking in tongues, and drug abuse. Now, granted these issues have been covered in other Christian movies, but they usually involve the “sinner” before they come to Jesus, while in this movie the characters dealing with these issues are the “saints” who are struggling after they get saved.
Maybe it’s just me, but this looks interesting. What do you think?
Well, you had to know this was coming: the influx of crazy videos telling us why God decided to wreak havoc upon ‘Murrica. It’s probably even worse due to the proximity to Washington, D.C.
Heeyyy… doesn’t Obama live in DC? It’s a sign!
Regardless, here are our two options for God’s tectonic judgment.
Option #1: We’re in the tribulation, y’all!
Option #2: It’s the gays!
Personally, we’re torn. On the one hand, Kenny Rogers is right: this is all so apocalyptic feeling. On the other hand, it’s tough to argue with the logic of ”Pass gay law…. earthquake.”
Why do YOU think God smote the east coast?
The other day we got pretty scared of heaven. Sounds weird, but watch this and you’ll be frightened too.
Well, it turns out that hell is in fact scarier than heaven. How do we know?
It seems that the same pastor who showed us how scary heaven is, also has an even more terrifying video of what hell is like.
So, what should this teach us?
It seems like you really are “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
