Hi RevMatt,

WHAT!!!?  Precious has to wait another year!

That's outrageous!

Grace and peace to you.

John

Culture shock.

Team this guy up with the big flag church and you've got a winning pair. I wonder it this church is offering the Church Intruder course?

http://intruderresponse.com/training-church.html

What next?!!

Get tattooed for Jesus!

What next?  The blessing of the hand guns?

I was going to post a link to Christian nudists who sell  pics of themselves to fill their collection plate, but I remembered it would contravene site guidelines....

Hi Ninja:

You mean to say the only pistols those (male) Christian nudists bring to church to be blessed are the ones between their legs?

Sorry, bad joke!

You know, I love Americans, I really do.  They make the rest of us appear so sane.

LB

A Canadian is sort of like an American, but without the gun.
Anonymous

 I for one am not against the responsible ownership of guns. I also believe in the right to bear arms. Bringing them to church is a bit out there, especially loaded. Couldn't  they do it symbolically somehow?

No. This is more about worshipping their constitutional rights than it is about worshipping God. Oh the joys of civil religion. Did I ever tell you about the time the Town asked me to bless the opening of the new sewage treatment plant?

You mean the constitutional right for every Tom, Dick and Hairless to pack heat?

Ahh the right most Americans thinks they have.... but don't

Oh I sense a story.....

REmember, according to the Rabbi in Anatevka (in the play script, not sure the line got into the movie) there is a blessign for anything.

Nope, no sermon there. How do you politely talk about the struggle to bless all this s@#$ ?

"Ahhhhuueeeaaauuwh,k"  as quoted by the Disney character "Goofy".

Bolt

Could be easier than blessing the council that authorized the building of the plant! 

'give thanks for the right to bear arms' - wtf?  sorry.  God didn't give us the right to bear arms.  I can't see that God has any positive interest in guns.  If they want a rally to show their support for the constitutional right, then have the rally - not at church, not run by their pastor. 

"he stands by his view that Christians are called on to be prepared to defend themselves and their families. "Pacifism is optional for Christians," says Pagano. "It's not a requirement."

my God, this guy is just absolutely lost.  And he's being paid money?  to preach?  Under the Christian banner?  shameful.

Shameful, yes, but also very popular. Notice the lack of protestors outside his church.

James, from the article:

"Some locals opposed to Pagano have planned an alternative rally, "Bring Your Peaceful Heart ... Leave Your Gun at Home," which is scheduled to coincide with the New Bethel event. Terry Taylor, executive director of Interfaith Paths to Peace, which organized the rally, told TIME he is particularly troubled by the open-carry service because it gives the wrong impression of Louisville, which he believes is the "spiritual center of the United States" because of its mass of interfaith work, connection to the late monk Thomas Merton and the presence of the Southern Baptist and Presbyterian seminaries and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s national headquarters. 

Joe Phelps, pastor of Louisville's Highland Baptist Church, tells TIME he can relate to Pagano's pastoral need to address his members' fears, "but there is nothing in the New Testament — [which] Christians give priority to — to encourage responding to fear with self-defense. To the contrary, the central message of Jesus is that fear should compel us to trust God's mercy in the midst of the fearful situation. In a face-off between the teachings of Jesus and the Constitution, Jesus better win in church."

Some sanity exists, thankfully.

Bringing your pistol to church can be dangerous....for the unpopular pastor, the off-tune soprano soloist, and the incompetent organist. 

or for the crabby parishioner who b*%$es at everything anyone does. Because the pastor will be packing heat as well!

And wouldn't that be an effective way to wake everybody up.

for those that can't read the caption,

this is Pastor Pagano and a submachine gun.

Rat a tat, and pass the collection plate

scary in so many ways.

and we struggle over conversations over alcohol in our church (note: we don't due to historically our methodist roots, but currently, due to our hospitality with AA on multiple nights.

LOL.  Every church has one of those.  I guess it might depend on how much they give each year in the offering plate.

I'll try:

"May the excrement that flows into this treatment plant through yonder sanitary sewers be cleansed through the blood of Christ.  Or subject it to screening, sedimentation, aeration, filtering, etc.  Your call."

this sounds like a job for Monty Python.

It was almost as much fun as the time that I blessed a new garage which repaired combines & tractors. At least at the garage they had a party afterwards.

 I knew a pastor who was also a biker (as in Harley Davidson).  Every spring his friends would gather and he would bless the bikes.

I have heard of priests going to the cemetary and blessing the grave sites. The family pays. Did the bikers pay trishcuit? Sounds like double dipping to me. LOL

haha.It may very well be.

I guess you figure bikers have a death wish?