OK, so I was feeling rotten last night, and I’m not toally up to snuff today and I have to teach an all day class tomorrow. Needless to say, it is a time to be down in the dumps for most folks. As my wife will tell you, though, the worse I feel the funnier I get (or maybe the funnier I think I am) sometimes. Kind of like the middle-of-the-night ride to the hospital with kidney stones when I was self-medicating with laughter because the pain was so bad (you know what I’m talking about, guys).
So this morning, I crawled into the shower, forgetting that I had an extra 90 minutes before I could leave because of childrens’ snow delays, and by the time I got out of it, my attitude was much better even though my body was (and is) not.
Here was my thought:
Last week, I was flipping through the channels one evening, and I stopped for about 5 minutes on a train-wreck of a reality show, where (and I’m guessing here from my 5-minute experience) the mothers in two households are swapped and the kids and the huspands have to try to learn how to deal with someone particularly unsuited to live in their home. It looked painful, though possibly in a cathartic sort of way.
So this morning, I got to wondering if we could do a Reality TV show called “Pulpit Swap”, where we force churches to swap senior pastors (and their staffs) for a month. Here’s my tentative schedule for the opening episodes:
Week 1: John McArthur/Joel Osteen
Week 2: Mars Hill Week – Mark Driscoll/Rob Bell
Week 3: Rick Warren/Fred Phelps (Ken Silva, if FP isn’t available)
Week 4: Bill Hybels/Al Sharpton
Week 5: Twin Cities Week – Doug Pagitt/John Piper
Week 6: Edward Cardinal Egan/Benny Hinn
As I started imagining scenes of these guys meeting with parishoners and listening to responses from both them and the congregations, it greatly brightened my morning. Heck, it might even do some of them a bit of good…
22 Comments(+Add)
As much fun as the Pagitt/Piper swap would be, I think Greg Boyd and John Piper would have even more fireworks. I don’t even know if Boyd would make it out of Piper’s church alive.
I say you swap out McLaren for Osteen and then force Osteen to do a turn with the PowerTeam.
What’s sad is that Piper and Boyd are in the same denom…
Tim, thanks a bunch for the bad flashback with PowerTeam — I had successfully wiped them from my hyper-fundie adolescence. If you can’t bench 350, you don’t really love Jesus.
Actually, Ken Graves helped me end my Jesus-as-Hanz-and-Franz nausea.
Don’t you think Fred Phelps is a little extreme?
Ah, yes, the Power Team. These and greater phone books shall you tear apart in my name.
You do have a “wicked” yet warped sense of humor….
but I like it.
Bruce
Week 3 should be called PT week
Purpose/Piety Driven: Warren/Silva
ouch. the Ken Silva/Fred Phelps reference is a bit of a low blow, wouldn’t you say?
Fred Phelps would be insulted! How dare you compare him to Ken Silva… (LOL!) Ken has a
longbit morelittle studying to do to attain to Fred’s stature..I have done a few things with the Power Team and actually like the guys…
I performed as Mr. Incredible (yep wore the suit) in a promotion for the car dealership I worked at… and sign autographs for kids as My Incredible at theatres and at the Power Team show… not kidding! So stop laughing…
iggy
WOW, I need to see a picture of that.
Here’s a hypothetical situation for you: I’d like to see Joel Osteen in the same room with John Owen or Charles Spurgeon.
The reason Word of Faith preachers own private jets is they’re trying to stay away from Chuck Spurgeon
The reason Word of Faith preachers own private jets is they’re trying to stay away from Chuck Spurgeon
Ah, yes. Those Socinian WoF preachers.
Joe,
Just for you… don’t laugh too hard!
http://wordofmouthministries.blogspot.com/2007/12/oh-inhumanity-of-it-all.html
iggy
That may become my new Facebook profile photo
The look on your face is more suited to a villain.
For reals.
Hello Iggy,
I went to your blog site, you look like are old enough to appreciate this. When I was in high school, I had a “vision” the new paradigm and new-thinking spirituality that you maybe seeing evolve today. I was drunk at a high school party. I think I may have actually had several visions that night, but all of a sudden I heard those immortal words from that great prophet….. Geddy Lee.
And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
(Rush 1977)
30 years later, who woulda thought……..?
F Whittenburg
I loved Rush… still do…
iggy…
I had a vision once when I was a kid and drinking. Don\’t remember much of it.
Hello Aug. Bush,
“I had a vision once when I was a kid and drinking. Don\’t remember much of it”.
I think many of us that were found by Jesus have been there. That is why I can’t condemn those that drink. I never considered it a sin, but I just didn’t glorify God when I drank, so I asked the Lord to deliver me from the desire to drink.
This is a problem that I have found in trying to overcome addictions. Many make a determination in their heart to quit an addiction, it doesn’t matter what addiction the principle is still the same, but the desire of the addiction is still there. They just spend each day trying to resist the desire. It is a miserable fight and they wrestle with it until finally many just give up and go back to the addiction. I asked the Lord Jesus to take away the desire for the addiction, this He did, and I haven’t had a drink in nine years! And no desire!
Many people look at Jesus as a “forgiver”, but not a “Savior”. They think that Jesus is just there to forgive them as they are wallowing around trying to get out of their sin. Most religion are designed to point out the sin in your life, now you have to get rid of it. This is not the “victory” of the gospel. When I tell peolpe Jesus saved me, I am saying that He came a pulled me out of the things that were destroying me.
A Shepherd that has a sheep that goes astray doesn’t slaughter it when he finds it, but puts it on his shoulders and carries it back to the flock. REJOICING!! Jesus said:
What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing (Luke 15:4,5 KJV).
F Whittenburg
http://www.christiannewbirth.com