A Fresh Perspective

Maybe you heard about the lay preacher that often traveled to little churches around the countryside and preached. He always gave his regular offering to his home church, but it was also his custom to put a little something in the offering plate where he preached. There was no offering taken that morning but he noticed an offering box in the back, so as he and his young son who accompanied him that Sunday left the church after the service he dropped a five dollar bill in the offering box.   As they made their way to the car one of the deacons came running after him.   “Wait a minutes preacher,” he said, “it’s our custom to give the preacher what is received in the offering box” and he handed him a five dollar bill. As they drove off, his young son said, “Dad, if you would have given more, you would have gotten more, wouldn’t you?”   Is that true? If you give more, you will get more? The prosperity preachers who are getting rich off the gifts of their perishioners wou...

From the earliest time I can remember I was in the church house on Sundays. It did not always go well for me on Sundays. I can vaguely remember one Sunday when my parents and my best friend’s parents let us sit together during Sunday worship by ourselves. We decided to take the foil wrapper of a piece of chewing gum and make a little paper football. We had a whole side pew to ourselves so Keith went to one side and I to the other. We made goal posts with our hands and thumbs and kicked field goals. One of my kicks deviated from its intended path and landed inside a curl of the lady sitting in the pew directly in front of us. She was hard of hearing so we didn’t worry too much, but my buddy got tickled and I got tickled. Well, that was the last time we got to sit together for a while. For the next several weeks we were back at the side of our parents.   I can also distinctly remember as a kid sitting in worship as the preacher droned on and on thinking what a terrible way to ma...