I see here on your resume that you are a member of the Do-gooders Club, that you served on the board of directors of the Homeless Relief Council; you are chairman of the fundraising committee, and president of the Charity Corporation and Trust Foundation. I see that you led the Project to End Hunger in 2016, and headed the Homeless Outreach Campaign of 2017. You took the helm of the Medical Needs Foundation in October of last year with a projected budget of over $1.6 million, and expect to raise twice that amount by June of this year. You have 12 years experience in charitable 501c3 organizations, and have headed your own for the last 8 years.
Your credentials are impeccable and admirable. I can see why you put yourself forward for the job: Savior of the World. The record shows you have a lot to be proud of.
Just have a few questions before we make a final decision.
Nowhere in your resume did you mention the indwelling of the Holy Spirit or the Body of Christ. You do realize, don’t you, that Jesus himself does not have a resume like yours. No?
We don’t want to belittle your work in the slightest. It is most impressive, and every single crumb of grace or charity that falls from your table is greatly appreciated, but we are looking for a Kingdom Answer to World Questions.
Jesus said that “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not withstand it.” How has your work conquered the gates of hell? We looked through your resume, cover letter, and even several of the brochures and websites of the organizations where you serve, but did not see even a hint about it in any of them.
Hmmm… Yeah…
Uhhmmm, … We are looking for the Body of Christ here, actually. We don’t really need another band-aid for the sucking chest wound of life. We need something more in the realm of resurrection. Do you do that? Do you even mention it in your brochures? How about in your planning sessions?
I wonder…, you see, one of your references here, upon closer inspection, revealed to us that despite your P.R. rhetoric about opening your door to the homeless, you actually kicked out some of your volunteers for insisting that you let the homeless in on freezing cold nights. We checked on it, and sure enough, if this is true, it happened right when you were heading a media blitz campaign to raise tens of thousands of dollars with the public’s help.
Can you account for that?
It looks like you are raising money by telling people you take the homeless in so they don’t freeze on TV, but behind the scenes you are throwing them out to the cold of night. Does that sound like Jesus to you? One fellow even claims he heard you personally use the phrase, “I don’t care where you go, but you cannot stay here”. Does that sound like the Good Shepherd to you? Is there any truth to these allegations?
This raises some other questions for us as well. How much of all that money you raise through all your various fundraisers, charitable trusts, and outreach foundations actually goes to the poor? How much of it expands office space, vehicle fleets, vacations, and your own pocket book?
Do you know how much money Jesus pocketed?
We found a quote from you in a newspaper a few years back telling the public not to give money to the poor themselves. You accused them of misusing it for drugs or alcohol, and suggested that by giving to them the public would be enabling the addiction. This despite the words of Jesus to “give to all who ask” and his direction of at least one rich guy that he sell all he owned, give it to the poor, have his riches in heaven, and then come follow. How do you square your remarks with that?
But you didn’t stop there. No. You said the public should send their money to you instead, and that you would handle it responsibly. How is that working out? Have you ended poverty? Or did you fund a vacation? Who exactly is being enabled here?
Perhaps it sounds like we are merely nitpicking. There is no doubt your work produces remarkable results and has actually helped many people on many occasions. We want to thank you for your service and for every good thing that actually happens as a result of it, but honestly, we think you not only fall way short of Savior of the World material, but you are hardly on track with Jesus in any of this.
Yes, we are looking for a world revolution, not a status quo collusion. Thank you for applying, but please, stop muddying the waters with all your rhetoric. Instead repent. Go back to church, the very Body of Christ and seek the leading of The Holy Spirit there. Anything else is a beastly parody. A 666-substitute for the real thing.
Fat Beggars School of Prophets 
wow
Did you have a particular person in mind when you wrote this?
Are you sure you aren’t being nick picking?
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Not sure I understand your question(s) (or if I do what is driving it). But I will try to answer what I think you are after.
To the first: No. I have a composite in mind based on experiences with real people. But I don’t have one particular person in mind, or even one organization – for that matter. Some of it depends on which paragraph you are looking at. I certainly do hinge off an on-going argument I had with at least 4 individuals for a while, and they were all from one group. So I would expect that if any one (and especially two) of those individuals were to read here, they would see themselves in it… most likely.
I was thinking about the impressive positions and titles some of these people have that I have argued against. My resume would not be like theirs, and so on the face of things, I would imagine most casual observers (if I had that) automatically giving weight to those important sounding/looking people. After all, my resume does not look anything like theirs. I am not daunted by that, but I would like to cast this kind of thing into a light where those credentials would be reviewed with a spiritual lens. And I recall going to one of the organizations I was thinking of with my resume and being turned away. Not for lack of credentials, actually. No, in that case, some of the junior decision makers were quite excited about me. But one of the heavy weights sent me packing even though there were no other candidates because I sided with Jesus about giving to the poor. I thought I would rework that scene for the post and highlight some corners of it that were left in the dark the first time.
Also (and this incorporates an answer to your second question, I think), I began street ministry wondering where the CHURCH was when I was finding the pain of the streets. The “church” in this town has made a business of hiding behind the charities rather than actually being the hands and feet of Jesus – you know… his BODY. His body with its healing touch! So really there is a LOT of organizations I had in mind when I wrote the post. And NO, I dont think I am nick picking at all. I think it is easy to presume that until you look a bit closer than a casual observer is apt to do.
I also am thinking of that very eloquent Ron Highfield article I linked a while back about parachurch vs. church. His article, if you really sit with it, all but calls into question whether the “churches” I have been attending and ministering on behalf of for … pretty much all my life… are even really churches at all. That is a truly heavy notion! Highfield makes a potent case for his position, one I expect players in the field to respect whether they respect me or not.
Really… go check him out here:
https://ifaqtheology.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/is-your-church-a-parachurch-organization/
If I am nit picking, then Highfield is too. If Highfield is not, then I am not. And if I am not, then this is an important issue that the church of Lubbock needs to face. In the end, I hope the charitable organizations continue doing the good work they do until the church wakes up and does the Body-of-Christ job it’s supposed to do and then so outshine these organizitions that they fold up shop and join the church.
But finally, I had you in mind, Larry. This might shock you, but I had you in mind when I wrote this. And here is why: You published a post recently called Private Eyes. In it you assert that you think church leaders of Lubbock, at least a few, are likely reading here and not joining the conversation because it is too hot to handle.
Well, if you are right about that, then I want to expose them. I want the heat to get so hot, they have to respond. I want them to join the conversation, alright, but if they are to chicken(poop) to join, then I want to burn their private eyes with blinding light and truth. Flush them out, even if they come to me by night like Nicodemus to Jesus.
So… yeah. Let’s flush you out in the open. It’s time to repent… “church” and be CHURCH at last.
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I wonder what causes the change from the church established by Jesus to the social club we have today.
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I am sure there is no easy/simple answer that cannot be explained with more complication. And so my own offering will surely invite complexity. But I think that after the Enlightenment, and especially in western societies after that, we became beholding to government or better yet, modern empire and found that we could put our faith in a subservient position to that without question. We tell ourselves God matters most, but we really dont think that or behave like it. Instead we place the powers of empire as most important and as having rule over us. The Kingdom of God is quietly set aside and practically EVERYONE is in on it, meaning you cannot meaningfully question it without considerable cognitive dissonance or outright denial (and/or marginalize those questioning it). Like alcoholics with an elephant in the room, there is a concerted effort to avoid this truth.
I think this phenom plays a vital role and is at the center of the problem. I am sure I am not the best to articulate it, but I am likewise sure that even a very clear articulation of it won’t “make sense” to those deep in denial.
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