Who's to Blame for the Richard Robertses?

Looks like another one of them high-up Christian leaders got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Apparently, it's one his wife bought on her $39,000 shopping spree.

I was reading the newspaper at Riley's a while back. Seems that Richard Roberts resigned as head of Oral Roberts University because these former professors said he was spending money left and right on himself and his family. They filed this lawsuit claiming he had a lavish lifestyle. He ain't the first Christian leader to step down because of a financial scandal. If we want him to be the last, we gotta put the blame right where it belongs.

The blame's with us.

Whether you give your money to a big fancy university or a little country church, you need to be willing to ask the tough questions about how the money's being spent. You're not gonna have to deal with the school president sending his daughter on the university jet for a senior trip, but you might need to ask why a golf club membership is listed under spiritual development in the church budget.

Folks at Unity First can get pretty riled with me when I ask questions during some of our business meetings. God didn't tell me to fork over my money blindly. Leaders gotta be held accountable, and honest ones ain't gonna be afraid or get all indignant by folks that ask questions.

It was up to that school's board of regents to ask the tough questions to make sure the money was being spent right. Some folks think this board was a big old rubber stamp for this Roberts fellow. If that's the case, the whole lot of them should be chased out of there.

It goes the same for all of us. Churches and other religious bodies can't spend money the way they want and tell the folks giving them the money that it's not really their beeswax. If you contribute, you got the right to ask questions and expect straight answers. Some folks will label you a complainer or maybe question your motives, but don't pay them any mind. For the good of the church and the good of God's work, you gotta be brave enough to ask. It's always easiest to do nothing.

By the way, I didn't know what a regent was so I looked it up in the dictionary. Seems it's "a person who exercises the ruling power in a kingdom during the minority, absence or disability of the sovereign." Guess that means Richard Roberts fancies himself as the sovereign one. I got news for him. He ain't by a long shot.

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Jesus Don't Get What's Important to Churches

We was having our Wednesday night meal at Unity First. The ladies had put together a great dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread and seven-layer salad with your choice of ice tea or lemonade. It's not a meal at Riley's Diner but it was still awful good. Anyways, I was sitting with Tab Summers. He's our church clerk. Keeps track of who's here, who's left us, who's just joined and who's left us. He was picking at the mayo-drenched peas in his salad, so I asked what was on his mind. He pulls out this folder with charts and graphs that showed how attendance was going at Unity First over the years. Seems we lost quite a few members the last couple of years, and he was fretting about it.

"Reminds me of a story I saw on some guy's blog," I told him. "Seems these archaeologists found this ancient manuscript about a conversation between Jesus and a few of his disciples."

"You found this on a blog? How do you know it's true?"

"Well, what kind of person would make up stuff like that and lead people to think it was true?"

"Carl, just because it's on the inter--"

"Do you wanna hear this story or don't you?"

"Go ahead."

"Good. See, this conversation takes place right after John 6:66. That's where it says, 'From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.' "

Now here's how the story goes that I told Tab about:

It seems Jesus was praying under a tree in the heat of the day when this familiar voice greeted Him.

"Jesus, we need to talk."

Jesus looks up and sees Peter strutting over, with Matthew and John not far behind. "Sure, Pete, what's up?"

"It's about the people."

Jesus smiles. "What about them?"

"You haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?" He opens this pouch with a few dried figs and offers it to Peter.

"Our numbers are down," Peter says, waving his hand to decline the morsels. "Way down."

"And this worries you?" Jesus inspects one of the figs and holds the pouch out to the other men, shaking it. "Matt, John. They're really good."

Matthew shakes his head, but John quietly steps forward to fish out a couple figs.

"Something's gotta be done," Peter says, trying to regain control. "Judas says our cash flow is really tight. We'll be lucky if we can afford to buy a single fish from the market to feed all of us."

Jesus sighs. "You do know," He tells him, "I only need one."

"Yeah, right, but You haven't done that in a while. You need to do more of that fish-and-bread multiplying stuff. The crowds ate that up."

"They were hungry."

"I mean, they liked it. They thought it rocked. You do more of that flashy stuff to pull in the crowds, and our numbers are bound to go back up. Raise somebody else from the dead. That kind of thing."

"Numbers are important to you?" Jesus asks.

"How else can we tell how effective we are? Not long ago we had 5,000 men listening to us, but lately they've been dropping like locusts. What I'm saying here is someone's gotta take responsibility for this loss, and since You're at the top and all ..."

"Perhaps it's the ones who left you should talk to."

"Oh, we have. And we found out some disturbing news."

"Really? What was that?"

"Some of them are saying your messages, well, they've gotten kinda dry."

Matthew chimes in. "Depressing, too ... I mean, they say that. Not me. I wouldn't, y'know, I wouldn't say that. ... Can I still have a fig?"

"Sure thing, Matt," Jesus says, holding out the pouch as He turns to John. "And what do you think?"

John boy's been staring at the ground all this time, shuffling his feet in the dirt and tucking his hands in the pockets of his outer garment. "I just want us all to get along. Can't things be the way they were when we were all so happy?"

Peter frowns. John's always been kind of a wimp as far as he was concerned. "We have to look forward. You can't dwell on the past. This ministry's in jeopardy if we don't make a course correction. Matt, tell Jesus what you've learned."

"Yes, certainly." Matthew pulls this abacus from beneath his tunic. "I've been running the beads. It seems that giving is already down 54 percent. And the crowds are down by 64 percent compared to this time last month. My calculations indicate that we could well lose some of our biggest contributors if something doesn't change."

Jesus studies Matthew's abacus. "So what kind of course correction did you have in mind, Pete?"

Peter kneels beside Jesus, glad that He was finally starting to listen to reason. "You gotta do more stuff that gets people talking. They'll spread the word through the villages. That water to wine thing? Great stuff. Oh, and remember that time You walked on water?"

"That was the first time I ever did it. I was just getting My feet wet." Jesus laughs, but Peter don't find this funny.

"Picture this. We organize this big lakeside revival. Get some press releases out to all the scrolls. Prepare some direct marketing papyruses."

John interrupts here. "Don't you mean papyri?"

"Whatever," Peter says, clearly ticked off. "The thing is, on the big day, we send You out on a boat, like a hundred yards out. Then with the crowds gathered around the shoreline, You get out of the boat, walk straight to the shore on top of the water and start preaching. What an entrance!"

"So let me get this straight. You prefer that I have thousands of shallow followers, instead of a handful who are willing to follow Me wherever I send them?"

"Exactly!" Peter says. "Now we're getting somewhere!"

Jesus sighs again and places His hand on Peter's shoulder. "I know you mean well, but I have a different path to travel. And when it's all done, even more people are going to leave Me."

"But," Peter's struggling to find the right words here, "that's not -- It doesn't make any sense."

"It never has," Jesus assures him. "And it never will."
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That Cantata Incident Was Music to Victor's Ears

All right, I finally got this post written up again. Dang computer ate it or something a few days back. I was wanting to answer some of you who’ve been asking what it is I like about Riley’s Diner so much. In a word, lots and lots of privacy. You don’t think of a restaurant as a private place, but it’s not so much about who’s here as who isn’t.

See, I’m pretty involved in my church, Unity First, where I serve as head deacon emeritus. That’s a fancy title, but the truth is I was deacon chairman for a long spell until what folks at Unity refer to as “that cantata incident.” Suppose I oughta get around to telling you about that. For the record, I was only trying to help. Everyone loves a candle-lighting ceremony and everyone loves a banner procession in church Christmas musicals. Why not put the two of them together?

Let’s just say chaos ensued. First off, you would of thought they’d make Ned’s angel costume outta flame-retarded material. Apparently not. Ned’s a large fella, and he don’t handle stress all that well. So when he realizes his wings are on fire, he starts running like a mad man around the sanctuary, passing most of the sopranos’ banners in the process. This started an unfortunate chain reaction, with the sopranos waving their banners to put them out. Didn’t do no good.

Fortunately, the baptistery was filled up that night. Ned made his way back up front and did a cannonball right into it. The resulting splash soaked the sheep in the manger scene, all three of them, sending them stampeding over Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. But that’s okay cuz he was just a doll that night. The Millers’ baby daughter got sick that night so we had to substitute at the last minute. No harm done.

For the record, most of the sopranos’ eyebrows grew back in time. We went ahead and finished out the cantata, and several of the firemen said it was the most beautiful thing they ever heard. One of them even got saved so the whole thing musta been providence.

Anyways, that’s all Victor Stern needed to convince the rest of the church that it was high time for me to step down as deacon chairman, a job he’s been craving a long time. So Victor becomes the new deacon chairman, and he convinces the church to create this position for me of head deacon emeritus. That’s their way of saying it was time to put me out to pasteurize.

Sorry. Got sidetracked there. It all still sticks in my craw, you know? Bunch of baloney sauce. Anyways, I was telling you about the people at Riley’s. Lots of different folks eat here from all over. Riley gets over-the-road truckers, traveling business folks, college kids pulling all-nighters, most everyone you can imagine. What he don’t have is a lot of people from church, and that’s the way I like it.

It’s not that I don’t like the people at my church. They’re good people, but I see them two times on Sundays and once on Wednesdays. And that don’t count the potlucks, revivals and all the other happenings. That’s enough Christian folk for even a Christian. Sometimes we forget what real life is like when we spend all our time at church. Truth be told, we start to thinking we’re better than most other folks. That’s why I like all these new faces at Riley’s. They’re refreshing. Real.

I got a few deacon buddies that meet me here for breakfast every Monday and Thursday morning. You heard about Larry last time. He’s a good boy, but gets a burr in his bonnet now and then. He claims he don’t get angry cuz that’s a sin, just gets righteously indignant. I mentioned Ned a little while ago. He’s kind of an accountant, which automatically makes him a member of the church's finance committee. Gets real nervous. Right now, he's the chairman. When he gives the monthly financial report to the congregation, he wears his suit jacket so you can’t see the big pools of sweat building up under his armpits. I’ll tell you about the other guys some other time.

Now what I was meaning to tell you about in the first place happened on a Wednesday morning at Riley’s so the other deacons weren’t due in for breakfast. It’s just me. On these days, you’ll find me at the counter, having my steak and eggs with my coffee – double cream, no sugar – and chatting with the customers. Riley’s got himself this little silver bell on top of the door at the main entrance so you know when someone’s coming or going. It starts to ringing so I turn to have a look. My eyebrows shoot halfway up my scalp. It’s Victor Stern and a couple of his cronies.

Vic is always all smiles and courteous-like. He’s a bald fella, except around the ears, with this neat little charcoal gray moustache. He’s always looking up slightly, chin raised, like God’s talking to him and he wants to pay careful attention. Most folks think he’s a nice guy, but they forget that nice don’t always mean good. Vic spots me and glides over to the counter.

“Morning, Carl. Delightful to see you,” Vic said. “Isn’t that right, brothers?” He was talking about Claude Aycock and Sid Weimer, both of them deacons at Unity First. They’re two of Vic’s most popular groupies so they’ve clearly gone to the dark side. These two don’t have a thought they don’t run by Vic first.

“That’s the truth,” Claude said. “Amen,” Sid chimed.

“What brings you hear, Vic?” I asked.

“Victor,” he corrects me, smiling. Since he was named deacon chairman, he started going by Victor.

“I thought we’d stop in for some coffee. We’re on our way to a new men’s prayer meeting. It meets once a month. It’s a time for men of Christian faith to unite in prayer and discuss the pressing moral issues of the day. We can no longer remain silent.”

“Amen,” Sid said, followed by another “That’s the truth” from Claude.

“Silence’s never been much of a problem for you, Vic.”

“Victor.”

“Whatever.” I take a sip of my coffee. “So what pressing moral issues of the day will you be discussing?”

“Cloning. It’s past time man stop playing God.”

“Preach that, brother,” Claude said. “Amen,” Sid responded.

“Funny thing,” I said, looking at Claude and Sid. “I would of guessed you was all for it.”
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Some Things Just Ain't Worth Fighting Over

This is my first time doing one of these blogs so here goes. It was a couple days back when I’m enjoying my steak and eggs at Riley’s Diner. So far at the table, it’s just me and Larry, he’s one of the younger deacons at Unity First. The other deacons ain’t got here yet. Anyways, Larry breaks the news to me.

“Well, I’ll be. Brother Wright’s here, Carl.” Just when I thought nothing was gonna ruin my breakfast.

Brother Wright, now he’s the assistant pastor at Unity First. Been there for five years, which is sort of a miracle. For some reason, most of our senior pastors – you know, I don’t know why we call them that cuz nearly all of those boys have been half my age. Anyways, they don’t last more than a year. That’s when they announce from the pulpit that God has called them somewhere’s else – anywhere. God always seems to call these boys to larger churches with bigger paychecks. Just once, I’d like to see one of them say that maybe God’s called them to, I don’t know, some dirt-poor country church where a handful of old folks need some ministering. Or maybe some place in a big city helping people who don’t know where their next meal’s coming from. God’s plan for these kind of preachers always seems to be an upwardly mobile career path. Go figure.

Anyways, back to Brother Wright. He ain’t a bad guy. He’s done a lot of good at the church. He really cares about our folks. Made them part of his life. My big problem with this fellow is he’s one of those types that act like he’s never made a mistake. There’s a pretty popular phrase whispered in the hallways around our church. “Brother Wright. Never wrong.”

Me and Larry give Brother Wright a friendly wave while he makes his way up to the counter for a juice and one of Millie’s fresh-baked muffins. That’s one of the things you can count on in our little town of Unity. We’re friendly folks, whether we want to be or not.

When Brother Wright was called … That’s a preacher word for “hired” cuz a lot of preachers don’t like to think they work for the church, just God. That way when they say God told them to do such-and-such, a lot of church folk feel like they can’t question it cuz they’d be arguing with God. I ain’t never been one of those folks. Sorry, I’m drifting off course. Anyways, when Brother Wright was called to Unity First, we brought him on as minister of music, youth, senior citizens, education, outreach and maintenance. All the stuff our pastor don’t wanna do. Brother Wright still does all these things since we made him assistant pastor. We just needed to make it easier to read his business cards.

Now here’s something that’ll give you an idea of how hard-headed Brother Wright can get. When we made him assistant pastor, he insisted at the business meeting – that’s when folks at Unity First get together once a month to vent their frustrations – that he needs to be called associate pastor. Or better yet, executive pastor, which is what a lot of them bigger churches are doing. Either title, Brother Wright tells us, is more consistent with New Testament teaching. Unfortunately for Brother Wright, the voting church members weren’t swayed by his hermeneutics. Fact was he had to spend 15 minutes explaining to us what hermeneutics meant. To me, it sounded kinda communist.

Brother Wright’s working his way over to our table cuz he can’t just wave back at us. He’s gotta one-up us, you know, and make some small talk. “Brother Carl,” he tells me with a smile that looks like it don’t belong on his face. “What a surprise to see you and Larry here.” He’s lying, of course, cuz he knows me and four or five other deacons meet here every Monday and Thursday for breakfast. But it’s just a little lie, not one of the big lies, like “I didn’t have sex with that woman” or “Iraq’s got them weapons of mass destruction.” God kinda tolerates little lies cuz it’s so popular in churches. If He did deal with them, half our churches would be empty. And if He dealt with gossip, that would take care of the rest of them.

It’s about this time that Brother Wright looks at the steak and eggs on my plate. “I’ve been doing an in-depth study in the Word, Brother Carl.” Here it comes. Whenever Brother Wright shares his insights from the Bible, it involves how the listener ain’t right with God. “It was God’s will for all of us to be vegetarians. It wasn’t till Adam sacrificially followed Eve into sin and was ejected from the garden that God had created for him, that mankind began to eat meat. Clearly, a byproduct of sin’s entrance into the world.”

I looked at Brother Wright’s smile for a moment. I pushed my plate away from me. “Maybe you’re right.”

This was more than Larry could handle. The boy’s been known to fly off the handle now and then. He misses those days of the Old Testament when God would get real good and angry and do a lot of smiting. It’s not that he don’t like the New Testament. He does. He just thinks God mellowed out a little too much by that time. “I never heard something so foolish. It don’t say anywhere in the Bible that we can’t have a good hamburger.”

“Just listen to the man, Larry. Maybe he’s right.”

Brother Wright’s smile, hard to believe, got even bigger. “Thank you, Brother Carl. I’m only the messenger. My calling is to tell you what God has shown me in His Word. I don’t expect everyone to understand the nuances involved in rightly translating the Word. It’s up to you, Brother Larry, to decide whether you obey God or not.”

“That’s mighty Christian of you,” I said. And with that Brother Wright made his way out of the diner. Watching him go, I could feel Larry’s glare burning into the back of my skull.

“You’re not going to tell me, Carl, that you buy that manure for one minute.”

“You gotta know what battles are worth your trouble,” I told Larry. “Sometimes, you gotta tell someone that maybe he’s right cuz it ain’t worth all the air you’re going to waste on an argument that don’t matter.”

“If you let him take an inch now, next thing you know he’s gonna have the church serving nothing but fruits and vegetables at all the potlucks. He’ll have the bacon removed from the seven-layer salads. Who wants a six-layer salad? Where’s it all gonna end? Someone’s gotta stand up to that kinda arrogance.”

“Larry,” I said as I pulled my plate closer and dragged a piece of steak through a yolk puddle. “Maybe you’re right.”

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