Monday, August 27, 2007 | by nathan

Our Lady of WTF?

Warning: I’m going to get a little pharisaic.

So there’s this church, right? Doing a sermon series on how not to be self-absorbed. I’m all for that. No. Really. I am. I think if we all spent five minutes a day thinking and working on behalf of others, in a completely selfless manner, the world would be about a million times better. So I’m not poo-pooing the message, necessarily.

But come on:

"We live in a world of the iPhone, iPod and iTunes, but is life all about "i"?  The Bible tells us that God knows better than "i".  If we want to experience all that God created us to be, we need to start living His way!"

Okay, but then it gets better:

As an added bonus, all first time guests will receive a FREE $15 iTunes Gift Card* just for being there.  What better time than now to check out Church by the Glades???

*one iTunes gift card per family.

Seriously? This is not a joke.

They couldn’t take the money it took them to purchase all those iTunes Gift Cards and, say, give it to the poor? Take in some refugees, say, or help out Habitat For Humanity or Amnesty International? One of these lovely charities, perhaps? (This is my personal favorite). Or something in their own community, maybe. Create a food bank, a homeless shelter? Thing is, I’m going to go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe - probably - they DO do all those things. But there’s always more. And you know - you KNOW - that politically, these are, at the same time, people who’d get really, really angry over a 1/8¢  tax increase to help out a local school or something. No, no. Instead we get "free gift with purchase."

I’m being a Pharisee about this; I’ll be the first to admit it just to save myself on comments bandwidth. And I will also say that while denominationally unaffiliated churches with 30-person bands aren’t really my cup of tea, I’m not going to begrudge someone their worship.

But, they have a page titled "God’s Free Gift To You." Are we talking about salvation here, or the iTunes gift card? Or both? 

Come on! Does no one else find this a bit ridiculous? Don’t we, as a body, believe the Gospel is attractive, even irresistible? Do we need to have door prizes?

Also - way to be confusing: "iTunes is bad! Have a free iTunes card!" Lord. 

This I Believe