new church names I

After much observation and thought, I keep coming to the conclusion there needs to be an abolition of the current naming structure of churches in the U.S., and a radically different and on-the-mark naming system be put in place.

Gone will be Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Christian, Assembly of God, Church of God, Church of Christ, etc.

Even the non-denominational churches will no longer be nameless.

The new naming structure will give current and prospective churchers an idea of these places ahead of time.

So, instead of these antiquated church brandings above, let's get with the times here, people. Churches strain a gnat to be so "hip" and "relevant", why aren't you busting yourselves to do so with the name on the sign?

Here we go. New church names:


The Positive Church

These churches believe that every single word that emanates out of our mouths determines our fate in Jesus. One of their favorite verse is "out of the mouth the heart speaks", and boy don't you know you do NOT have freedom in Jesus to share your raw heart if shit be goin' down in your life.

These churches are totally befuddled when macro events like 9/11 and Katrina take place, cause the real world doesn't mesh with their positive bubble existence. On a micro level, they are confused as hell when things like divorce and cancer spring up among their members. They have no answer. All they know to be is...positive.

"Well, gosh Myrtle, that is sure bad what we've heard about Tim & Shelly. Let's make sure whenever we're around Tim that we smile and encourage him as much as possible. After all, 'a cheerful heart doeth good like medicine'!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (another verse they cling to as if it's one of the only ones that exists)

You will be severely brainwashed that you are to be positive in ALL speech and attitude, and are to ignore your reborn heart. Say one word about the church or pastor and you'll hear references to "people with a critical spirit". This is them talking about you, but of course they generalize instead of talking to you (hoping you "get" the hint), cause they have no ambition for honest dialogue (gasp) among Followers.

Folks in the Positive Church NEVER read the books of the Prophets, where God is very straight-up about His people who are sinning and generally just screwing up.


The Spiritual Warfare Church

Some of these are churches who look for demons under every rock in the universe. Some aren't so demon-focused as they rather look at every single thing in the world as a spiritual battle.

When you're at Taco Bell and can't decide what you're going to order, that's a spiritual battle over your God-given ability to make decisions. "satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus! You have NO AUTHORITY over my eating here at Taco Bell" is something they might shout while waiting in their car. (Of course, if the person on the loudspeaker has already said "Order when you're ready" they will usually say this under their breath. They don't want the order-taker to tell the food-preparer "hey, spit in that burrito. This clown in the drive-thru was shouting satanic nonsense in my ear.")

If your car won't start, it's an attack of satan himself. These folks will be standing there casting demons out of their vehicle while Fred, a local mechanic who happens to have stopped at that convenience store too, pops the hood, changes out the spark plugs with some spares he had in his truck, and starts the car.

These folks also talk to satan in their prayers. It's common to hear them, while praying to God, take a detour and start praying to satan instead, telling him "satan, you get your hands off Sandra", "satan, you have no place in Tom's life", "satan, you can't get Nancy", and "devil, you go back to hell where you came from". (I've always wanted to stop them mid-sentence and say "Hold it, am I mistaken? I thought we were talking with God here.")

I'm not making light of this. There is demonic activity in this world. I've encountered demons, literally. (It was a great experience--they are highly overrated. There is pervading stupidity and weakness underneath their mirage attempts to appear smart and powerful. It doesn't take much at all to see through their swiss-cheese existence.) Anyway, yes, there are attacks against us. And yes, we should not be unaware of this.

Rather, though, I don't really see, for example, if I'm a cashier and hand somebody back 52 cents in change and it should have been 53 cents that that was a cunning, sly attack of satan on me as a follower of Jesus.

I received an email recently from a pastor (I have NO idea how I got on his email list) who said “Satan is on the offensive to take out our tv program”. Really? How do you know it’s not God telling you you’re done with that?

As if that weren’t enough, two bullet points later he talked about his ministry being “under severe attack” because their outgoing devotional email was blocked from being sent to some email addresses in their email database.


The Blessing Church

These folks interpret the word blessing to mean "be nice to". They talk about food at a potluck being "such a blessing". I once had a pastor tell me "if there's any way I can be a blessing, let me know". When someone leaves the church, they'll say "Joe and Sarah have been such a blessing to us, we just want to bless them as they venture off to their new beginning." You get the idea.

There's a lot of mush and ooey-gooey at these churches. Lots of Mr. Rogers Pansy Christian guys walking around on their tippy toes. These places are deceptively euphoric. There are so many "God bless you"s being spoken by everyone you sense instead of walking around on tile and carpet that you are walking on the clouds of God Bless You words being spoken. It's that thick, yeah.

Another huge part of the Blessing Church is the idea that blessing is ALL God is about. Period. NOTHING else. All He ever thinks about is how He can bless ("be nice to") those who speak His name.

"God exists to bless us" is their mantra, as well as the type of glasses they look at the world through. Just like the Positive Church, they really have a difficult time talking about disease, disaster, sexual trauma that has happened to their members at any point in the past, etc.

I received this, verbatim, in an email from a Blessing Church person yesterday. "Trust me, He loves you, cares about you, and only wants the best for you. God wants to bless you." Keep making double sons of hell, effer.


The Hair Club Church

I saw a billboard last night that made me think of this name. The billboard was an advertisement for a hair club business. On the left side of the billboard we see Joe, bald, with a very mundane look on his face. On the right side of billboard is Joe again, with a hair transplant, and a big happy grin on his face.

The tag line on the billboard said "From Thinning To Winning!"

I immediately thought "what a perfect analogy to the belief tenets of some folks".

When you're in a Hair Club Church, you will often hear God/Jesus portrayed as The Great Hair Transplantists. See? Your life is crumbling, going sour, headed south, but THEN after your Jesus transplant then boy you are ten feet tall and bulletproof. You are happy all the time and life becomes peaches n' cream.

It's really a shallow simplification of Jesus. These folks, God love 'em, really don't know what to say when they know you are a Follower yet your life is not following the "Winning" formula. You've had "the transplant" (or is that Transplant?) and yet you have situations indicating baldness. My God, this confuses them!

In Hair Club churches that have a prayer time during the circus, er, I mean service, you'll hear them say things like "If you have any type of need in your life; financial, relational, spiritual, we'd like to pray for you." See? That's a nice way of them telling you you are bald, and they invite you up front for a transplant so you can have a full head of spiritual hair and be happy!


The Victory Church

Did you know, boys and girls, that God is all and only about your WINNING and VICTORY? Every single thing in your life is a win or a loss. Very black and white. And God wants you to WIN!

If you'll embrace Jesus, YOU will begin winning in life. None of us likes to lose, so have some Jesus today and get on the victory track.

It's funny. A couple of months ago I was watching a show where a guy got his ass whooped in a boxing match. They showed him after the fight praying with his wife and kids and he prayed "thank You that I always have the victory". I was like, "wtf are you talkin' about, dude? You just had your ass handed to you."

Alas, this is the typical prayer you would hear in a Victory Church.

The good thing about Victory people is they don't deny hardships, trials or disasters, so they're somewhat different from Positive and Blessing churches.

However, one of two things usually happens.

As in the case of the boxer above, Victory Church folks will warp reality to make it seem like they never lose. They have this denial factor going on that has them believe they never lose. That's because God never wants us to lose anything, boys and girls. Because He loves us He wants us to win...so even when you lose, you really win!!!

Confusing? Yeah, I know.

Here's the other thing that might happen. Some Victory folks don't live in denial. They acknowledge bad things happen, but buddy, you just better know that the last chapter hasn't been written yet about the situation.

My God will ALWAYS be victorious! He will ALWAYS have the last say so, the last laugh, in everything before it is all said and done. No one ever trumps God with nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

And so, if something unfavorable takes place in life, Victorians borrow a little mojo from their Positive brethren and have this gippy, positive, expectant attitude as they wait for God to right the ship of the bad circumstance that came along. Because He always rights the ship. He WILL right the ship. You just go hide in the bushes and watch!

It's been a long time since I've been able to stomach hanging around Victorians, but this just makes me ponder what they do when members of their churches die of cancer or get divorced.

I think they go to Default Attitude #1, that a loss is a win. That's really a circumstantial thing, cause dying is a great gig compared to living on this shithole called earth, yet in the case of the boxer dude who got his ass whooped it's living a warped mirage.

Victory Churches are pretty popular. I mean, don't we all wish that no one thinks we have an "L" on our forehead? Losing can very easily be a gripping and paralyzing thing, and so the Victorian message is very attractive.

Just be careful, friend. They'll have you perpetually waiting for Ketchup from heaven when life deals you a shit sandwich.

Either that or they'll have you convinced that a shit sandwich is not in fact a shit sandwich. Beware, you Loser!


The Clueless Church

Cluelissism has only been around a few years that I’m aware of. It’s rather a new phenomenon in churchdom, and is quite a shock for a lot of folk.

Imagine you have been rolling along in life, oh, maybe 70 or so years. You may have been raised in church during the hard part of the 20th century, leaned early in life into Jesus, and continued in life this way.

Then, when you’re in the twilight of life, the church you’ve gone to for 40+ years puts a sign up on their marquee that says “what on earth am I here for?”

Makes you just want to go bury your head in the sand. You’ve lived a good life, a longstander in faith, and some whipper-snappers come along and act like they don’t know what the hell life or faith is about? What a joke.

Another typical sign outside of a Clueless Church is akin to the announcement of a sermon series I saaw recently called “What is a Christian?” The faith has been around 2000+ years, and the pastor needs to tell members what their faith is about? Just what the hell have y’all been doing inside those doors all these years? This was not one sermon. The pastor was going to be preaching this topic for an entire month…

It’s unclear whether or not Cluelessism is a modern day Trojan Horse approach to attendance. The Church certainly has not been underaccused of being proud or know-it-all-ish, and maybe for that reason interest has waned in church.

So is Cluelissism an attempt to be meek and humble because the Church is truly repentant of haughtiness? Or is it just a way to get people in the door? The verdict is still out.

Another angle of Cluelessism is talk that some things about God that aren’t a mystery are in fact a mystery.

Yes, there are some things we’ll never know. But Cluelessists sometimes take this overboard and make bigger miseries, er, mysteries out of things than they need to, in order to facilitate a perpetual spiritual fog on things, life and spirituality.


The Name It Claim It Church

This is another extremely popular Church. At its core are a couple of interesting tenets.

One of them is, if we will but recite things to God which He has previously said or done, He MUST answer us (in a very timely fashion) and act according to what He previously said or was in the bible.

This is such a no-brainer way to manipulate God and force Him to live according to our wishes. We scour the bible, find a verse of some kind that compares to what we want to happen, then we “claim” that we want that very same thing in the bible to come about in our lives.

This is better than a slot machine, man. We’re talking guaranteed blessing and victory according to what God did at some point in the past. We back Him into a corner and say “You did this before, God, You must do it again. Because You have integrity, because You don’t lie, because in You there is no wavering”, etc..

One of the verses I’ve heard aligned with the Name It Claim It Church is “God honors His Word above His name”.

I’ve looked for that verse, in those words, earlier this year and came up empty. Couldn’t find it. Maybe I overlooked it, but I did a pretty thorough search at biblegateway.

Anyway, this is a very perilous faith. At its core is bullying God with scripture, mandating that He act exactly as He acted on at least one occasion in the past.

He is to sit up and deliver according to our will, and He’s bound by His “Word” to do so.

I recently heard a pastor in a prayer say “we demand….blah blah blah” to God.

That’s about as slippery as the slope gets, friends. God doesn’t exist to serve us. He does to and for us out of love, not obligation. This is some abusive shit on our part toward Him. “You will, God.”

Uh, God doesn’t operate like that. This is grounds for some “who are you” smack down like Job experienced.

But Name It Claim It’ers don’t see it this way. Because God loves us and because He honors His Word above His name (?), we have every “right” to expect and demand things of God.

I love my daughter, and I give to her out of my love for her. But there is a HUGE difference between “Daddy, I want” versus ‘Daddy, you must”.

Another thing about the NICI way is the notion that people who are God’s children don’t have what He’s already given them.

This last year I was going through some shit, and a NICI person approached me and attempted to minister to me this way:

Them: “Do you claim the promises of God?”
Me: “Do I ‘claim’ the promises of God?”
Them: “Yes. Do you claim God’s promises?”
Me: “Um, no, I don’t. I’m His son. He’s already given me what’s His. I don’t have to ‘claim’ anything. ‘Claim’ suggests I don’t yet possess. I have what is God’s, I’m His son.”

This was a very odd “let’s go to Christianity 101” conversation that had no place taking place. It’s not “me recite, Him do”, “me demand, Him act”.

Intercoursing with God this way also confines Him to a very small box. It’s expecting and restricting Him to act ONLY according to what is in the bible. God’s not that small, friend.

It also treats Him as an antiquated Old Fart God who is restricted to being the God of “thee’s” and “thou’s” of yester-millenium. Does He talk to you, individually, this way?

He has things for us, you and me, in this era. In our days. So He did x with Abraham, or y with Joseph. So? What’s He telling you for you? What’s He telling me for me?

Might He do as He did back then? Maybe. Possibly. Who are we to put shackles on God, asking or mandating that He do x or y?

Maybe He wants to do s or t with us. Are we listening, or claiming?


The Fire Insurance Church

These folks’ entire Christian experience revolves around the concept of whether you are “saved” from hell.

It doesn’t matter if you are in hell right now, that doesn’t count in a church like this. The central focus regards your afterlife. The commons swoon is “do you know that you know that you know (that you are saved)?”

There’s no real talk about living, or Life. It’s about having an insurance policy with God that when your time is up, tomorrow or 50 years from now, you focus on the fact that you’re “right with God”.

When you know you’re right with God, it’s okay to sit in a pew each Sunday and have a little smirk. YOU are “saved”!

These folks are touchy about the word saved, known to sometimes erupt when they see bumper stickers which say “Jesus saves, passes to Gretzky, over to Messier, he shoots, he scores!”

fallacies of worship

So I got an email yesterday from an acquaintance.

We used to go to church together. The church we used to go to is boarded up now, and the remnants who remained of that place joined up with another church in town.

He emailed me this new church's e-blast electronic update.

"This Sunday...November 19th! The Worship Band & Praise Team, along with the Choir will bring us to the throne room for worship with great worship songs and hymns."

Oh, really?

I/we will be in GOD'S THRONE ROOM upon hearing your band and choir?

Um, have you ever heard the term "sensationalistic"?

What about Jesus is sensationalistic? I'm really curious to know how and when He is more sizzle than steak.


But it's not just this...which is pathetic in and of itself.

This flat out reeks of Old Testament.

God in a building. God in a brick & mortar. God in a place.

Was the veil of the Temple not ripped in two when Jesus died? It obviously shouldn't have been, huh?

Why does anyone bother to sing "Emmanuel"? Seriously.

I guess Jesus was just blabbing to hear himself talk in the latter chapters of John. All that nonsense about the Holy Spirit, saying "I'm leaving but am sending someone else in my place, and He'll be here with you since I'm going elsewhere.


What if I were to say that the chair you're sitting in as you read this is holier ground than that place you go to every Sunday?

Have you ever pondered that God is no less with us when taking a diarrhea dump than when we're singing praise songs in a brick & mortar building?

We are no more nor less in God or He in us changing a diaper, cleaning up vomit, befuddled by homework, folding clothes, held up in traffic, etc than when we're doing any type of acknowledged ritual or activity pertaining to God.

But alas, this is yet another reason why I dislike this time of year. Not for the good that happens, but rather for the largely lived view that this is a "special" time of year.

People are more giving, more patient, more this, more that for one month a year than the other eleven.

There's "extra" good that happens this time of year than the rest. Not bashing that. Rather, why is it one month out of twelve?

The message I get from this is that I put on a mask for a month then go back to what else I was doing for the rest of the year. Pretty much like people put on a mask for two hours on a Sunday morning and then are otherwise the rest of the week.

I saw a church marquee a few months back that said part-time faith is not good. Well, no shit. But that's not what I'm seeing when I look around.

To have some church send me an email proclaiming I'm going to be spellbound if I'm inside their door this Sunday is a bunch of bull.

That reminds of yesterday. I was out near a mall, and there was a group of folks hanging out at the stoplights with buckets and Santa hats and going from car to car with their damn cheshire grins plastered to their faces.

What went through my mind was "are you going to be back out here in March, or June?"

I am so effing tired of the Way being portrayed as this "some times and places and events are more godly and/or put us closer to God than others" bullshit.

Another part of the disgust is the permeating notion God resides "more" in pleasant, positive, uplifting, nice, attractive, approved, obvious, spotlighted places than in subtle, ugly, unnoticed, plain, unglamorous, rejected, unobvious ones.

God is not in a lot of places He's said to be, and in a lot of places He's said not to be.

mystery

I took a trip recently.

Gave two rides along the way. One going, one coming back.


The first one's name was Roger.

I picked Roger up not long after 7am on a cold morning. I was heading about 150 miles toward the direction he was going.

After about an hour I knew an exit coming up where there was a place to stop for food. I offered. He declined.

He said he hadn't eaten, but that he wasn't hungry.

I thought this was interesting, but didn't think more of it really.

I wasn't going all the way to where Roger was going, yet the end destination where he was going was a place that rang a bell.

It's a small city where some relatives used to live. To hear that name stirred some things inside. A place I have many fond memories of growing up. A place which the last time I was there was to bury the last relative living there. Memories of life. Memories of death.

I saw a lot in this man. I didn't have much to give him.

I gave him a ride. I was going that way anyway.

I gave him an ear. He rides with other people too.

I gave him dignity as best I know how. I have no idea how much of that he gets.

I know he was appreciative. He'd been at that spot for 15 hours waiting for someone to stop.

He'd spent the night in the cold.

I relished hearing him talk of how to keep yourself warm on nights like that. Or is that as warm as possible...? Either way, it's good to know.

We talked about what he used to do. Someone I know used to do his type of work, so I was able to ask more than just surface questions. He enjoyed talking about it.

He didn't ask for anything when I dropped him off.

I gave him something anyway. I didn't say anything when I gave to him.

There was no fanfare. No drama.

No "let me tell you why I'm doing this".

I didn't need to tell him. I am to do and be, not say.

I made a u-turn to get back on the Interstate. I saw him in the rearview mirror, walking.

To God, my friend.



On the return trip I met Jim.

It had been a rather cool night the night before too.

I picked Jim up right after picking up some lunch myself. It was about 11am.

I offered him some of my food. He likewise said he hadn't eaten, but also was not hungry.

No problem, I thought. I offered.

Jim had been waiting there 19 hours for a ride. Some locals had offered to take him a few exits up the road, but where he was was the best and busiest place to catch a ride, so he'd declined.

I was heading six hours in the direction Jim was going.

I really enjoyed talking with Jim. He was old school.

He grew up when work was work. His parents, two siblings and he worked 100 acres of wheat, 100 acres of hay, 40 acres of tobacco, 40 acres of corn and milked 29 dairy cows twice a day...yes, by hand. It was that long ago.

Jim was a hard worker, but he also said some crazy things that made me laugh.

Like "ever since Bush started those two wars people don't want to give rides anymore".

Jim was white as rice, not Arabic. I thought that was hilarious.

So it sounded as though Jim travels that road pretty often, as do I.

At one point he told me about a restaurant that I'd never stopped at along that road. He talked about that place for thirty minutes strong. To hear him talk made me hungry, and I'd eaten only an hour earlier. This place sounded REALLY good.

That place was about four hours up ahead of us.

I'm always up for trying new restaurants. I wanted to try that place. It would have been ideal for dinner.

I told Jim "We'll stop there. I'm buying."

He declined.

I didn't get it. He'd talked about this place as the best food in the land, seriously, and he's been all over the States and Canada and tried them all.

I tried to persist. He declined.

I persisted some more. He declined still.

Oh well. We stopped at a urination station and I told him I'd buy him whatever he wanted there. I was getting a bottled water cause I was thirsty.

Jim got a refill on his travel coffee cup and a couple of hot dogs.

We kept drivin'.

Eventually we drove past the place he just couldn't say enough about earlier. I didn't say anything, I wanted to see if he did. He didn't say a word, nor did he even look out the window. Oh well.

He really wanted to get to the place I was going to drop him off. If we got there soon enough it would give him three hours to try and catch another ride before it got dark.

I really enjoyed Jim. He's a good man.

We had a little point/counterpoint conversation at one time during the drive. We cracked each other up with our views, and our respective obstinance. He laughed at me. I laughed at him. It was great.

We finally reached the place where he wished to be dropped off.

He didn't ask for anything proactively, I gave somethin' anyway. He was appreciative yet likewise nonchalant.

Just as before there was no fanfare. No harp music audible. And, as is my preference, no pointed comment as to why I was helping him. Fruit is not words. Fruit is do. Fruit is be.

When Jim got out he gathered his things, got his bag out of the back and we said goodbye.

I travel that stretch of highway quite a bit. Jim does too, and said to look for him down the road.

We'll see.

To God, my friend.

As I continued the last thirty miles to my home, I thought back to the trip.

Roger and Jim.

Simple names. Common names.

I've gone many trips without seeing anyone at those places. And now two in one trip.

That was interesting.

I thought back to when Jim got out of the car. He grabbed his coffee, which I hadn't seen him drink, then reached down in the floor and picked up his two hot dogs. He hadn't touched either one of them, even though it had been cold the night before and he hadn't eaten all day.

Roger hadn't eaten either.

I then thought of when I picked up Jim. When I stopped my car he was in front of me, not behind me. I got out and walked around to move stuff from my passenger seat so he could sit down. As I got out he just stared at me and didn't move. His look seemed to be one of amusement.

As I finished clearing out my passenger seat he finally came over to the car. He wasn't all gushy and babbly and hyper-appreciative. He was relaxed. Low key. Easy going. Not in a hurry.

This from a man who had been waiting, sleeping in the cold. then waiting again for a total of nineteen hours.

I just thought about all these observations I had made. The men's demeanor, their words, their spirits.

And why didn't they eat?

I've had some other really interesting instances take place in the last couple of years on the road.

Interesting, and mysterious.

Maybe more on those later...

the Marketing Committee

There was once a people who knew everything.

They knew it all, and let others know they knew it all. They wrestled with how they could communicate they knew it all, for the course they followed indicated they should be humble.

They wrote books about their knowledge. They charged forward with their supreme knowledge.

People began to ask questions, and to stump them. Whenever they were stumped, they gurgitated that what they embraced was sometimes mysterious.

Eventually, they started catching flak for saying they knew it all. They were viewed as know-it-alls, and increasingly their tails became tucked between their legs. They were getting bad publicity.

So they called a committee meeting.

"What are we going to do?", they asked. "We DO know it all, but we do our best to shroud this as 'you should choose to join us'. Whatever is happening, fewer people are coming through our doors. We are not supposed to decline. We are supposed to always increase. For example, we are a member of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies Inc.. Decline is not in the mantra of our ruler. It is NEVER our ruler's will than ANYTHING die. We must, we must, we must increase or bust!"

"Well," spoke up one person there, "we must do something different. And since our ruler only wants us to increase and do so in over-the-top, er, I mean powerful ways, I suggest a new marketing scheme. This new marketing campaign will be radically different. We will market from the opposite extreme from how we have been. This new way will bring people who had never considered us before, and will make our naysayers think we have changed."

"What do you mean?", asked the others. "Please, tell us more about your vision. You must be anointed, for what you makes us giddy at the thought of stopping this decline."

"Okay", said the one, "let's look at it. Instead of toning down the fact that we know everything, let's instead go to the opposite extreme and pretend we know nothing!"

"What?!?", the others exclaimed. "How can this be?!?!?"

"Look", said the one, "we must change our marketing techniques. We are getting hammered for saying we know it all. We do know it all, but saying so is killing us. If we go to the opposite extreme, and claim to know nothing, this will get people to come in again. We still know everything, but we will give off the appearance we don't so that people will come. Then when they come, we will then show them that we know it all."

The others gulped. "You mean, like a Trojan horse? It's a technique, a trickery?", asked one.

"Yes", said the anointed one. "Our objective is to get in, or in this case get them in. We will then show skill and cunning akin to the crusaders of our cause many centuries ago, except we will be smashingly more successful. Our predecessors wielded swords and long bows, but we have video projectors, air conditioning, PowerPoint, wireless microphones, praise bands and every conceivable program man's mind can conceive. We will also have the advantage of some other unspoken things which you will be told later. Our ruler will be pleased with our numbers. We will be fulfilling his charge to always be victorious in increasing measure like never before!"

"We are not so sure", claimed the others. "There must be more to this."

"There is", said the anointed one. "Here is something else that makes this foolproof. We are being slammed for being pious. Through this new marketing scheme we will claim to know nothing. This will give the impression that we have changed, that we are now humble. This will make people like us NOW. We must be getting bigger. Our ruler is displeased. We must abandon the idea of telling others that we know it all. We must come with a new message."

"Well", the others said, "you're right. It is about more, for our ruler always and forever wants it that way. He has said so in the memos that he has sent out. There were numerous memos along the way which indicated that our ruler actually prefers less, but we have discarded those and are solely focusing on the memos where he says increase is the way.

And you are right, we have taken a black eye for saying we know it all. This scheme will allow us not to come across as pious. We will entice people to come in via false humility, and once they're in we will love them patiently for a little while. If after a period of time they do not embrace our ways, then we will begin to gradually pressure them to become one of us or else. There are standards and timelines and codes of integrity we must uphold. Our ruler says we must not bend. We are to fight if necessary. We call this 'take a stand'. Yes, yes. This is brilliant."

And so they voted, and the new marketing initiative passed by a large margin. There were a few dissenters, but they were drowned out, and not too long thereafter were kicked off the committee.