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!”