Don’t You Want To Become a Rick Warren

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that most “Purpose Driven” churches are modeled off of this video?

Rick Warren has got it down pretty good.

If you haven’t read the Purpose Driven Church, you should. It’s a great marketing book. And no, not the Purpose Driven Life. Skip that book. That is the book given to the bilkee, not the bilker.

Back to PDChurch… There are so many useful chunks of info in there that I don’t know how I ever suckered people without it. It even goes so far as to give a list of types of people who easiest to trap in your web. Okay, well I guess that part is kind of common knowledge. The reason why it’s more impressive is the fact that he had the stones to put it in a list format and print it.

It tells you to make a lot of changes to the church (specific changes). It mentions the use of music with more bass. Bass is important to Jesus apparently. It tells you that some people will not like the new church but that’s okay because they are dead weight. Fill people’s life/time with activities so they don’t have time to themselves or with other nonmembers.

Selling My Soul On Ebay

Okay, so I’m not really selling my soul on ebay. What I am doing is using ebay and craigslist to significantly downsize. Why?

Because it’s time. God told me so. I’m not sure which god told me or if I was over the legal limit or not at the time but it’s time to live the humble life.

Saying “Selling My Soul On Ebay” probably sounds misleading since selling stuff other than a paper certificate of ownership for my soul, but it isn’t if you think about it. Materialism leads to soullessness according to numerous religions and spiritual movements. In selling off many of my material possessions, according to the oh so humble and definitely not materialistic Pope who likes to wear big hats and things made of gold, I am buying my soul back by shedding my materialism.

The idea got planted in my head sometime last summer when I read an article on Time.com about the “100 Things Challenge” and how a guy named dave widdled his possessions down to a list of 100 things. According to his website, he was not going to go over 100 possessions for an entire year. Sounds like an easy quest. That is until you start counting how many shirts and statues of Jesus and speculums you own. That’s why I didn’t bite when I first read the article.

In the past couple days I’ve started reading a very humorous book by A.J. Jacobs called “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible”. I haven’t read much of it so far, when the author started ranting about the 10th Commandment and the act of coveting it got me thinking. It falls in lines with other teachings like the Buddhist view on material possessions… You know, about how one should find happiness with what they are able to obtain and not make our live mission keeping up with the Jones’s.

The Jones’s are pricks anyways so why would I care what the Jones’s do or don’t have?

So my goal is a little different than the 100 Things guy. First off, I collect a lot of things and I’m not going to sacrafice everything for a book deal like he is. Instead, I’m on a mission narcissistic self-improvement and drive-thru enlightenment.

I don’t know that I have a specific set of rules to follow (well, other than having multiple items for sale on ebay every day until I decide I’m out of shit to sell). I am thinking that I’ll mostly be complete once I get to the point where my friends all hate me bacause I got overly preachy about “the more material things you bring into your life, the emptier your life becomes” and when I’ve made it much easier to move out quickly due to a foreclosure notice.

Of course now after re-reading what I just wrote, I think my next goal should be to take more of a minimalist approach to my writting.

Best and Worst Religious Music

I’m compiling a large list. A couple lists actually. Below is a small sample.

My five (of my many) favorite religious songs are as follows (alphamabatized):
All These Things That I’ve Done (by The Killers)
Chop Suey (by System of a Down)
God’s Gonna Cut You Down (folk song covered by many, Johnny Cash version is fantastic)
He’s a Mighty Good Leader (by Beck)
The Fallen (by Franz Ferdinand)

On the other end of the spectrum, here are five religious songs that vacuum supreme (again, A to Z’d):
Have I Told You Lately (by Van Morrison but the Rod Stewart cover is extra terrible)
One of Us (as performed by Joan Osborne)
Run On (by Moby – it’s a cover inspired by a good cover, but Moby broke this shit)
Selling the Drama (by Live)
Southtown (by P.O.D., and for that matter anything by P.O.D. other than Boom)

As it stands, there are about 70+ songs on the good list. I’m looking to add a few more though because that’s probably not a big enough playlist to make it through a catholic funeral.

As for the bad list, that’s easy. I’m pretty sure I’m very near 666 religious songs that suck.

Just to make sure I don’t miss anything, what are your favorites? What religious songs are so terrible that they make Baby Jesus cry?

The Immaculate Conception

Sweet Jesus! Don’t believe what you read. Birth control methods have a much higher failure rate than advertised. For example, most oral contraceptives claim to have 0.3% failure rate but due to a number of factors the actual rates are 11 in 137.5 encounters resulting in pregnancy.

Those of you who aren’t sure what a .5 instance of a sexual encounter is, email me and I will send you a video.

The War On New Years

Now that Christmas (and the War on Christmas) is over, it’s time for a new battle.

This time, I’ve got my sights set on New Years. The unAmerican atheists have now started complaining about those of us who who blindly say “Happy New Years” to people without knowing their beliefs, calling us rude and offensive.

They claim that everyone sensible person knows that the Chinese calendar predates the Christian/Gregorian Calendar and that Chinese New Years this year is January 26. Isn’t stealing Christmas enough? I say to hell with them.

If you don’t respect my rights to say “Happy New Years” and you are reading this right now… FUCK YOU. I have the God-given right to wish anyone I want a Happy New Years and shoot off fireworks/firearms in my house and get so drunk I don’t know where I’m sticking it. Kiss my Dec 31/Jan 1 Happy New Years ass.