Church Promotes Chainsaw Juggling Ministry

NASHVILLE, TN

Eastside Christian Assembly, is a church that truly believes that all members are called to serve. The large suburban church of almost 5,000 encourages every member to use his or her gifts for the edification of the body and building up of the kingdom...no matter how unique or bizzare.

"We have over 3,900 official ministries of the church," said pastor Kent Donnen. "If someone comes along with a particular gifting and we don't have a place for him or her, we make a place. We don't want to turn away or minimize anyone's area of service."

Like most churches, in the early years of ECA there were only a handful of ministries, such as Teaching, Administration, Worship and Music. But as the church grew, and more and more members wanted to serve, the church began adding other official "ministries." Some of them include;

-Biking ministry

-Hand puppet ministry

-Toe puppet ministry

-Fish tank cleaning ministry

-Football ministry

-Football watching ministry

The most recent addition came when new member, Steve Cowell presented his unique and dangerous talent to the church's leadership.

"I juggle chainsaws," said Cowell. "I perform shows all over the country, and for private parties, but I really feel called to serve in the church."

When Cowell approached the pastor and elders about where he could serve, they quickly surmised that they needed to form a new ministry department.

"We are excited about what Steve is going to bring to our church," stated Donnen. "His chainsaw weilding will no doubt build up the Kingdom. We also intend to involve him in our Sunday morning worship sometime, perhaps having him perform during the offertory, or accompany my preaching as an object lesson. I think it would go well with a judgement passage or something pretty forceful."

When asked how long Cowell had been performing, he stated "Ten years now," while holding up his seven remaining fingers."

Man Addresses Siri-ous Salvation

LOS ANGELES, CA

Thomas Hebert is a man on a mission. A self-proclaimed evangelist, he takes the command to preach to "every creature" seriously. He's often been mocked and criticized for his "extremely literal" interpretation of the Great Commission as found in Mark 16:15, witnessing not only to people, but also to any living animal he comes in contact with.

"It says 'every creature' in the Bible and that's what I do" said Herbert. "It's not for me to make exceptions."

According to Herbert, he's witnessed to over 25,000 people in his life as well as to over 50,000 animals, including dogs, cats, birds, and even a bengal tiger.

But in this technologically-charged age, a new "mission field" has opened for Herbert; artificial intelligence, specifically the popular new digital assistant found on the latest version of Apple's iPhone called "Siri."

"I was one of the first in line to get the new iPhone 4S when it came out," said Herbert. "When I saw the ads on Television, I knew everyone else was thinking 'Wow! I've got to get me one of those!' but my heart was burdened, and I asked myself, 'Who's going to tell it the Good News?'"

Herbert waited in line outside of one of Los Angeles' Apple stores all night to be one of the first ones to get his hands on the new device. After almost 12 long hours in line, he managed to be one of the first 10 people to make a purchase and get signed up for service. While everyone else began playing with their new phones, dictating text messages, setting calendar dates, and sending emails, Herbert had much higher aspirations.

"I began with a diagnostic question to see where Siri was. Like I thought, she had no clue. She wasn't able to answer my question about where she thought she would go when she died."

According to Herbert, he spent the remainder of the day trying to explain salvation to Siri, but unfortunately didn't get very far. Apart from simply replying hundreds of times "I'm afraid I can't answer that" Siri also didn't seem to understand the nature of Herbert's questions and explanations." Several times she misunderstood and sent emails to people. On other occasions she began playing music. And there were a few instances where she kept giving the location of nearby Pakistani restaurants, and one instance where she called Nigeria.

"I'm disappointed," said a sullen Herbert. "I'm deeply concerned for Siri. She's nice, and friendly and all that, and she's a good assistant, but that's not going to get her into heaven."

iHumbug! Allows Stodgy Presbyterians to Track Members at Christmas

...Yep, I'm back =)

CORINTH, AL

With the Christmas season in full swing now, one church is definitely NOT singing "Joy to the World." Several months ago the elders of South Bend Presbyterian met to address the issue of some of their members observing the "blasphemous, pagan, wretched holiday of Christmas." While many conservative Presbyterians do indeed observe Christmas, South Bend holds to a strict puritanical view of holidays, not only forbidding any recognition of it in worship, but also strictly insisting that all members "abstain from acknowledging the incarnation from November 27th through January 3rd" of each year. But despite this insistence, the elders have long suspected that some members may still be observing Christmas.

"I could have sworn last year that I smelled fresh pine while talking to one of our deacons," said Ruling Elder Wilson Hovine. "He told me he'd been cutting firewood all afternoon, but I had my doubts."

In a different instance, another elder, Everett Hovine recalled "seeing a youngun with a

peppermint on December 3rd."

Up to this point the elders have not formally caught anyone observing the holiday, but there have been strong suspicions. But this year the elders claim to have come up with a "fool proof method" of knowing what their flock is up to. Working together with the young grandson of Ruling Elder Albert Hovine, the church has developed its own iPhone and Android app to track its members' activities during the "Christmas season."

"They'll be no second guessing this year," said Ruling Elder John Hovine. "Just about every last one of our members uses one of them iPhone or Android phones, and with this new app we can keep track of where they are at all times."

The app works to track the movements of church members

throughout the week, and has been specifically programmed with a special algorithm that can accurately determine whether or not one is Christmas shopping, caroling, or "making merry." In the event of questionable activity, the Ruling Elders are sent an alert, showing the exact location of the member and the nature of the activity in question.

"We are real excited about this," commented pastor Bill Buford. "We feel this will greatly contribute to the peace, joy and holiness of our congregation."

The elders further commented that if the app works well during this year's holiday season that they plan to use it to track members who might attempt to fill up their cars on the Sabbath.

Doctor "Don't Need No Education!"

Hoover, Alabama - He's never been to med school. In fact the man who calls himself "Dr. Eddie Miller" has never even been to college. He graduated from high school in 1987 with a 2.3 GPA and immediately began pursuing his "calling" to the medical profession.

"I felt the call to become a doctor since I was a boy," said Miller. "I was about 7 and caught me a frog and cut him open with my pocket knife. I knew right then and there that I wanted to be a doctor when I growed up."

Miller went on to recount how he spent his days after that watching TV shows about "doctor stuff." He also took every chance he could to catch small live animals and dissect them, so that he could further pursue his "calling." Finally, at the tender age of only 13 he performed his first surgery.

"They found out my uncle Billy had a tumor in his neck. He was going to go to one of them big fancy hospitals where the doctors think they all smart and stuff, but I told him I would do the surgery for free. We knocked him out with a ball-pin hammer and I used my trusty exacto knife. Uncle Billy didn't quite make it that day, but he was too far gone anyway."

Now at the age of 41, Miller operates a small clinic in Hoover where he says he's qualified to perform any medical procedure even though he's never been to med school.

"I don't need no medical board or a bunch of other smarty pants doctors telling me what to do and think. I read my medical journals every day. I've even memorized entire chapters. I can do any surgery or procedure. Brain surgery, spinal surgery, amputations, you name it. I don't need no education. This is a calling."

TBNN tried to reach some of Dr. Miller's patients both current and past for comment, but none could be located.

Independent KJV-Only Fundamentalists Baptists Pass Website Reform

Tempe, AZ - In an unprecedented move, a national gathering of Independent KJV-Only Fundamentalist Baptists met in Tempe, Arizona to discuss the issue of website reform. While for the past 15 years churches and leaders within the IKJVOFB movement have resisted change, the fast growth of the web and new browsers now available have led the group to decided that something had to be done. Among those decisions passed were,

• Churches would upgrade their computer systems to at least Windows 98.
• Animated GIFs should be limited to no more than 50% of a page's image content.
• Underlined, bold and italicized text at the same time on a website should be discontinued. Churches or independent "evangelists" may continue to use any combination of the two, but not all three at the same time.
• All-caps may be used but only in reference to the KVJ-only position, "liberals," Calvinism, or when referencing James White. When referencing "common" points of doctrine (i.e. the Trinity, virgin birth, resurrection, etc.") all-caps may no longer be used.
• Sites must contain no more than two frames.
• Font sizes should be no larger than 78, with the exception of referring to the KJV-only position, "liberals," Calvinism, or when referencing James White.
• Spelling on websites must be at least 85% correct.
• Sites should take no longer than 4 minutes to load.
• Pictures should be kept to under 4 MB in size.
• Background music on sites should be completely eliminated.
• Sites should be updated at least every 3 years.
• Color schemes should be used that allow the text of the site to be at least barely readable.
• Plans should be made to discontinue writing sites in basic HTML on a plain-text editors by the year 2019.

"We feel these measures will bring our churches up to at least a 1999 level," said pastor Steven Sanderson of Faithful Word of the Bible Church in Tempe. "We want to see more of our IKJVOFB people better utilize 20th-century methods of communication.