Sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning, the Wheaton area church was broken into, and about 40,000 pennies were stolen, Montgomery police said.

What’s more, the intruder appears to have gone into the church freezer, pulled out hamburger meat and cooked a meal. And the thief went on to a church computer and looked at pornography – leaving the vulgar images on the screen that shocked a deacon just before Sunday services.

“People just don’t have the same respect for churches that they used to,” said Ella Redfield, pastor of New Creation, a Baptist church with about 70 members.

In one fell swoop this guy violated so many commandments it is impressive. I know it is disappointing for the church, but at least they got the opportunity to feed someone who was hungry, provide overnight shelter to someone in need, and the pennies went to someone who evidently really thought he needed them.

Being stupid is understandable. Stealing from God in such an in your face manner, that is beyond stupid. And stealing 40,000 pennies? That is a really heavy load for $400. I have carried buckets of coins recently. You have to be seriously desperate to steal a bucket of coins.

Can the Roadhouse be not just a sweet Patrick Swayze movie but also a place of ministry?

Last week I was meeting with a guy from my church who I am trying to disciple and build up as a leader. He told me a story that has had me smiling ever since.

Down the street from my house there is a place called the Roadhouse Bar and Grill. It is a typical NW Indiana biker joint. It has bands come and play on the weekends with names like Crosstreet and Smokehouse (Where there is smoke there is fire!). I have not had the privilege, as of yet to go into the Roadhouse, but I drive by it numerous times each week and always offer a small prayer for the place. It is the kind of place whose clientele are exactly the kind of people we are trying to reach here at DCC.

Well it just so happens that this guy I am meeting with was in the Roadhouse last week shooting pool with a friend and killing sometime. He is hanging out there and a couple of guys come over to see him, guys that have been coming to our church. They have been coming pretty consistently for the last couple of months to DCC. They are there enjoying a good beer and they are really excited to see this guy because they know him from church. They start talking excitedly to him about the church, and the music which they enjoy and how much they like our church. And there, in the Roadhouse, a bunch of guys start telling people about our church and how much they love it.

I have been smiling ever since because when we are connecting with the Roadhouse, we are living into our mission as a church. I think I am going to stop in the Roadhouse sometime soon and see if I can’t spend some time with our people there. Seems like the kind of place that Jesus would enjoy spending some time.

1) Buried in the Flowers…..

It was Advent and the children’s handbell choir was on the stage to perform. Or, more accurately they were on the steps of the stage to perform. There was this one girl who wa just going to town ringing her bell. Everytime she had to ring, she rang with all her might. The kid next to her kept looking at her very, very, strangely. Unfortunately, for him, he took his eyes off of her and the next time she rang, she rang a little too hard, lost her balance, stumbled and knocked the kid next to her 5 feet to the side so that he landed in the middle of all the poinsettias that were on the steps. The kid just disappeared from site completely, but the girl kept on ringing that bell. I was speechless watching this.

2) High Heels are Evil….

So we are celebrating communion and everyone is standing for the Great Thanksgiving. I am assisting at the Table and I am standing to the left of the Celebrant. All of the sudden, as I am looking out into the congregation, a 7th grade girl totally disappears from sight. All I can see are her hands on the pew in front of her and her feet kicking and scrambling as they stick out from underneath the pew in front of her. Seems that she was rocking back and forth on her heals and just completely lost her footing. She absolutely disappeared from sight and struggled for several seconds to pull herself off of the floor. Her family lost it and actually had to leave church to try and regain its composure. Mean while I am up front, trying to pray the Lord’s Prayer and barely able to breath. The whole time the Celebrant is looking at me trying to figure out what is wrong. I hope God was laughing too.

3) Don’t play with fire…

So this one involves me. At the worship service I lead, Evolution, we like candles. A lot of candles. And around the baptismal font in the back of our church there was a ring of tealights in votive holders. All night long we had been praying about the fire of God because I preached about Elijiah on top of Mt. Moriah calling down the fire of God on his watery sacrifice. That night was a special night. We were baptizing a new believer in the service. So, after the sermon we gathered at the back and went throught the baptismal liturgy. As part of the liturgy I prayed over the water and as I did so I stuck my hand in the water. Just then a blue flame began to lick up the sleeve of my sweater. So as I prayed I tried to pat it out. My first thought was, it is the fire of God descending on this watery sacrifice, that being said, I still tried to put the fire of God out. But the thing was I couldn’t. The flame kept jumping up my sleave and onto my shoulder. It constantly moved from one place to the next. By this time I began to stumble over my words a bit and the husband of the woman being baptized looked up and saw the flame also. He then began to try and pat it out. Now the other pastor standing there saw the flame and his eyes got very big. Suddenly, just as it had started, the fire went out, the woman was baptized and we were left to freak out a little bit. The thing was most of the congregation didn’t see anything because we were praying and like good Christians they had their eyes closed. So no one really knows what happened that night. The sweater was undamaged and never even smelled like fire. Was it the fire of God? Maybe, but most likely it was just some fuzz or something. Bizarre! I must be the only pastor to have set himself on fire at a baptism.

4) Why are we so corny?

I used to attend and work at a church that had a regular outreach to Bikers. It was a great outreach event with hundreds of bikers each year. One year, the first song in worship was Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf. I was impressed and somewhat suprised our church was kicking off worship with this hard rocking tune, obviously they wanted the bikers to feel welcomed. But, then I heard the lyrics. Instead of the words” born to be wild” in the chorus, the artist was singing “born again child”. I almost laughed outloud. It was the cheesiest attempt at being cool I had ever heard. If we wanted to rock, lets just rock our own music, we don’t need to destroy a classic rock song. Just write a great rock song that honors God and doesn’t destroy an awesome classic. Everyone involved in this production were great people, but I wanted to cringe/weep/laugh till I wet myself when I say that one.

5) The Lobster Rocks…..

During college we had mandatory chapel 3 times a week. The tradition at the school each year was that people would pull pranks during chapel. I am not advocating this as a normal worship practice, but it usually brought a laugh to the student body. One day just as the president of the school was standing up to speak you heard this whirling sound begin. Then, out of the pipe organ on the back of the stage came a voosh, voosh, voosh, and tennis balls began to fly over the presidents head and into the crowd. Bedlam ensued for the next couple of minutes as people grabbed the tennis balls and started throwing them all over the place. The president wasn’t amused, but I thought placing a lobster machine in the pipe organ to launch tennis balls was genius.

Those are some of my highlights, what are yours?

So my friends are selling their house. They have had lot of showings lately and were somewhat tired of being run from their house all of the time. They got a call yesterday to have a showing at 2PM. They called and pushed it back to 4 so they could have more time alone.

Later that afternoon they were taking a nap in their bedroom when they heard their dog going crazy outside the bedroom door. My buddies wife kicked him out of bed, waking him from a deep sleep and told him to go check on the dog. He opens up his bedroom door and sees a woman, her baby, her mother and her realtor at the top of the stairs. He stares at them in disbelief for a moment trying to figure out who they are and then it dawns on him, he is buck naked. So quickly he hides behind the door and asks if they are there to see the house. He then suggests that maybe they go down stairs so that he can get dressed and join them. He gets dressed and then he and his wife go downstairs to show them the house which they look at for 20 minutes. No word yet on any offers on the house, but if they sell the house to these people, it will be a moment of legend in the realestate business.