The Elephant's Child

Please To Give Me Pony?

I'm not trained in art criticism, but the expression depicted here seems all wrong.  This looks like a pleasantly hopeful face - like Christ has just asked for a pony and is awaiting the answer.

And wasn't Christ crowned with thorns when he was scourged, after his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, after his arrest, and after his trial? 

Maybe those aren't thorns.  Maybe the artist is simply depicting Christ with a bad hair day. 

(If you disagree with me, you can purchase this fine piece of artwork for yourself here in four monthly installments of $31.25)

How Not To Do the Staff Page.

Church Stuff That Makes Me Go "Huh?"

Exhibit A: If you'd like to wear a 2,000 year old "widow's mite" coin as a necklace to remind yourself of the Biblical story of the widow who gave to the Temple out of her extreme poverty, doesn't it sort of defeat the purpose to wrap the coin in 14 karat gold and spend $350 on it?

Exhibit B: "Operations" ?  Even the rest of the site looks very corporate.  Kudos for the nice professional look, but boos for the fact that the "profession" portrayed looks more like a tech company or a sports team. And double boos that I've got to click through two links to get to the service times, and then they're in tiny white print on a dark background.  What's needed here is more Christ, more Cross, more Christian imagery, and a lot less "cool." 

Here's a contrasting website. A "What We Believe" link is at the very top of the menu.  The service times are the very first thing mentioned in the first paragraph on the home page.  No clicking around.  No digging. You don't even have to scroll down to find out what sort of church it is.  Hiding the kind of church you are isn't cool. If you're so ashamed of what you confess, why are you confessing it?

Exhibit C: This is just unfortunate, no? 

Webmasters, please give a final check on what you post.  Please don't do stuff like this to the nice internet who can be such a good friend to you.  Atheists have such fun at Christians' expense; do we need to be painting "Kick Me" signs on our behinders to help them out?

Unfortunate Acronym.

You can't make this stuff up:  LOLchurch

Bookmarked This Week

My friend Brenda has some very good advice for lay people when calling their pastor's home phone.

If you haven't found the Really Bad Vestments blog yet, you really must add it to your rotation. 

A friend of a friend is involved with a project to produce the first Lutheran hymnal ever for the Lutheran Church of Kenya.   It will be the first time many of these Swahili hymns will be written down. 

There's a website for everything. This one is tracking the death of malls all over the country. 

There are few modern ecclesiastical artists that I can warm up to. But I could look at Edward Roijas' work all day.  His "The Prodigal Son" can be bought in high-quality print form here.  (Hint to family near and far- that would make a great gift....)

I'm a fan of cutting-edge Scandinavian design, but this is just beyond me. 

Worst church website. Ever.  You should have to have a license to use Flash. Or electric guitars. And yikes! was that Kennie Rogers?

After that little bit o' fun, you'll need this YouTube palate-cleanser: Baby laughs at Wii.

Have a great weekend.  Don't fall asleep.

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

Way to Stimulate the Economy, Joel.

Joel Osteen goes off the deep end.

Sometimes I wonder if big huge monster church leaders don't sometimes get the urge to say really outrageous things just to see what they can get away with.  Wouldn't it be tempting? Wouldn't selling so many books and packing huge arenas eventually feel like life in an imaginary dream world? What if Osteen's tirade on pork and shellfish is his way of pinching himself?

And what kind of Christian charity is it to put pork producers out of business?  Pig farmers have to eat, too.

Ultimate Praying Championship.

Sunday School for The Brighter Set?

"Godly Play," a Montessori-inspired children's ministry at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church in California.  It ends with a blessing,

...after visiting as a group the storyteller invites each child to leave the circle individually. This provides an opportunity for the child to receive personal words of affirmation. This could not occur if parents were able to enter the room at this time so we invite parents to wait by the door.

Do you think they lock the door?  My brain is melting down imagining Sparkle Kitty in this sort of class.

I think my Sparkle would prefer playing on that church's labyrinth, rather than waiting for her personal words of affirmation. I'm not sure the church would take kindly to an owl using the labyrinth.

I made the wings (after three days of pestering) from reclaimed foam and an old pair of corduroy pants.  The owl-faced mask is from here, printed out, enlarged a bit, then laminated. There is now an owl nest under Mad Musician's desk.  So far, we haven't had any attempts to cough up owl pellets, and I've been able to convince her that things like tortellini and pretzels are an acceptable substitute for dead mice.  Ah, homeschooling.  You can call it "unit studies" if you'd like, but I think of it as "beat a topic to death and drive Mom batty."

Never Wreck A Bus Full Of Atheists.