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Bear Claw Community Church and Cultural Immersion Center

“Where the Gospel is our message and relevancy is our priority”

A Message from Rev. Buck Finney, Pastor of B.C.C.C.I.C.

As I study our list of morning services, it’s clear to me that evangelism matters to our congregation. If you attend only one of our 4 services, you may be unaware of the nature of our other services, so here’s a refresher: at 7:30 am there’s our ‘traditional service,’ which goes by the more up-beat title Oldies but Goodies. There you’ll find mostly old folks who prefer hymns to the more groovy sounds of our later services. It gets out at 8:45 sharp every Sunday - 15 minutes earlier then every other church in town, so you can beat everyone else to Honker’s for Senior Discount Day! If you have an unbelieving Grandma or Grandpa who appreciates punctuality and being first in line for the breakfast buffet, this is the service for them! Our contemporary service, Christ Café, follows at 9:30 am. There you’ll sing chorus after chorus of guaranteed tear-jerkers and heart-warmers that are so easy to remember, we don’t even pass out chorus sheets! Then you’ll be treated to a message delivered by myself or one of our many distinguished guests; some of our past series have been the uber-relevant It’s Not About Me - But I Still Should Be Happy, the unforgettable Making Jesus Cool Again: Evangelism in the 21st Century, and the timeless Jesus Our Stepstool: the Secrets of Self-Fulfillment and Success in Life. If you’re 35-50, you don’t want to miss this outstanding service! Remember, our in-house coffee shop, Latte of Love, fires up 30 minutes earlier, so bring your Latte Lovers card (8 visits gets you a free latte and scone)! Next comes our GenX/Postmodern service at 11:00 am - Story Time. You won’t find any hymns or ho-hum exposition here, just cool secular tunes with a Christian twist followed by drama (sometimes with live animals and real cars!) and a really cool story that might be saying something… or it might not be - it’s up to you to decide!

Finally, our youth group, D-Bait meets at 6:00pm for pizza, basketball, movies, contests, video games, monitored flirting, and a few songs, all to be followed by a 5 minute devotional from the Left Behind for Kids series. All in all, our church is making great strides to reach our community, but more can be done…

You may be wondering “how can we possibly do more, pastor?” Well, I’ll tell you how: there’s a portion of our culture that is quickly becoming more and more unwelcome in public places, and is in need of accepting people. If we could tap into these people, I’d guarantee that we’d see unprecedented growth in our congregation, maybe even doubling our measly current attendance of 7,000; I dare say that we’d even give that Osteen guy a real run for his money! Of course, opening our doors to these folks will take lots of patience and even more guts, but isn’t that our duty? I think it is, and that’s why I’m recommending to our board that we create a Smoker-Sensitive Service. I know it sounds shocking, but think about it: there are thousands of smokers out there with no place to go due to new county ordinances, so think of how many smokers would come to our church if we hosted a service just for them, where they were free to smoke! The benefits would be endless.

Now I know that smoking isn’t viewed in a very favorable light by our culture, but who are we to judge? Can you show me anywhere in Scripture where God says it’s a sin to light one up once in a while? They could smoke to their heart’s content while we reminded them that smokers tend to die sooner rather than later, which would give them all the more reason to choose Christ RIGHT NOW, because their lungs could go any day - think of the motivation! It’d almost be like preaching to a guy about to get the chair - conversion is practically guaranteed. Having a smoker-sensitive service will take some adjusting to our schedule and facilities, but I’ve worked out most of the kinks…

As for time, we’d simply have the service after our Story Time service, but early enough so they’d be out of there before the teens showed up for D-Bait. If we installed about 10 industrial air purifiers (like the ones used on nuclear subs), they’d probably remove any hint of smoke in about 3 hours of continuous running. Unless we want a priest filling the pulpit, I’ll have to give the messages at the service, but this won’t be a problem - I’ve had fans installed in the pulpit that should divert most of the smoke away from me, and I’ve also been taking breathing lessons from a deep sea diver - I can now hold my breath for nearly 2 and a half minutes. On top of that, we’ll have an oxygen tank hidden in the baptismal pumping out fresh air throughout the service. I‘ve got ashtrays covered, too. We’re going to have them mounted on the altar so when we make an invitation to come forward, the smokers won’t be swayed by lack of a place to put their ashes. And we’ll put mini-ashtrays (and spittoons for our friends that chew) in the little communion-cup holders on the back of the pews, to be removed after the service. Finally, we’ll have to use about 10 gallons of Febreeze a month on the pews and other furniture to cover the smell. It’s going to be a sacrifice, but I’m willing to do it - are you? I hope that in your heart of hearts, you’ll find enough love to support our Smoker-Sensitive Service. By the way, the name of the service will be Holy Smokes!; my first message will be controversial, but heart-piercingly relevant: Smoke for Jesus Or He‘ll Smoke You!

The preceding sermon is fictional satire and any relation to actual people or churches is coincidental.