Shameless Self-Promotion Plus

I write for The Door occasionally. For those of you who need to be enlightened, The Door is a religious satire magazine published by the Trinity Foundation. In the early days, it was the Wittenberg Door. Mike Yaconelli was one of the geniuses behind the Wittenberg Door in those days. Now, it's the brainchild of Ole Anthony and Robert Darden.

Anyway, The Door runs cartoons in every issue. (Brian R and I had a cartoon in one issue. He's the artist; I just had the idea.) One of the best serial cartoons was called Which Circle. It's a satirical look at a campus ministry much like Campus Crusade. I was delighted to discover their web site tonight, especially this episode. After you've read it and chortled a bit, check out the main site.

Incidentally, I have a piece appearing in the Sep/Oct issue of The Door. It's A Partial Lexicon of the Church Growth Movement. I think I'll have one in the Nov/Dec issue as well. Check out the magazine, and subscribe. They do wonderful stuff with the money. Seriously.

Comments

[Karl]

Jeff: "I don't get the ''my heart was longing for God'' bit. I do understand ''my groin was longing for sex'' and ''my stomach was longing for food'', but my heart doesn't tend to long for deities."

Jeff: "If Paul lived today, I bet he'd stumble across Cinemax before all is said and done."

I do admit that CCC lingo and some approaches to dating are kinda weird, but most are based upon biblical principles.

Jeff: "Replace the word ''but'' in the first sentence with the word ''because.'' Remove the comma.

Greg, I hope you'll excuse me for my ignorance, but are these cartoonists merely bitter Brothers like yourself or simply Born Again Pagans?

Difficult to say, I think.

[greg]

Karl,

Generally speaking, when someone says something is based on Biblical principles, it means they know next to nothing about how to read the Bible or that they attend an evangelical church where the phrase is tossed around to justify the silliest of theologies.

I don't know if they're "born-again pagans" or "bitter brothers," and I don't much care. It's funny stuff. The satire is dead on, as anyone knows who has encountered these well-meaning but clueless campus organizations.

[Tim]

I still have debates with friends about whether or not the crafters of the Southern Baptist's "Bold Mission Thrust" knew that their moniker for publishing the gospel in every nation by 2000 was sexualy tinged. How could they not?

This is fu-uh-unny! I laughed out loud and woke up my sleeping child.

--a bitter brother/born-again pagan who still likes Jesus bunches...

[Scott]

Satire is so familiar it's shameful. It's the same song we've been singing; Bigger, Better, Faster, Prettier.

I don't necessarily dissagree with activities...as a former Youth Pastor I know how hard they work to get the interest of others. What I'd like to see is a Youth/Campus ministry that is truly built on the foundation of Jesus' ministry - relationship and fellowship. It all starts from there. The problem is that the church expects results, ministries expect constant growth or it's like we're looking at a baseball manager...if the team ain't winning, fire the manager.