By Teri Ong In Part One of this essay, I introduced the “Planned Giving Toolkit,” a new program recently rolled out Regular Baptist Ministries. It is being promoted as a means for revitalizing church ministries by getting people excited (or should I say “energized”?) about tithing on their retirement plans and/or net worth so that God will have enough money in ten years for the spread of the Gospel. Evidently, the prospect of millions of dollars coming in as the troublesome (a.k.a. “change resistant”) oldsters go out, is enough to make any congregation jump for joy as they envision having […]

By Teri Ong The current big deal in our national church association is “planned giving.” I think that term might fit G. K. Chesterton’s profile of an “evil euphemism.” It amounts to giving to a financial institution now what you might have planned to still have left at the end of retirement (which is a euphemism for “when you die”). The program is being touted as a great boon to the church over the next decade as we oldsters leave the vale of tears, and leave behind what we can’t take with us. Money, especially lots of money, is a […]

By Teri Ong Something very unexpected came in the mail this week– a Montgomery Ward mail order catalog. The brick-and-mortar Montgomery Ward store at the Greeley Mall closed its doors about 20 years ago. I didn’t know the company was still in existence. Back in the day, Wards, Sears, and Penney’s sent out two enormous seasonal catalogs, plus the famous Christmas “wish books.” The only one of the “big three” left at our mall is J.C. Penney. Sears shut down a year or two ago. Every week it seems that some retail icon is down-sizing, re-organizing, consolidating, or quitting. But […]

By Teri Ong Church revitalization ministries are intent on getting churches down to business– the business of getting people in their doors and money in their financial accounts. Some Revitalizers base their theories and their work on the model (or variations of it) propounded in the book To Dream Again. The writer charts the life cycle of the average church through to its ultimate death. In order to put off the inevitable, churches need to have “vitality” and “sustainability.” Those are code words for “people” and “money” by his own admission. Having a lot of people around provides a social […]

by Teri Ong  In his April 7 column in the Greeley Tribune,  “Re-thinking Bible and Same-sex Relationships,” Jeff Cook states that his purpose is to get evangelical Christians to “reconsider what we believe about monogamous same sex relationships.” He argues that Bible scholars misunderstand how the New Testament writers taught ethics, but he, as an “ethicist” understands it better than the Bible scholars. I agree with him that Jesus’ teaching of virtue is not “focused on rule-following,” but Cook fails to understand that Jesus’ teaching sets a higher standard than the rules, not a lower standard. For example, turning the other cheek, […]

By Teri Ong Jeff Cook has done it again. A few weeks ago he set up a false tension between so-called social justice and freedom. This time he has set up a false dichotomy between the nasty Bible-thumpers who approve of “flaying terrorists” and sweet-tempered LGBT’s. He writes, with seeming sadness, that people who come up with Scripture verses to condemn same-sex marriage, can’t seem to think of a single verse to condemn torture. [See Greeley Tribune, Sunday, April 7, 2019, “Re-thinking Bible and Same-sex Relationships,” page B8]  I think he has set up some “straw” people to support his view. Most of […]

Yesterday (April 17) the normal activities of over a million people in Colorado were brought to a halt by the supposed threat of a potential “Columbine” atrocity near its twentieth anniversary. Media reports raised the panicked alarm that a young woman, who her friends said was obsessed with the history of the Columbine killers, had come from Florida to Colorado to act out her obsession. She had bought a pump-action shot gun and was possibly intent on doing harm at some high school in Colorado.  Supposedly, after she was tracked through Denver International Airport to a place where she was […]

by Teri Ong We have been subjected to an almost unprecedented uproar in American society for the past three weeks. Some of us stopped holding our breath on Saturday afternoon (Oct. 6) when Justice Kavanaugh was approved by the U.S. Senate to serve on the Supreme Court. Others have been, and some continue screaming without ever seeming to stop and take a breath, because of the confirmation. There is a segment of society, predominantly vociferous women and some men with a particular political agenda, who are trying to convince the rest of us that all women who claim to have […]