Good Night & Good Luck

I remember reading an article a few years ago where the author asked the reader to name five famous critics/cynics... then to name five influential people. Which was easier? Exactly. Negative people do not make a difference in life... and this last year has been a process of putting this into practice after a particularly horrible experience in a local church the year before.

The point is that this blog is going to be discontinued after years of semi-regular updating. I have done my best to engage in the discussion to change the minds and hearts of Pharisees and institutions but have arrived at the conclusion that Jesus tells us he did in Matthew 22:1-3: the "right" people don't want to come to the marriage feast. In truth I am sorry for them because they worship systems instead of the Savior of the world.

There are two types of people who read this blog: my friends and my enemies.

To my friends: thank you for your support, love, and tolerance of me- I don't deserve you.

To my enemies who read this to dig up dirt on me: I know who you are (it's not too hard to find out where internet traffic comes from), I love you, I forgive you, and I pray one day you finally reach the end of your system and find there the beginning of Jesus.

As a parting gift to all of you I leave you the first major stone on my path towards finally embracing the Gospel of grace: www.lifestream.org/transition.php by Wayne Jacobsen.

Jesus loves you regardless of your age, race, gender, position, income, sexual orientation, or political stances. You cannot make him love you more or love you less no matter how good or bad you behave.

I'm signing off now to go focus on people who want to bring positive change whether it's mental, physical, or financial. Good night and good luck.

RETHINKING Whose Job It Is

Today I want to introduce you to a good friend, great thinker, and prolific writer, Clark H. Smith. Clark lives in Kansas City and hosts FollowIllustrated. Enjoy his contribution to my page! 

My life’s passion is helping people find their own personal, deeper following of Jesus. To that end, I’ve eaten mountains of bagels while discipling scores of dandy young men. Over the course of two or three years of meeting regularly, sharing the dips and wiggles of life, you get to know the heart of a man. You discover how he sees the world and how that vision guides his steps.

Long ago, at a time I was serving on a church staff, I was very pointedly challenging the men in my discipleship group about how they could live out their Christian faith in their workplace. One of the five men at the table said to me somewhat defensively, “I could be a better Christian if I had your job.” Meaning, of course, that preachers have it easy since they don’t feel the pressures of the world like “real people”. This reminded me of an old preacher’s joke: The congregation pays the pastor to be good, but the folks in the pews, they’re good for nothing.

Sadly, my friend stumbled headlong into one of the most serious errors lay people AND pastors make – that there is a difference in mission depending on your “calling”. Pastors, many many pastors, make this mistake subconsciously. Rethink the last Sunday morning service you attended. Other than the singers and the band, how many lay people held the mic? How many minutes were given to someone who isn’t paid staff? How often did the “people-empowering” pastor illuminate and celebrate the victories of the lay people? You know what’s going on. The pastor says he’s empowering people to “do the work of ministry”, but when it’s showtime, well, that spotlight only has room for one.

Not that the people in the pew mind. I’m mean, they’re busy with “real lives”, after all. They have to work. They have soccer games to coach, household budgets to balance, a couple raucous jokes to memorize, a little gossip to sling (but just a little), and although “The Office” has lost its edge, it’s still appointment TV. The people in the pew throw their money in the plate occasionally and they certainly know a good sermon if they ever hear one, but they didn’t go to seminary and they don’t know the difference between Exodus and Ephesians – THAT is someone else’s job. The preacher is paid to handle all that so let’s keep our proper places on either side of the stage.

Satan certainly has played both sides for fools, hasn’t he? The two sides of the church team are tugging against each other. The pastor isn’t really empowering people and the folks in the pew, the vast majority of them, don’t expect or don’t want to be empowered to make known the glory of salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Do I know what I’m talking about? Tell me right now how many people at your church got saved last year.

Our gracious host, Mr. Devin Michael Rose, asks us to RETHINK religion. I know what he means. Religion, more specifically, the Christian church has gotten lost while skipping about in the sunshine and the falling leaves. But howzabout we THINK about what the Founder of our Church told us Christianity should look like:

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 4:10-11)

Sunday morning should not be a spectator event and Monday through Saturday should not be Christianity’s day of rest. Sunday morning should take a lesson from pro-football. Church services should be like the day after the big game when the team gathers to celebrate victories, to mourn defeats, to encourage one another, to mend some injuries, and to begin preparing the whole team for their arch rival the coming week. The coach is not the star of the show, he’s there to strategize and equip. He makes it clear that the next game is a forfeit unless everyone shows up and everyone does their part. And then the players get involved. The QB meets with the Center and tells him how much he’s counting on a good snap. The Running Back smiles lovingly at the pulling Guard, “Without you, Mack, I’m hamburger.” The Defensive Backs run routes alongside the Wide Receivers, testing their moves and instincts. Everyone has a role in everything that get’s accomplished – the pastor is supposed to make sure everyone understands that.

And the game is six days long. Demonstrating a life that follows Jesus is not done in an hour, huddled away in a box where no one can possibly see your “inexpressible joy” and “the peace that passes all understanding”. Christianity is a spectator sport – it’s pointless unless the people who are not “players” can see your wonderful life and think to themselves, “I’d give anything to be able to do that.”

I’ve got two specific recommendations, one each for clergy and laity. Pastors, knock it off. You’re not that charming, your apparel is clichéd, and your messages are certainly not that inspiring. For your next message, find a clear and simple passage that your flock can understand and talk to them about living the truth of the text in such a way that the people around them will ask, “what’s up with you?”. Folks in the pew, knock it off. Stop being so insanely passive about your faith. It’s YOUR faith! And unless you   are making your faith known to your neighbor, your friends, your family, and your co-workers they are all going to perish in Hell for eternity and they’ll have you to blame because there’s never been enough pastors in the whole history of the world to communicate the gospel the way the a dozen lay people can.

Go! Rethink what you’ve been doing as a follower of Jesus and consider carefully your role in turning the world upside down.

- Clark H. Smith 

Can You Cover My Tab?

Sometimes I think I push too hard. Or, as a friend of mine puts it, I walk just a little too boldly... 

... then a video like, "Why I Hate Religion but I Love Jesus" hits. I've watched it a few times, read the follow up blogs, and watched the internet dialogue on one particularly depressing forum. 

The point has been made over and over in the last few months- most notably with that video and the blog by Michael Gungor, "Zombies, Wine, and Christian Music" . 

These are only the big, public examples. Personally, over the last two years I've seen more of this than I cared to in a lifetime: my last job, a pastor years ago, a recent incident at my alma mater. 

Recently, I sat talking to a new friend at Hearthstone Coffee House & Pub about all of these things and he said he was sorry about what had happened to me but was excited about what he saw happening in our place (we give back to charity, partner with non-profits, link up with leaders, and allow groups to come and sit). I told him I wasn't sorry. 

What I went through wasn't unique. I've heard the story from dozens of lips, from pastors to former-Christians, from burned liberals, gays, & lesbians who were driven from the "church" buildings door. The scar I suffered allowed something beautiful to be cultivated in me: a faith and reliance on Jesus and the knowledge that- at the end of the day- I'm not judging anyone. That's His job.

One comment after the Gungor article was released said, "Well, obviously he just wants to get drunk." ... because he drinks. Seriously. This stuff tells me more about that thinking than Gungor's. For these "religiously superstitious" types (my term) they believe that without rules everyone is going to just jump off the deep in because that's what they know they would do (or are in the process of?). How many evangelicals and catholic leaders have we seen gluttonous, drunk, greedy, hoarding, addicted to porn, and molesting? Too many to count. Too depressing to dwell on.

Why? Because we stopped listening to that great command of Jesus that we take up our cross, every moment of every day and die to our stupid, selfish sin and pride. We admit our weakness- at the end of Paul's letters it's all he will boast in! Because if I start with, "I'm messed up," it's pretty dang hard to look down your nose when your lying in the dirt.

I'm not saying I'm better than anybody. In fact, I'm probably worse than you. But I sure won't condone anybody claiming Jesus but worshipping rules either. 

A Quick Parable

It's getting late, you should open your wallet and realize that you have no money for all that beer you just drank, you should go over to the table in the corner where that Man sits. And you should ask for Him to pay your tab....

... on your way out, don't demand that anyone else pay for themselves either. Maybe just point out the Man in the corner. 

The Bad Self-Portrait & the Mirror

Recently, I heard a quote, "Intentions don't matter. Only results." 

We should stop and think about that line for a few moments. It's harsh. Direct. Unyielding.

"I meant to spend time with my family. I wasn't trying to offend them. I wanted to love my wife better." I used to hear a line all the time during my years as a pastor, "They mean well."

This may be best identification of evil there is. Yes, I wrote "evil". This is a word we are typically only comfortable apply to Hitler, Stalin, and terrorist but, once applied to anyone we know, we shy away from it- not wishing to pass judgment. However, when Hitler woke up in the morning he did not twist his weird tiny mustache, cackle to himself, and rub his hands together whilst gleefully planning the next stage of his pogrom. He woke up, looked at himself in the mirror, and said, "I am doing these things for the greater good." and never questioned his actions because he was convinced of his intentions.

Evil people are the greatest of all self-deluders. The evil do not look in the mirror, they paint a false portrait and then claim it is their reflection. They know their actions and history but masterfully excuse each disaster by denying its existence, denying responsibility, or denying their motives in the first place.

After evil people have successfully lied to themselves, lying to everyone else is an easy task because the very person they are presenting to the world is an enormous lie. This is why evil people, by and large, are, socially, very nice people (hence Hitler was named Time's "Man of the Year"). They have to be because they are continuously trying to manipulate other peoples' perception of themselves to match the lie they tell themselves every morning when they get up.

The only time you will see the true inner demon of an evil person is if anyone attempts to stand in front of their "self-portrait" with a mirror and show them what they are truly like. At this point they will follow three predictable steps: 1. deny, deny, deny. 2. claim that the refection is an interesting perspective on what is happening (negotiating with the person holding it). 3. viciously attack the person holding the mirror.

The most evil people I know I have found in the most respectable of social circles and, most certainly, in church buildings. All of society understands that the true value in respectable social circles is "being nice". Therefore, these circles are also typically self-deluding. This is why such quotes as, "I don't trust a man who doesn't drink." from John Wayne ring so true to many of us who have known people who touted such "values" as teetotalling only to have other wild, far more serious, moral failings come to light later.

By no means do any of us have a complete, objective, view on ourselves but by looking at our current and past relationships and listening to friends that tell us the painfully and difficult truth we can question our own motives and admit, publicly and openly, our faults.


If you don't care for that method of living perhaps I can recommend a paint store so you may officially begin your self-portrait. You can call it a mirror. 

The Pharisee & the Tax Collector

This is a little lengthy but, man, if you get a chance, please read. It is the shocking, unfair, irritating, and amazing truth of grace. It irks the righteous and lays down our pride. I hope you enjoy it. 


Let me lay out for you the story, Jesus' parable, of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Jesus says, "Two men went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee. The other was a tax collector."
You must remember that a tax collector was a crook. He was a person who was a Jew but he worked for the Roman government. He had a franchise, an area in which he was entitled to collect taxes. He was told by the Romans what he owed them. Anything else he made over and above that was his to pocket. The tax collectors were despised as turncoats and so on. So Jesus has set you up. He has sent in the Pharisee who was one of the most respectable people in Judaism of his time and He has sent into the temple with him this tax collector who is a mafia-style enforcer, who is a bad apple.

The Pharisee stands by himself and he prays and he says, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people. I am not a thief. I am not a rogue. I am not an adulterer. I am certainly not like this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week. I give away a tenth of my income."

That is his speech. He goes on interminably like that. Then the tax collector says (he won't look up to the heaven; he looks at his shoe tips), "God be merciful to me a sinner."

Then Jesus says, "I tell you this man (the tax collector) went to his house justified rather than the other for all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted."

That is the story. Like all of Jesus' parables, it should carry a warning which is "this will be hazardous to all your previous opinions about how religion works and how God works." Jesus' parables are designed to outrage the hearers and to shock and to show how God has stood almost all of our values on their heads.
What this parable is about is not, as it seems to say at the end, the virtue of humility. The Pharisee's problem is not that he is showing off. It is that he really believes that his stack of good deeds is enough to save the world. And he believes it is enough if only everyone else would do what he does -- that is enough to save the whole world.

What God really says in Christ is that human goodness isn't good enough to do this trick. Human goodness cannot reconcile the world. Basically if the world could have been reconciled by good advice from God, to which human goodness would respond, the world's problems would have been solved ten minutes after Moses got down to the bottom of the mountain with the commandments. Everyone would have read the commandments and said, "Oh, yes, of course," and the problem would have been over. The trouble with the commandments is the commandments are fine, but no one has ever paid much attention to them.

The law, the commandments, are efforts at morality, humility, spirituality and, above all, are efforts at religion, are efforts at trying to do something that will get us right with God. All don't work. Therefore God, as Jesus speaks of Him, doesn't risk trying to save the world by human good behavior. The Pharisee's mistake, therefore, is not that he is saying something that it is just proud or a little bit arrogant, but that what he is saying is dead wrong. His goodness is irrelevant to the problem that he is talking about. Therefore, God says that the tax collector who simply looks at his shoe tips and says, "I'm no good," is justified. Now, why?

The point is that this parable is about death and resurrection. It is not about morality, spirituality or anything else. It is about the fact that both the Pharisee and the Publican (the tax collector), are dead ducks. The Pharisee is a very high class kind of dead duck, but they are both dead as far as being able to reconcile with God is concerned. The point about all of this is that the reconciliation God has in mind for them is totally dependent on their death.

Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works. Jesus taught His disciples for three years. They never caught on to very much at all. God has been teaching the world for a millennia. The world hasn't done anything much about it. The tragedies go on. The lies go on. The nonsense goes on. The twaddle goes on. All the things that are wrong with the world go on. They are not amenable to talk. They are only amenable to action and, therefore, Jesus came to raise the dead -- meaning by deadness, you in your deadness, the Pharisee in his deadness and the tax collector in his deadness.

Now you ask yourself a question. Do you like that parable? Of course, you don't like it. The point is that it violates every sense you and I have about the fact that we really are basically doing fairly well. If only other people were as nice and considerate and as wonderful as we are, the world would be a better place to live in and God says, "No. That will not work." It can't be done that way. It can't be done by people who think they are winners. It can only be done by people who are willing to admit they are losers and then who are willing to trust God in the death of their losing to do it for them, to deliver them the gift of a reconciliation with God.

Again, I ask you the question. Do you like that? Once again the answer is no you don't like that because here is this terrible tax collector who is really a monstrous character and probably rubs salt in everybody's wounds. He drives around in a stretch limo with a case of Chivas Regal in the back of the trunk and several very expensive call girls with him at all times. He has just been skimming the cream off his neighbor's milk money. The point is that the Pharisee is no less dead than that dreadful character.

So I want you to turn the parable around a little bit. Just imagine what it is like to see how the Pharisee is so wrong. Imagine God sitting in the temple at a golden card table in a golden chair and in come these two characters. The Pharisee comes across the temple and God is very busy. He is creating the universe out of nothing. He is holding the stars in their courses. He is reconciling all the generals in the Pentagon and the street walkers in Times Square and the drug addicts asleep in doorways. He is making the hair on my head grow, slowly at this point. He is doing all these things and He is very busy.

Up comes this character, this Pharisee, and he whips out a pack of cards and he does a couple of one-handed cuts and an accordion shuffle and bridges them and fans them out for God and says, "Pick a card. I want to play cards with you."

God folds the deck back up and He says, "Don't play me."

So the Pharisee says, "No, no. I've been very lucky lately. Let's play Black Jack."

He deals God a king and an ace and God pushes the card away and says, "Look, I don't want to take your money. You can't play with me. The odds are always on the house here and besides, no matter how full you think your deck is, you haven't got a full deck and you can never win playing this game of cards with me. So why don't you just be like that fellow over there who is looking at his shoes and the two of you go over and have a free drink and enjoy yourselves because you can be home free here if you will only stop this nonsense of trying to sell me, trying to win over me, trying to get an arm up on me, to do something to me to prove that you are okay. I don't care that you are not okay. I will raise you from the death of your lack of okayness. I will raise you up. Just trust me. That fellow over there, all he said was he was no good. He threw himself in trust on me. He's home free because all the dead are home free in my working of the universe, in my reconciliation of the world. All you have to do is recognize that death is the key to your salvation."

Now you ask yourself the question, do you like that version of the parable? Again, you still don't like it. I'll prove you don't like it. Suppose the tax collector goes home justified. All right. You want me to bring him back a week later. So, I'll bring him back. The first trip back, the first week after this original experience, will bring him back with no changes in his life. Same stretch limo, same girls in the back, same expensive scotch and he comes in and he goes through the same routine. He looks at his feet and says, "God, be merciful to me. I am no good."
What will God say to him? Well, in the way Jesus told the parable, God will say the same thing this week He said the week before. He will say, "This man goes home justified because he admits he is dead."

He didn't tell him the first week, "You are justified but don't do it again." He said, "I have raised you from your death. You trust that. All right. Go in peace."

The second week with no changes, the same thing. Do you like that version of the story? No. You don't like that. The rat is getting away with murder. So I will do something else. I'll give you a second version. Bring him back yet the third week for another trip to the temple, but this week bring him back with some change in his life. That is what you are itching for me to say, I think, that you want me to say something that he really needs or change his way, mend his ways at least a little. All right.

So we bring him back the third week. We'll bring him back. He is not driving a stretch limo. He is driving a Hyundai. He only has one girl in the car with him and he is drinking cheaper scotch and giving the difference to the Heart Fund.

Why would God listen to that list of two-bit improvements when He wouldn't listen to the Pharisee's list of really respectable virtues, a really solid citizen? The thing you have to ask yourself is, "Why are you itching to send the Publican, the tax collector, back with the Pharisee's speech in his pocket?"

The answer is we fear salvation that is so cheap that it saves everyone in his or her death. Death. Death of sin, death of disaster, dead of grief. That is where God works. God works in the losers of the world. He works in all of us. What it means, the reason we fear it so much, is that it means in the long run that death is catholic. Death is universal. Death gets us all, and if death is the only ticket anyone needs into the reconciliation in Jesus and if everybody has that ticket, then God has no taste. God is vulgar. God is indiscriminate. God is immoral. He lets in Hitler because He forgives Hitler's sins. He does, in Jesus. He lets in my brother-in-law. He lets in me. He lets in you. All we have to do is believe it, not earn it.

We have a God, in Jesus' proclamation, a God who couldn't get a union card in the God union, who couldn't make it because we have set up the rules for God. A God has to be a punisher; a God has to be a judge; a God has to be a respectable God. He has to do all the things that enforce morality, and God doesn't. On the cross, in Jesus, He drops dead to the whole subject of sin and shuts up about the whole subject of condemnation. It is over. As St. Paul says in the beginning of the 8th Chapter of Romans: "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

Therefore, this parable is about death and it is about the resurrection from the dead. The point is that death is all of the resurrection that we can know now. The most important thing is that we believe in Jesus. The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they will live.

I don't believe in resurrection. I don't believe in eternal life. I don't believe in life after death. I don't believe in the hereafter. Those are all opinions. I simply trust Jesus that He will deliver to me as He rose from the dead, He will raise me. Whatever that means, however it works, I trust Him because in His death is my reconciliation and in my reconciliation is my joy in Him.

by Robert Farrar Capon

God Went to Get Some Ice Cream

Sometimes it doesn't seem like God is talking. Or maybe not talking when He should. I'm not sure which, all I really know is that sometimes it's damn quiet. I remember leaving the Marines, looking for a job, finding nothing, and being forced to move in with my in-laws. I kept asking which way I should walk next: firefighting, police work, sales, etc.? I had a lot of mental time on my hands doing (largely) manual labor and asked God- many times- where He would direct me next. 

Soon thereafter I got a call from the church I was at last (not on my list of desirable jobs and an experience you can read further about here). 

After that wonderful experience... I started working in my current job as co-founder & General Manager of a coffee house and pub. 

The point isn't my story. The point is that sometimes God's silence means He went to get some ice cream. You and He were clearly communicating at some point and all the sudden we think He clammed up and is willfully not saying anything, witholding answers from us like that teacher from 7th grade. I picture myself, staring at the floor, spilling my guts to the one Guy I think will listen and give advice. Frankly, dammit, He HAS to care- I mean, it's His job right?? But as I come to the end of the rant I am on I look up, see Him sitting on the couch opposite me, and He silently stands up and walks out of the room. 

Gone. 

At this point there can be a lot of God-blaming, anger, and- rightfully- confusion. Some of us just give up and leave the house.

But God didn't leave. 

He just went to get some ice cream- one of the great cures of all ills- from the kitchen. He left us to ponder our own words because sometimes we didn't even know we were thinking something until we said it out loud. So He left and will be back in a few moments (granted, His moments can be longer than we care for them to be) and when He comes back His presence seems sweeter than ever and we have calmed down enough to actually listen- not just hear- what He is going to say. 

What have you learned in that silence? 

31 Theses to Holiness Denominations

Many years ago Martin Luther posted Thesis to the Roman Catholic Church. He did not wish to cause a split, he was truly attempting to get people to see the issues, address them, and change them. My heart is the same. These are very serious problems, I am writing this seriously. My heritage is found in these denominations but they must address if they are to not just survive but enter into the Kingdom & regain their purpose. 


1. When Jesus said "repent" he meant that believers should live a whole life repenting
2. Sin will always remain until we enter Heaven... "Simul justus et pecator."

3. Many holiness movements claim to be egalitarian, however, few women are seen as heads of local church bodies.

4. The church through church penalties and stances is producing a ‘human crop of weeds’ that can correctly answer doctrinal questions or social stances but are wrecked inwardly. 
5. Someone might have bad/incorrect thoughts against the church and they will be scared. This fear is enough penalty without maligning these people or simply labeling them as "bitter".
6. Many people have been hurt by politics, liars, and hypocrisy within the church.
7. Until these hurts have been made known, acknowledged and apologies made the church and denomination may never move forward- like an alcoholic who will not admit they have a problem. 
8. There is no proof that a person is free from sin.
9. Adhering to The Discipline will not save a person.
10. Many who believe (and say) they are "entirely sanctified" do so at their own peril by falling into the sin of pride.
11. If Jesus readily broke Mishna Law how can our leaders say that if Jesus was here he would submit to the "spiritual authority" of the denomination/s? He didn't for the Jews, he would not in this case either. 
12. If the saying, "Love the sinner, hate the sin" then why aren't these denomination's relationships with the gay and lesbian community better? why aren't there more on-going prison ministries? how have they reached out to the pornography industry?
13. People who believe that abiding by the denomination will let them live in salvation will always be damned - along with those who teach it.
14. A man can be free if he sincerely repents - a "membership covenant" is not needed.
15. A true repenter will be sorry for his sins and happily give back to others of their resources and talents. Preaching mandatory "tithes and offerings" trivialize this issue.
16. A Christian who gives to the poor or lends to those in need is doing better in God’s eyes than one who gives "tithes" to a church building campaign.
17. This is because of loving others, love grows and you become more of who God created you to be. A person/church tithing and/or paying USF does not become a better person by these actions.
18. A person who passes by a beggar but pays their "tithe" will gain the anger and disappointment of God.
19. Christians should be taught that they do not NEED to tithe but are allowed to freely give.
20. Headquarters should have more desire for devout prayer than for ready money.
21. It is blasphemy that the words of Jesus are preached less than than those of Paul. Paul is to be interpreted in the light of Jesus, not Jesus in light of Paul. 
22. The wealth of some of the "holiness denominations" is not wildly known among believers and attenders who are struggling financially in a time of recession. People are losing homes & our headquarters and colleges are building bigger and better buildings. 
23. Salvation can be sought for through the church as it has been granted this by Christ... but people can be saved outside of the church walls. 
24. District Superintendents (DS) and bishops have to enforce United Stewardship Fund to keep their jobs and perks (as they currently stand). 
25. Why is there a sliding scale of membership requirements depending on a person's position, title, wealth, and last name? If they are requirements they are for everyone, equally.
26. Don't membership requirements- by their very nature- create a tiered form of Christianity?
27. If DS and General Superintendents had worked as they should have and led by example (with a FEW notable exceptions) the above problems would not exist. 
28. The voting process needs to allow far more accountability for our DS and GS positions.
29. All those who say there is no problem must go. Problems must be tackled.
30. Christians must follow Christ at all cost- even if in disobeying the denomination. 

31. Let Christians experience problems if they must - and overcome them - rather than live a false life based on present holiness teaching.