Bev and I are attending the wedding of one of our nieces (and our new nephew) in California.

We will be doing something different at church this morning.  We will be showing a video of Dave Ramsey and the last lesson in his Financial Peace University classes.  We are not doing it as advertising, it is good, Biblical teaching.

Recently, I received a package in the mail offering a new service to the local church.  Help with reaching out to assist our neighbors in need.  The help was not a new book, or some training program designed to allow us to build a more effective ministry.  Instead it announced a team of people, already trained, all ready to move.  All we had to do was mobilize them, sit back and watch with wonder.  I read the information, got a good laugh and threw it in the trash where it belonged.

The last thing the local church should be doing is calling others in to do the work we are called to do.  We are the ones Jesus called to this area and His goal is that WE become salt and light.  WE are the ones commanded to love our neighbors – that means acting in their best interests and doing all we can to come along side of them and do our best to ease their burdens.  Certainly, there are times to bring in “experts” that are more capable than we are and do what we cannot.  That was not the intent of this “offer”.  They expected us to call them in and allow them to do all the work.  Not only that, but we (the church) would be giving them legitimacy by deferring to their “competence”. 

Not going to happen, not on my watch.

The group who sent the information?  The church of scientology.  Which is neither a church, nor are they scientists.