"Hello....Can I Give You $100 Worth Of Silver Dollars Just To Tour A Condo?"

                It was a hot business strategy at the time....no pun intended....roughly twenty years ago....a few years on either side. My wife and I would be sitting under an umbrella at the beach....maybe we looked rich.....I don't know.....and a young man or woman would come up to us and offer us a really nice gift.....just to tour a condo and listen to a presentation. Sometimes the gift would be cold hard cash....a hundred dollars maybe....once it was silver dollars that at the time were worth over a hundred dollars....today those coins would be worth almost five hundred dollars....and my response each time went something like this...."Thank you for the offer....but there is zero percent chance that my wife and I would even consider buying a condo." And that always started a short conversation where the young person would tell me that the owners of this complex do not care....it's all tabulated somehow....its a percentage thing. I would try again by saying....that I can't just take someone's money falsely....no matter what their percentages say....or even if the owners really do not care. The conversation always ended politely but awkwardly.
                A friend was recently telling me how their church was currently debating whether to build a new sanctuary. I said nothing....but I would have liked to advise him that....in today's world....it is no time to even be thinking about such a time consuming and money spending project....and it isn't.
                I have had recurring daydreams of being a drill sergeant. Fifty-five years ago this September....I joined the army and went off to basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Mama's little boy was going to have to get up early every day....and do everything that he was told...and right then....no more hot dogs and a Twinkie before bed....and get all of his hair cut off! Looking back on those eight weeks....it wasn't the greatest blessing in my life....but it was of the most beneficial two months in my life. So these daydreams come to me from time to time. I'm standing at attention....an E-5....which is what I was when I got out of the army....and a bus drops off ten Eddie Haskels....and ten Ralph Malphs....and ten Richies....and ten Vinnie Barbarinos who are now slouching before me. I have complete control of their lives for the next eight weeks....no pleading.....no coddling and not even any listening. I know what they need....and they have no other choice. And then I come back to the real world and plead with you in these posts!
                  If I was in a position of authority in a church....with a hundred thousand in a CD ready to be used to build a fancy sanctuary complete with a latte bar and whole grain muffin counter....I would drastically change the direction of where that money was going....but use that concept that those condos owners employed on vacationers and tourists. I would put together a package of great Christian books....(Folks....If you don't know what I'm referring to then you have never read a great life-changing Christian book)....and audio sermons of Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and Piper....and even Horton and MacArthur....(I know you have no idea what I'm talking about here)....and a carefully chosen Study Bible....(valued probable about $80)....and an assortment of other literature helps....and then we....(I would need help)....would go to a public place....and like those young men and women on the beach....offer that package to them for free....if only they would listen to a thirty minute description of what the gospel is....and what it isn't but thought that it is....and what church is....and what salvation is....and who God is....(I would personally stick R. C. Sproul's Holiness Of God CD set in their hands)....and what ministers know what they are talking about....and what ministers to avoid like the plague. That's it....no call backs....nothing....here are the resources.....may God use them to change your life!