THOUGHT OF THE DAY #5

"Just because JESUS had a beard, doesn't mean 
EVERYBODY should."

And by "everybody" I mean ME.

 

As together we stand and sing. 

BP

AS I WAS SAYING...

Needless to say, I had a pretty CRUDDY day at church yesterday.  

It seems that certain "people" (and by "people" I mean Grumpy Elders) seem to expect Preachers to have a sermon ready to preach on Sundays during church EVERY DANG SUNDAY!


Well, excuse me for livin', but I was busy all last week PREPARING to go to HEAVEN thanks VERY MUCH!!  

It's called: PRIORITIES!

It's called: Being a CHRISTIAN!

It's called: I drained the baptistery.

Ask Mary and Martha about making lunch - they can tell you all about it.  

I just realized, that last line may have been a little to "inside baseball" for some of you.  Bottom line: Jesus said it was OK to NOT help your sister make lunch for everybody if you're in the Living Room doin' a Bible Study with The Lord at the time.  

I think it applies to my situation...somehow.


Anyhow...


So, it was a mess yesterday and things got a little heated  - at one time I thought I was in the Board Room of Celebrity Apprentice.  Then they said "You're Fired, Preacher!" and then I REALLY felt like it then.  

Naturally those cheap-os had no Taxi for me to catch after I left like they do on Celebrity Apprentice.  Had to drive myself home.  I'm just glad I had the opportunity to raise money for my charity: 

Preachers Who Pout. 

Wait.  I think I just faded into a weird fantasy world just then- OK - I'm back.

Anyhow - so things are a bit on edge around my house these days.  Let's just say it is a good thing Gidget and I had that "Practice Moving Drill" the other day because now we have been given the opportunity to do it for real.

How exciting.

I never realized how similar being homeless and jobless is to camping.  Which is what I've told Gidget we're doing.  She LOVES camping.  Being FIRED, not so much.

So, we will soon be "on the road again"!  (cue music)  Luckily, all of our stuff is still in boxes from the practice move.  So...

Sigh.  I am SO depressed.  

In a "Preacher Positive" way, of course.  

I really thought I'd be floatin' around Heaven by now, checkin' to see if Adam and Eve have belly buttons for my friend Avon, and trying to get out of the choir.  Instead, I am Map Questing KOAs.

Gidget is gonna kill me.  Don't worry, I'll tell her the truth...eventually.  Not NOW of course.  For now, I'm sticking with the camping thing.  Gidget can get very saucy when there's no dinero comin' in - which is what attracted me to her in the first place - that and her ability to find Ecclesiastes in 5 seconds flat.

This will teach me to read  newspapers.  Had I just kept my fat nose in the Bible instead of reading other stuff like books and newspapers and Internet crud, I would've known nothing about the "end of the world" or Twitter or The Brady Bunch Marathon.

Oh, well.  Listen, I gotta go.  I've got stuff to do.  Jobs to find.  Houses to rent.  Tents to set up.

We BleachTM on.

As together we stand and sing.

BP

CAN YOU SAY, "OOPS"?

The New Zealand Telegraph reports:  

Apocalypse not right now: 'Rapture' end of world fails to materialize

Reports of the end of the world appeared to have been exaggerated today.

From the New Zealand Telegraph

Well, THIS is embarrassing.

Like the old saying goes,  

We live.

We mis-predict the end of the world.

We LEARN.  

In case you were wondering, obviously, the world has NOT ended.  Saturday, May 21st was basically - just Saturday.  Which would make today, just Sunday. 

The earth is still spinning, Charlie Sheen is still winning,  and for now, life goes on as always.

Which is not great news for me, considering the fact that I have been messin' around all week, assuming I was going to Heaven on Saturday and wasn't going to need to prepare a BlermonTM (blog-sermon) for today let alone a sermon for church this morning.  

Now here we are lookin' at a big, fat, lesson-free SUNDAY and...oh never mind.  It's really not your problem.  I'm in trouble.  Hope I can remember where I stuck those dang Army Guys.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH - boy, this blog page is harder to fill than I remembered.

Listen, how was I supposed to know that this whole "end of the world on May 21st" thing was based on some ancient Mayan stuff? At least I think it was.  

Wait.  

Maybe THIS "end of the world" thing was from that old guy out in California.  Oh, whatever.  Who cares? Whoever it was, they were WRONG!

By the way, am I the only one who always thought Mayans were some sort of Baptists? Or maybe a Methodist splinter group?

Maybe I was thinkin' Mayans were Mormons.  I LOVE Mormons.  Though when you think "Mormon" you don't usually think "end times expert".  You think:  

Great families.

Great health.

FanTAStic bike riders.

Well, I do anyway.

Anyhow - if I offended any of you this week with all my "straighten up or burn" BlermonsTM, I want you to know, I'm sorry.   Sort of.  

Look, I simply did what Preachers are SUPPOSED to do. I was just trying to get you to NOT burn in HELL for an eternity.  

So sue me. 

NO, don't do that - I wanna make sure I still have a job first.

Bottom line: My straight forward, run and gun, style seems WEIRD to you because THESE days Preachers simply don't preach that way.  These days Preachers tend to be a cross between a soggy rice cake and a cruise ship bingo coordinator.  They try to keep you busy with parties and games and feeling good about yourself so you don't notice that YOUR SHIP IS SINKING. 

Not me.  I'm old school.  I'll tell you the bad news about the ship, whether you wanna hear it or not.  But then afterwards, I'll also run a pretty fantastic bingo game.

Listen, you could do worse than ME for a Preacher.  What am I saying?  Many of you already DO do worse!

Some of your Preachers don't care about you enough to shake the dust off your ears once in a while and just let it rip.  I care enough to badger you every day for a WEEK.

Some of YOUR Preachers just want you to LIKE them and shake their butter-soft hand at the end of the sermon and tell them how "Billy Graham-great" they are.

For the record, I HATE shaking hands.  Though I LOVE Billy.  But  I couldn't care less about being liked.  

That does NOT apply to Gidget, of course.  I have to LIVE with her.  As the great Jeff Allen says, "Happy wife, happy life."

Look - I goofed.  These things happen in Preaching.  It's why a lot  of guys go into brain surgery instead - less pressure.  And no Ladies Bible Class.  Cowards.

At least I CARED enough about you to tell you  that you happened to be Hell-bound.  

Which is more than I can say for those wimpy Preachers who talk nice all the time and yet never REALLY SAY  anything that MATTERS.  

At least I SAY stuff. And it OFTEN matters.  Well, maybe not often, but SOMEtimes it does.

You get it.

Look, I'd love to chat more but I gotta go make up a sermon on the fly now.  Got church in about an hour.  I am in a REAL mess.  

I didn't get the bulletin out yet either.  

The Elders are gonna freak.  Oh, so what's new?

As together we stand and sing.


BP

Coming Soon...

 THE PYLON PARABLES!

WELL THAT WAS FUN

By the time you read this, I'll probably already have been raptured on up into Glory, and be busy pickin' out a couple of mansions to move into, as well as gettin' fitted for my celestial robe and crown. 

It's an exciting time.  There's a lot to do up here in Heaven.  I AM dreading all the singin' though.  I just can't imagine a zillion years of...oh never mind.  It'll be fine.

The BAD news is, if you ARE reading this right now it probably means you have NOT been  raptured and have instead been, what is called, "Left Behind"...in Hell.  Or at least back on earth...getting READY to go to Hell.


YIKES!

I told you I wasn't kiddin' around.

Anyhow, I'm not sure of the exact rundown of events from here on out.  You'll either have 7 years of tribulation followed by the Judgement and then eternal damnation; or you may just go straight to the damnation part.  

I'm just not sure.  It's hard to tell. The Bible gets a little fuzzy on this stuff, no matter what Preachers tell ya.  They make a lot of that stuff up.  They have to, Revelation is a confusing, WEIRD little book!  But a great action movie. Anyhow...

Bottom line, it's pretty safe to assume that if you're readin' this now, you aren't where I am now, which means the rest of today won't be great for you.  

So, I thought the least I could do for the "bad boys" of my former BlongregationTM (blog-congregation) is to give a brief retrospective of this award-winning Blog.  

It ended way too young...and handsome.  So let's look back now at the last 2 months of these award-winning BlermonsTM.  

Cue sappy music.

Wow.  That was a mess.  I remembered it a lot better than that.  

Of course, it probably didn't help that I slid some old Craigslist photos in there.  I figured there might be somebody down there who could still use a wheel barrow and a Hide-a-bed.  And I think I still have 'em up on Craigslist.  Good price too.  Though I don't know if Pay Pal works here in Heaven.  I'll get back to you on that.

OK - so anyhow...have fun.  Burning in Hell.  Wish I could help but I'm really busy with the whole robe/crown/mansion thing.  

But I'll be praying for you all.  Though I don't think it will help much at this point.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL DESTRUCTION:

ZERO DAYS!

As together we stand and sing.

BP

 PS - This fencing is a STEAL.  Contact me now!  If it's possible.

THE LAST GREAT PREACHER

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming autobiography,

"The Last Great Preacher".  

I am currently looking for a publisher, and will continue to do so for the rest of today.  

Of course by Saturday (tomorrow), it'll be too late.  

So if you know any publishers who I could call sometime today - please give them my name, and this excerpt.  And the link to this blog, of course. I need all the followers and page hits I can get.

Thanks - BP

THE LAST GREAT PREACHER

BY BROTHER PREACHER

(A TRUE STORY)

(BASED ON MY SERMON: THIS IS IT, STRAIGHTEN UP!)

CHAPTER ONE: THE END

There once was a handsome, fit, award-winning Preacher (who at one time could've been a male model with the right head shots and breaks), who spent his last week on earth unselfishly warning his semi-global audience that the world was coming to an end.

He even did it on the LAST day of the world (that's TODAY, by the way), when he could've been watching movies and practicing his Tie Kwon Don't.  

"What an amazing guy," thought all the others.

But naturally, there were OTHER others (there always are) called doubters, and scoffers of the Preacher's compelling message of doom.  Even his wife, Gidget,  and Mother thought he was just kiddin' around.  However he was not.  He was dang serious.

Often, in his private time between writing his award-winning blog, and autobiography, and coming up with sermon ideas, the Preacher referred to himself as Noah.  Noah, of course, was also a Preacher who preached to a bunch of mouthy doubters and mothers and wives.  

But after the flood, Noah was the one who was still alive and then got drunk on a nice, dry mountain, while his scoffers were taking bets on how long they could doggie paddle.

Then the Preacher let everyone know he would NOT be getting drunk on a mountain after the world ended.  Which made his mother happy, to say nothing of Gidget. 

And it came to pass that on the last day before the world ended, the Preacher found a publisher for his autobiography and made a million bucks, which he gave to flood victims in honor of Noah.  After he got a cool car.

THE END 

(of this excerpt)

Not bad.  

I shoulda been writing autobiographies for years.  

So anyhow, as you know this IS the LAST day of the world.  I think I've said what I need to say on this topic.  If you don't get it by now, you're on your own.

I still dont know if I'll be BleachingTM (blog-Preaching) tomorrow or not.  Depends on what time the world actually ends.  But check back just in case.

So anyhow - good luck, wear clean underwear, and don't blame me if you find yourself in agony and eternal flames by tomorrow night.

Boo woo, for you.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL DESTRUCTION:

1 DAY 

As together we stand and sing.

BP

Second Coming Cam - live shot

2 BY 2, BYE BYE

Let's face it,  the "Last Days" BleachingTM (blog-preaching) I've been grinding out all this week just MIGHT be my most earth-shaking BlermonTM (blog-sermon) Series to date.  

It's powerful stuff.  

And I'm a powerful Preacher.  

That's a deadly combo.  You don't stand a chance. Give up now.

Of course, I've HAD my doubters along the way.  When I first started Bleaching this series many thought it was a joke.  Others thought I had simply stumbled upon a topic I could milk for a week of easy Blermons (blog-sermons).  

I WILL admit, it HAS been handy.

Jay, a valuable member of this BlongregationTM, put it this way in a comment on an earlier Blermon from this week.  Jay writes...

BP....I commend you for your courage in taking on this issue, but I fear your warning is not being taken seriously. The faithful in the fold are listening, and we're with you on the whole "Go out and do something cool" admonition. But I fear the masses are scoffing. Surely you knew it would happen, that in the last days scoffers would come scoffing. If you really want to sound the alarm I suggest that on your next visit to the diner, you might try squeeking out a couple verses of troublesome times are here filling men's hearts with fear. -- Jay

Clearly, Jay has done some Preaching in his time.  He knows that sometimes you just have to scare the pants off of people if you want results.

What am I saying?  Simpy this: prepare to be SERMON SCARED!

If I have to go to my favorite diner in shorts and sweaty thighs and start "squeakin'' out scary CHURCH songs on the pleather diner stools just to save a few...

Don't PUSH me.  I'll DO it.  I've DONE it.  This morning! 

With the world coming to an end on Saturday, I've got a pretty light schedule these days.  It's not hard for me to FIND the time to "Diner Stool Church Song Squeak."

And don't think I don't know that the closer we get to Saturday, all of this is starting to make SOME of you just a little bit nervous.

"What if 'ole BP is RIGHT?"

"What if it really IS over on Saturday?"
"Maybe I WILL skip work Friday, after all!"

And you can bet I'LL be skipping work on Friday.  Heck...I've skipped work all this week!  

And to all those cranky Elders of mine who try to make me teach Ladies Bible Class every week I have just 3 words:    

Not...gonna...happen.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL DESTRUCTION:

2 DAYS

I LOVE scarin' the pants off of people.  


And dogs.  Here are TWO.  As in "All the days you have left".

As together we stand and sing.

BP

3 POINTS, 1 SERMON

A good friend and Preaching mentor of mine recently opened my eyes to something extraordinary...

Three Stooges

Three Little Pigs

Three in the Trinity

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL DESTRUCTION:

3 DAYS.

Sometimes these things write themselves.

As together we stand and sing

BP

PS - For you poor souls who just started reading my Blermons (Blog-sermons), please refer to this week's previous postings for assistance with today's message.