February 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage Christians to limit conversions to a well marked building so that a person would not accidentally or casually get an opportunity to hear the message and become one more Christian. I remember that just after those Christians got started, two Christians died for trying to lie to God, and I thought I had won some big victory when all the non-Christians were afraid to go to the meetings where Christians gathered, but I’ll never forget how it turned out—huge numbers of men and women kept on becoming Christians! Conversions were not taking place in the meetings—they were taking place day to day between individuals. I don’t ever want that to happen again! (Think about it!)

March 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage church services that feel like funeral services. I know that the apostle Paul said that everything in the church meeting should be focused on building up the Christians—kind of a cross between a pep rally and a training session, like in a team sport. I definitely don’t want Christians to see that. Can you imagine? Millions of Christians actually well trained and encouraged to live as Christians? Never again!) And if the church services are not like a funeral service, then I need to encourage something like a pep rally—but with no training! It’s OK for those Christians to get a feel-good experience now and then, but nothing serious! (Think about it!)

April 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage Christians to allow conversions to occur just one day a week—hopefully just during one hour of that day and in that well-marked building I wrote about in February. I’ll never forget how terrible things were just after those Christians got started, conversions were going on everywhere—in the marketplace, along the road, at the workplace, and anywhere else that Christians met non-Christians. Back then what they did in church meetings was never focused on conversion occurring during the church meeting. It was all about getting the Christians ready to do the conversions during the week. I never want to have that again! (Think about it!)

May 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage Christians to limit all their meetings as much as possible to one day a week and one hour of that day with the clear message that if a person has other responsibilities during that hour that person is of absolutely no interest to the Christians. (I don’t care if that day is Saturday or Sunday or any other day, though I would like them to fight over which day is the right day.) If they do meet on another day of the week, I definitely need to get them to think of this as anything but a church meeting. I don’t want Christians to understand that God doesn’t really care what day of the week they meet. I certainly don’t want them to make church gatherings any more convenient than they are—less convenient would suit me much better! (Think about it!)

June 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage Christians to refer to a building where they meet as “God’s house” so that as soon as they leave that building they’ll think that they’re leaving God behind in his house. I also need to encourage them to think of the day they meet as “the Lord’s day,” whatever day they choose. (I need them to think of this kind of like Mothers’ Day. You know, on Mothers’ Day they go to Mother’s house and while they’re at Mother’s house they go by Mother’s rules, but as soon as they leave Mother’s house they revert to their own rules. So on the “Lord’s day” they can go to the “Lord’s house,” and while they’re at the “Lord’s house” they can go by what they think of as the Lord’s rules, but as soon as they leave the “Lord’s house” I can get them to revert to their own ways—making sure that “their own ways” are my ways.) I need to limit interaction with God as much as possible! I don’t want them to be aware that every day is really the Lord’s day and that they themselves are the God’s house! (Think about it!)

July 2012
Note to myself: I need to encourage Christians speak and think of their professional leaders as their “ministers” for two reasons: 1) I want them to think of the professional leaders as the “ministers” so that they will think of themselves as those who are to be ministered to. (Of course God has ordained every Christian to the ministry, giving each of them spiritual gifts to be used in ministry, but I don’t want them to see that. I want Christians to avoid any personal involvement in ministry.) And 2) I want the professional leaders to buy into this idea so that they’ll be so overloaded with ministering to the Christians that they can’t possibly do the job of equipping and organizing the efforts of the non-professionals. (That’s sure to result in burn-out with professional ministers finding other jobs and even ending any association with the church. It’s a win-win for me!) I certainly need to prevent millions of non-professional Christians from trying to minister to the needs of my people! (Think about it!)

August 2012
Note to myself: This is a good time to remember a gamble I took 50 years ago that paid off better than I could ever have imagined! I wasn’t sure, but I really thought I’d win by having prayer and Bible reading taken out of the public schools in America. I really didn’t expect to win as huge a victory as I won. I knew I’d win in the courts, and I expected a lot of controversy that would add to the reputation of Christians for arrogant ranting. What I feared was that the Christians would take a good look at their Christian training programs and make them much stronger, but just the opposite happened! I’ve been able to keep training programs for their children as little more than babysitting services with no plan for measurable progress or for applying the things being learned and no verification that anything has been learned. And I’ve been able to turn most adult training programs into social clubs—again with no plan, no application, and no verification. Recently I’ve had a great deal of success in getting all training programs cancelled—even the ones that were accomplishing nothing. And I’m confident that the recent development of adult study groups meeting during the week is going to work well for me in the long run, first because in almost all cases there still is no plan, no application, and no verification that anything has been learned, and second because these programs tend to eliminate focused training for children entirely. What a victory!! (Think about it!)

September 2012
Note to myself: I’m still having fun thinking of how much I’ve won in the school prayer and Bible reading decision 50 years ago, and I’m thinking of what I need to do now. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this one alive, but it’s working so well! I need to keep the focus of Christians off of the reality of the situation. I want Christians focused on fighting a political battle that could never accomplish anything rather than the spiritual battle. I need to keep the Christians thinking that this prayer and Bible reading was actually doing something good for the children. I don’t want them to realize that the Bible readings and prayers that used to be done in schools really had almost no effect. I don’t want them to see that it was the training done by Christian parents and by Christian teachers in church programs, summer camps and similar efforts that was the real problem for me. And I certainly don’t want them to realize that the prayers and the “sacred” readings, if they were restored, would frequently be from religious backgrounds opposed to Christianity. But no matter how this goes, I win. It’s inconceivable that the politicians would ever restore these practices in the public schools, but I want to keep Christians wasting their efforts and resources in this losing battle. Whenever I can, I want to get Christians to try to win their battles politically, a tactic that can never succeed, and this is just one great area where I can do that. What a victory that one was!! (Think about it!)

October 2012
Note to myself: I need to get Christians to think of baptism as some sort of magic that gets them in good with God. I need them to see this as something that changes God, not as something that is supposed to change them. I want them to see this as completing their obedience to God—certainly not as beginning their obedience to God. I definitely don’t want them to see this as killing off the person who has served me, or as the birth of a new person who will serve God! It’s OK for them to think of this as washing away their sins, as long as they don’t think of it as washing away their sinfulness! I want them to think of this as a religious ritual that God requires, not as a personal commitment to live and die in God’s service! (Think about it!)

November 2012
Note to myself: I need to have Christians rely on their professional leaders for practically anything that has to do with Christianity so that the vast majority of Christians will have no motivation to learn and no capability to spread the message of Christianity. I want them to rely on their professional leaders to be the hired Christians. That’ll limit the capability to share the news of what God is doing to only a tiny fraction of Christians. I don’t ever want to forget how just after those Christians got started I got a fierce persecution going against them and it backfired—the professional leaders of the church stayed in Jerusalem while a lot of the non-professionals got scattered all over the place. I thought I’d killed the whole thing, but those non-professionals took the message of Christianity with them and spread it farther than ever! Who would have believed that a bunch of uneducated commoners could have such an impact just by showing Christian love to the people they met! I don’t ever want to have that happen again! (Think about it!)

December 2012
Note to myself: I need Christians to think of saving faith or belief as believing the things in the Bible, with no connection to entrusting control of their lives to God. (I certainly don’t want them to ever suspect that in the Bible the words “faith” and “belief” are really the same word—that those who wrote the Bible didn’t have two different words—so every time they see “believe” or “belief” they could legitimately substitute “faith” or “trust.” I need to keep things like John 3:16 as obscure as possible!) And I certainly don’t want them to know that the meaning of this word includes “trust,” like entrusting the control of your life to God. Worse yet, I don’t want them to spot where the Bible uses the words “unbelief” and “disobedience” interchangeably lest they understand that having saving faith requires faithfulness to God. I don’t want them to see how Jesus, Paul, and others emphasized so strongly that saving faith must be obedient faith, and how James showed that just believing what the Bible says—by itself—will not save anybody. If these Christians ever realize what saving faith really involves, they might actually get serious about their Christianity! I’ve got too much of that already! (Think about it!)

A new blog will be posted in January 2013.