Seats Available for Sunday 11:00am Service

Seats for any Sunday 11:00am service can still be purchased but don't buy them from the "greeters" as this is a violation of the church "don't buy seats from the greeters" bylaw contained in the new covenant that you have not received yet and may never receive. Or perhaps your wife or your husband received it and he or she simply hasn't shared it with you yet because it wasn't actually addressed to you. Or maybe you are not a member of the church and you are free to act in a sinful and carefree manner without consequence.


Seats for the service start at $250 for the areas closest to the exits and as low as $1.44 for seats in the front row, regardless of whether the service is live or video. All seats must be prepaid and because of secular progressive communist-style overbearing tax law the payment must be made in cash and cannot be made to a church staff member without severe penalty. The tax law is actually such that you must not even mention that you paid for a seat to anyone or the church will be taxed out of existence and you will forever be directly linked to if not outright responsible for the closure of one of God's favorite Weigh Stations.

Simply put your cash in an unmarked envelope with a note indicating your seating preference and slide the envelope into the rear window of the black 2001 Chevy Impala parked at the Grumpamoose Bar and Grill on the corner of 407 and Sellmeyer. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME OR ANY INFORMATION THAT MIGHT REVEAL YOUR IDENTITY on or near the envelope. You can safely assume that your seating preference will be considered and if possible accommodated and we will do our level best to hold the seat(s) for you until 10:20 am on the morning of the service at which time it (they) will be released to the general public if you have not bothered to show up to claim it (them).


Sanctuary Seats go On Sale Soon!

In a similar story, all seats at the Village Church will soon go on sale "Texas Stadium" style so you can have a priceless, family heirloom quality chair taken from the actual sanctuary where "it all began." To claim your chair, simply use a large-tip black Magic Marker (tm) to write your name and address in large block letters plainly on the seat. If the seat you want has already been claimed, simply mark out that person's name and write your own name and address on it ONLY IF YOU REALLY WANT THAT PARTICULAR SEAT. Once you have slipped an envelope containing $800 IN CASH for each desired seat into the rear window of a 2001 Black Impala which will be parked at the Grumpamoose Bar and Grill at the corner of 407 and Sellmeyer our processors will begin processing your order and you can expect to receive your chair(s) in the future.


The Village Church Faces Possible Name Change

In a surprise development this week, total cash financing for the Flower Mound Expansion may have been secured. In a closed meeting held at the Grumpamoose Bar and Grill on the corner of 407 and Sellmeyer, negotiations with 4 different financiers was discussed, the outcome of which has yet to be determined due to legalities and financial dealings that are far too complicated for you to understand. Further negotiations will be held later this month at the Grumpamoose Bar and Grill at the corner of 407 and Sellmeyer.

The Possible New Names:

• The Village Ballpark in Arlington Church
• The Village Hair Club for Men Church
• The Village Grumpamoose Bar and Grill Church
• The Village Cabaret Royale Mens Entertainment Center Church

The church elders were asked to comment on this development but when we stood in our front yard and shouted their names and asked them to comment at 4:30am yesterday morning, we received no comments. Further announcements will be made in the future provided we have announcements and that there is a future.

Flower Mound Expansion Update

The troublesome parking situation at the Village has prompted elders and staff to try and do "something" to hasten the construction efforts at the Albertsons location. Thus far "something" is manifest as increased pacing, frowning, hand wringing and of course very intense prayer in case someone is observing. Local residents near the Highland village campus have expressed their concern about the continuing problem of late arrivers parking wherever they want to park, ignoring warnings from Matt and the HV Police. In a recent confrontation with a local resident, "concern" was expressed with verve and a hammer.

Little Village Volunteers Offer Suggestions: Volunteers from the Little Village gathered at a local Highland Village establishment to discuss making the "child care" experience more enjoyable for all, particularly the transition to the new facility planned for August 2043, at which time the total population of The Village Church is estimted to be 40 million hillion dillion skillion. Those volunteers unable to attend because of injury, parole violations, house arrest or the recent warrant sweep by the Dallas County Sheriff's Department and the local FBI office will be notified through legal counsel. Before being thrown out, the conscious members of the group developed the following list of ideas which would have been presented formally to the elders except nobody thought to bring a pen or paper to write things down with.

From memory:

• All rooms should be equipped either with televisions or safer changing tables, I don't remember.
• Something else I don't really remember, but it was disturbing.
  
• Each room should have a wall mounted dial with settings ranging from "mild" to "just shy of lethal" connecting a series of large, high voltage batteries to wires which would run along the floor to the sanctuary where they would fasten to Matt's ankle so that a negatively affected volunteer could send a flow of DC current, the strength of which would be determined by the amount of anxiety felt by the volunteer or the volume of crying in the room, to thereby "indicate" to Matt that he should talk faster (as if that's possible) or simply cease talking, say a quick prayer and dismiss everyone.

Dogs Now Welcome at the Sunday 5 and 7pm Service: After a great deal of deliberation and a fist fight, my wife and I determined that dogs will be welcome in the sanctuary during the 5 and 7pm Sunday services. In keeping with the tradition of Sunday evening at The Village the dog or dogs will be required to have either a tatoo or a body piercing or proof of unemployment. Please make sure your dog or dogs has or have relieved itself or themselves before entering the sanctuary and feel free to use the yard of a local resident. Don't worry about cleaning it up.

Movie Reviews

"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" - Kevin James, Lassie

Crap

"Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" - Not Kate Beckinsale

Crap

"Gran Torino" - Clint Eastwood and lots of foriegn people

Crap

"Hotel for Dogs" - Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle, some dogs

Crap

"Slumdog Millionaire" - Nobody you've ever heard of

Crap

"My Bloody Valentine 3-D" - Who cares? Really.

Crap

"Inkheart" - Brendon Frasier acting pretty much like he acts in every role he's ever played

Crap

"Bride Wars" - Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway

Crap

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - Doesn't matter

Crap

"Notorious" - A whole bunch of people you've never heard of and never will until the "Oscars" at which time most of these people will get major awards

Crap

What Did He Say?

I don't wear a hearing aid because I am cheap and vain and I have reached an age where most of what I hear I realize later that I didn't want to hear it anyway. And I think failing hearing is a blessing from God and I don't have any intention of mocking God by wearing a hearing aid.

Having said that, I think the Village Church needs to publish a transcript of all sermons in case Matt says something funny that I can't hear because he said it under his breath or mumbled it on purpose so that anyone over the age of 53 wouldn't hear it. The other option of course would be to lower the volume of the worship service. I know that this would deprive the Children of Liberia and most of the rest of West Africa and the closer planets from hearing the guitar and bass, but it would allow me to hear the sermon without the incessant ringing . . . or does Matt ring when he speaks? That certainly seems possible because I am not yet sure he is actually from this planet. That ringing I hear may simply be his way of communicating with his home universe.

On the subject of worship, I think that electric instruments are probably OK, but what if they are in fact satanic? I think we should experiment with this notion and for the next few weeks the worship bands should use only a Kazoo and an Accordion. I may be wrong about the satanic nature of the guitar and bass, but I am fairly certain that worship music with a Kazoo and an Accordion would have the positive effect of clearing the parking lot. And who knows, maybe we would all be in a much better frame of mind to hear the message after 30 minutes of Kazoo/Accordion music.

Matt's Message from January 24 and 25, 2009

So does anybody listen to Matt? I'm guessing no, they don't, because after Sunday's service I was trying to get out of the sanctuary along with almost everybody else jamming the aisles and the doorways like there was a fire on the stage and the two cretins at the end of my row were just sitting there blocking my exit as if Matt was going to reappear and do an encore . . . and, by the way, how would he do that? In the Osama Bin Laden style of "mail-it-in" video tape sermons, what would he do? Drop the projection screen and run a fast instant replay of some salient point? Trot out one of the second-string stand-by pastors to recap what people ostensibly just heard? That works well. Har!

So there they sit, zombie-like, after having been told for about 45 minutes that I am better than them and that they need to give way to me, especially when I am in a hurry, but instead they are preventing me from getting the heck out of the church so I can quickly go apply the spiritual lesson that I have just learned before I forget it.

Which leads me to my point which I had better get to before it drifts away or my medicine wears off: I think the off-duty pastors need to be walking up and down the aisles of the sanctuary during the sermon with hickory switches swatting at people when something important is being said so they'll remember it. This worked with me and my grandmother. She'd whack me on the bee-hind for some minor act of vandalism I'd just committed or some other moral indescretion and then she'd say "Every time you sit down for the next couple of hours you'll remember what I just told you." And she was right.

I think this method -- swatting with a switch -- is far superior for getting the point accross to having a smattering of self-righteous yahoos scattered throughout the service nodding in agreement with Matt as he makes his point, just in case we weren't paying attention or can't think for ourselves. In fact, when a hickory switch toting pastor spots someone nodding in self-righteous agreement I think they should jerk that person out of her seat and drag her up on stage and do a "laying of hands" grandma style, if you get my drift.

And during the worship service, the off-duty pastors should be out in the parking lot and in the local neighborhood getting license plate numbers of people who have parked in an immoral fashion, submitting those to the Highland Village Police to run the tag to find the name of the owner, and then before the sermon starts the offenders should be called up on stage as if they were about to get an award and they too could be receivers of a "laying of hands".

I think it's about time we put words to action at this church. No more namby-pamby, wishy-washy "suggesting" that people follow Christ. I think it's time to get serious and start taking names and kicking . . . bee-hind.