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.