Monday, September 24, 2007

In today's mail

Catch the Vision!

Uh oh, first line and they're already mixing metaphors.

A vision is a "desired future." It is what we believe that something can be if we put our best into it.

What about an apocalyptic vision?

Real Life is a new church coming to Moscow and Pullman with a compelling 'vision' for Moscow/Pullman's future. We see a day when a new church can help families reunite, communities grow, and people acheive [sic] God's best.

I'm a little rusty on my theology, but I seem to recall something about God being perfect and omnipotent. That makes me a little curious as to why anything that wasn't God's best would occur. Are they implying God makes mistakes? Because lots of people have told me God doesn't make mistakes.

Join us this October and catch the vision of Real Life. Jump in and connect and become part of making this vision a reality. Share the story with friends and neighbors and help "Real Life" make a "Real Impact."

Wow, I have to catch a vision, jump in, connect, and become part of making said vision (before or after I catch it?). I'm exhausted.

The Real Life Story...
1998, Jim Putman and Aaron Couch moved to Post Falls, Idaho from Portland, Oregon to plant a church.


This reminds me of an episode of "Garfield and Friends" in which somebody plants a minimall from a minimall seed. One could almost say that Real Life appears to be the minimall of churches (whatever that means).

Within 8 years, Real Life Ministries grew to become the 34th most influential church in the United States.

One, I'd like to see the source for that statistic, and two, I think when they say "church" they mean "parish." There's no way that these guys are #34 if you're counting all the mainline Christian denominations as "churches" rather than breaking them down, parish by parish.

The church has grown from 4 people to over 7,000. Now, in 2007, Aaron Couch, Charlie Couch, Michael Reyes, and Sam Wagner are bringing the mission and ministry of Real Life to Moscow and Pullman.

What happened to Jim Putman?

At Moscow Real Life
*Real Life Messages


Good, I'm sick of those religious leaders who are always speaking through parables about servants and mustard seeds and camels and crap.

*Uplifting Music With A 'Pop' Feel

Coloraturas wanted to sing major key only.

*Safe & Loving Nursery

Doesn't look like the City of Moscow has a list of registered nurseries online. They do in Anchorage, so you can read all about inspection reports if you get very bored.

*Great Programs For Kids

If my experience is typical, many of these will involve roping the children into the "Uplifting Music" business.

*People Like You

They do? Nice to know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you notice the web address on their recent flier? It's missing a letter. That's got to suck.

It's supposed to be moscowreallife.com but they spent gobs of money (one assumes) to publish moscowrealife.com. NoEl NoEl. It's Christmastime!

I for one welcome our minimall overlords with their "pop" like music. Kids dig it.

Anonymous said...

heh. I got this mailer, too. And another one that said something about the iPhone being relateable to religion. Or somehing like that.

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to show you the source. Oh and by the way it does include all mainline denominations.

http://www.thecronline.com/mag_article.php?mid=671&type=year