Just on a Lark

A friend and former classmate of mine at Concordia College was reading my blogs and asked if I'd ever taken any flack from any Missouri Synod pastors. Not yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone in St. Louis stumbles across this one. Like I said in the "About this Blog" entry, I'm not a pastor and don't plan on becoming a pastor, so c'est la vie if they decided not to allow me to. And, readers should know that I don't speak for my denomination and this blog in no way reflects any of their official doctrinal positions. Like Luther's 99 theses on the Castle Church Door, these posts are intended to spark discussion and debate- by no means are they tantamount to Scripture. Lord knows I get a lot of things wrong, but I hope He can use me in spite of that to provoke debate, challenge thinking, and inspire prayer and Bible reading. That's all I want to do.

That said, I thought I was getting a little too heavy, not to mention too political, so here's something to lighten things up a little:

MANSFIELD, Ohio — Anita Johanssen has alienated her women's Bible study partners by bringing innocuous prayer requests, or no prayer requests at all, to their weekly meetings.
"We dump out our life garbage, and she says something like, 'I don't really have anything. Just pray things will keep going well for me,'" one woman says. "After the fourth or fifth time it gets annoying."
During a recent meeting a woman requested prayer for a relative who was in prison. Another admitted that her husband was severely depressed after losing his job. When it was her turn, Johanssen asked them to pray that the Lord "would continue to bless my life."
"They all sat there staring at me," Johanssen says. "I just don't have anything to match their level of prayer requests. I've got a good family and the Lord in my life. What am I supposed to do — invent problems?"
To satisfy her Bible study partners, Johanssen has begun planning out prayer requests. She recently requested prayer for her unsaved neighbor and a co-worker who lost her cat. But the requests don't seem to carry the kind of weight the others want. One Bible study partner responded, "If a missing cat is your most pressing issue, then I want your life."
Johanssen is considering joining a different Bible study in which her prayer requests allow her to "blend in better," she says. •

Read more Christian satire like this at LarkNews.com

Me ka pule,
Pirate Ted