A local Baptist church has done the unthinkable.  The church body voted last Wednesday night to end the Wednesday Night Meal.  What has been for ages a Baptist tradition of sharing a meal on Wednesdays (either every Wednesday or just before a business meeting) is no more Blewize Baptist Church.  The senior pastor, Rev. Ray Lee Gont, was quoted as saying, “We’ve searched the New Testament for precedent and found none.  There is no admonition, nor any example, of the early church sharing a meal before their Wednesday night meetings.  In fact, we couldn’t even find support for Wednesday night meetings themselves, so we’re probably going to take a good long look at that next.”  The chairman of the deacons, Jackie S. Prat, added, “For too long it’s been ‘When we meet, we eat.’  That has put a horrible burden on us to get here early enough to eat.  Lacking any clear Scriptural guidance, we’ve decided to do away with it altogether.”

This move is not without controversy, though.  Members of surrounding churches were shocked at the move.  Most expressed dismay that a cherished Baptist tradition could be tossed away so lightly, some even pointing out that the practice is not unique to Baptists at all.  Jim Koch, pastor of near by Well Filled Bible Church spoke for many when he said, “I think it’s a shame what they’ve done, but if any of BBC’s congregants would like to be filled on Wednesday nights, we’re just a few blocks away.”  He then added with a wink and a smile, “We may even have some dinner.”

Mormon apologists and missionaries often assert that Mormonism and Christianity are compatible, if not basically the same, when even a cursory examination of the major tenets of both show that not only are they not the same, they’re not even compatible. At any rate, and on a more light-hearted note, I recently got to thinking what Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) were Mormon (or, CMM):

• Steven Curtis Chapman might sing, “God is God, and I’m not yet…”
• Third Day might sing of “The Planet of God”
• Aaron Shust would surely croon “My savior loves, my savior lives / My savior was once a man like me / A man he was, a God now is / A God some day I’m gonna be “
• Degarmo and Key’s classic song of triumph might be “We are destined to reign”
• Hymnals might read “We’re marching up to Zion, that beautiful city in Missouri. or Utah.”

I could go on and on. Anyhoo, they’re great songs, all of them. I should contact a copyright lawyer and get ready to rake in the bucks!

Last night, I made what I thought was one of my best jokes in a while, but it was not met with the mirth I had expected. We were sitting in church waiting for the service to start and chatting with some friends. I saw in the bulletin that the meal this Wednesday night will be meatloaf, at which point I noted the menu for the others in the conversation, and stated,

“I would do anything for dinner, but I won’t do that.”

Dead silence.