Buy my pastor a brand new Escort

By Chris Stevenson
C_Stevenson@HVPress.net

I procrastinated on writing this piece because I know how much of you so love you’re Pastors. But A Saturday morning sermon by one of Buffalo’s fleet of black ministers inspired me to end my procrastination. One of our highly esteemed gospel stations ran a four-year-old sermon that had the preacher going through an eliciting-response stage of his lecture by ordering his audience “look at your neighbor and tell them ‘it’s all about Jesus,’” the congregation was heard to chant “it’s all about Jesus,” in the background. I want to thank the good Reverend for inspiring me through his holy ghost to write this essay, because I too know how to go on a run, and I just want to start off (Hallelujah) by saying, if your brought your pastor a brand new L (Lincoln, Lexus, Cadillac), then he is probably going to hell. Hey! That rhymes and I didn’t even know it would come out like that. OK let’s keep this run going. Ahem… (Praise God) If you don’t want to be found guilty in God’s court, then get your preacher an ’04 Escort. Yeah! Now we rollin’ Like the man said, it’s all about Jesus.
Jeremiah Camara says it best in his book “Holy Lockdown:” “One overused filler and irresponsible remark by black preachers many of us have heard is ‘I don’t care how smart you are, how much you think you know, or how many degrees you have, if you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have nothing.’ That remark is dangerous because it lets us off the intellectual hook.”

It works both ways really, no matter what kind of Seminary Schools or religious schools you went to, it’s all about Jesus, no matter how big you aspire your church to be, it’s all about Jesus (have mercy), no matter how much “tithing” you have your members do, it’s all about Jesus, as a matter of fact, since the good Rev. is making us so mindful of the son of God, I don’t need to go into any dialog as to what Jesus would be driving, or wearing, or most importantly what church he would be attending, were he to return in the flesh, now do I? Of course not, as a matter of fact I want you all to put your hands on this newspaper or magazine or computer screen, and I want you to jump up and chant, buy my preacher an ‘04 Escort, over and over again. Keep saying it until you shout it. That’s your new gospel hymn for the millennium. Stomp! Buy My Pree-chaa, an ‘04 Escort. Of course the L is just a symbol. It gets worse as you go on.

Don’t you dare think I’m being disrespectful; believe it or not, you can still be fly with an ‘04 Escort. Of course just think of the money that goes into building luxury homes for the Minister, and the big bucks that go into the emerging Mega-Churches. How necessary is all of this, and how is it possible to service the various needs of 10-30,000 members as effectively as you did when your temple was just a storefront? Mega-Churches mean Mega- Poverty. Jesus wants you to save the L money and use it to motivate young members & start Mega-Scholarships to Mega-Colleges