dear abby knows her stuff

chad has 2000 pts.
shea has 4000 pts.
which means that as of right now...shea is ahead. congrats, my dear friend. anyone know the other one?

let's see...today i went to church with my mom. very good and refreshing for the soul. i don't love her church, but it's all i have right now as far as public worship goes. today's sermon was on stewardship. something we all have probably heard 9 million times. but there were some things that definitely touched my heart. the first one being that someone wrote into dear abby complaining that there's too much preaching about giving money to the church...that the church is costing socitey in general way too much money. so dear abby replies by saying that it's comparable to a child. a child costs money as a baby...buying diapers and food. but as the child grows up, she costs much more. new clothes, new shoes, dresses, lunch money have to be bought in order to accomodate the growing child. then, she wants to get married. and the wedding costs money...lots of money. as long as she is alive and breathing, she will continue to cost money. a dead child is the only thing that will not cost any more money. just like the church...a live, healthy church will cost money. the only reason a church would not need money would be if she were dead. of course dear abby said it much more profoundly than i just have. but that was the main point.
the second point was that american christians spend more money on dog food each year than they give to church. and yet we wonder why missionaries who are willing to go...can't.