Once upon a time, someone taught man
That he is at his smartest when he
Extracts the ready facts from a narrative
So as to fashion them into worksheets
And talking points for discussion.

He has no purpose, it seems,
But to make a show of himself―
And no Plan B, it seems,
But to keep his distance from
Those who do not applaud.

Here at First Fruitless, under the fearless leadership of Pastor Less, we take our calling seriously, as we take a firm stand on faithful attendance to all our functions. We know that this causes some ripples in the local community, as most other churches are quite lax about attendance. And to be honest, we take quite a beating over this, with many potential members each year getting angry over our no-absence policy, as if it were a sin to expect the best from our members!

But God is faithful, and we’re sticking to our guns, knowing that our unflinching commitment to full attendance brings great glory to God, and helps us let our little light shine. And really, it’s not as hard as you might think to achieve a remarkable set of statistics on attendance. We’ve learned over the years that our attendance stats get better when we:

• take a hard stand on attendance,
• run off the people who don’t take it seriously, so that they’re not hurting our percentage of all-the-time-attendees, and
• dial back other competing drains on our members’ time, such as Bible study, deep conversations, and counseling.

We find that our members learn to take pride in having a well-attended church. Take Elizabeth Ernyew’s statement, for example:

“I used to go to other churches, where they didn’t really have much to be proud about. But when I first started coming to First Fruitless, that started changing real fast. I saw how the members were always talking about their high attendance rate, and it just spoke to my heart, too. So now I’m here every time the doors are open. It’s so good to have a church you can be proud of!”

Bett ERNYEW, Member

And listen to what Don Key told us recently:

“As Christians, we know we should expect persecution, right? And I sure get it when I put church over the non-church activities in my life! Like when I missed the annual board meeting down at the Lodge because it was the annual spring cleaning day at FF. I could tell they were upset about it, whispering behind my back, but I didn’t let it get me down, and I didn’t give in. In fact, whenever they schedule anything on days when we have conflicting church events, I don’t say a word about it, because the board should already know when I have church. After all, we keep our monthly calendar on the website. And really, they’re probably scheduling these meetings one purpose for when they know I have church anyway, just to be disrespectful. So I don’t dignify their little game by replying. I just go to church and let them figure out why I’m not at the meeting if they didn’t know already. And that’s how I take part in the fight against the devil.”

Don Key, Member

And it’s not just the adults at First Fruitless who have really captured the spirit of faithful attendance! Even our kids have it, like first-grader Willy Grow:

“It’s good to go to church all the time so God won’t send us to Hell.”

Willey Grow, Member

So join us starting this Sunday, as we pass out annual attendance drive checklist calendar! It’s a perfect time to start, and you will be entered in the annual attendance contest. The grand prize this year is a 2-day cruise vacation! (Don’t worry about missing church, because we already thought of that! The prize is for a Monday-Tuesday cruise, so you can still make it church Sunday night and Wednesday night. ) The drawing for the cruise will be from all those who have perfect attendance at the end of the 2023/2024 season. And in the unlikely event that nobody has perfect attendance, the cruise will be awarded to Pastor Less, in honor of the awesome work he does here to build God’s kingdom.

So be sure to be at First Fruitless this coming Sunday, when we’ll pass out free bumper stickers to all who enter this year. We just got them back from the print shop, and they’re beautiful! They say:

Be ye perfect in attendance, even as your heavenly father is perfect. Matthew 5:48. First Fruitless Church

Oh, and they have a picture of Pastor Less on the right side. Sorry, we couldn’t get that graphic from the printer in time to post it here on the website, but it’s really nice, and you’re going to love them!

See you Sunday!

In Him,
Pastor Less

If you are like many, you will reject some lies,
Sometimes even daring to stand up in front
Of your fellow man and call the lies out.

And if you are like many, you will do
Such rejecting and calling out—
Even as you are embracing yet other lies
A promoting them to this smart/stupid world.

Just because mankind was given intelligence
Doesn’t mean he always uses it well.

I see in Christian circles a good deal of talk about empathy these days, and in that discussion, I think I perceive a wide movement that’s conflating excusing with forgiving. Here’s what I mean:

Jesus says this about forgiveness in one of his parables:

Coming soon.

Kay and I were watching Suits, where it was said that character Harvey Specter was hated by many of the other attorneys in the law firm because “he’s always right”.

Huh?