Local Mega-Church Gets "Nearer My God" With Sponsored Sky Boxes.
"The view from here is simply divine," raved Reverend Ireland. "Now Jesus knows how much my family loves him!" Marlinda, his wife, and four children were touring their new Sky Box overlooking the pulpit at Christ Church in Rockaway Twp.. The deluxe Sunday morning accommodation is one of 23 boxes the church built to encircle the massive sanctuary.
The latest additions to Christ Church were paid for by both individuals and major corporations hoping to get "the best damn seat in the house" in Marlinda's words. Cost of an "Eyes to the Sky Box" range from $250,000 to $1.5 million.
"Ours is what you might call 'mid-level,'" explained Marlinda, standing in front of the four TV monitors that showed a close up of the pulpit, a wide shot of the sanctuary and its two-story tall stain glass windows, and a view of the choir loft. A fourth monitor featured a security camera trained on Marlinda's silver-toned 1999 Lexus in its private parking stall. "Can't be too careful with all them Philistine rednecked crackers roamin' around!" joked Marlinda. Meanwhile, his kids were at the far end of the sky-box dismembering Pharoah's soldiers in a church-approved video game called "Burning Bush" while Lora Ireland made up fresh sandwiches and lemonade in the kitchenette. ("Don't called it a wet bar!" laughed Marlinda. "Never on Sunday for this home boy!")
Rev. Ireland explained that the Sky Boxes are, "the type of service that an active Christian community must supply its members to keep the people from straying away from the church and going back to God." In addition, members may also use their sky boxes for wedding receptions and pay-per-view cable events.
"If you want to know what God thinks of money," said Reverend Ireland putting his arm affectionately on Marlinda's shoulder, "just look at the people he gave it to!"
We have to remember that this is a public forum, read by those in the press. These types of posts do nothing to advance our cause and may in fact contribute to putting us back a few steps, as well as confirming the view that we don't oppose this for the right reasons.
This type of thing might be OK for "bathroom" email humor, but it has the wrong effect here.
Personally, I like it. There is much truth stated in jest and so what if the papers want to play games with it. They will play their games no matter what since they are essentially on the Christ Church payroll anyway. Enjoy the humour!
If the press were truly interested in any HONEST issues regarding what's being said on these boards, they'd be doing an expose on the NJ.com board and why legitimate, non-inflammatory posts are systematically deleted.
In fact, that expose would've been done months ago.
I don't think it pays to take the high road sometimes--just ask Todddavid in his many personas.
He's not changing screen names because he gets deleted and banned. He's changing screen names to falsely portray a greater portion of the community. An imaginary portion of Rockaway Township; one that agrees with him that Christ Church is a project that would be beneficial to this town.
Which it would not be. And we all know it.
The local papers will find something controversial to write about regardless of whether this joke is on the board or not, in my opinion. So we may as well keep ourselves entertained however we can, I guess.
OK RR I see your point,slightly. Please note I made it clear that it was in "the spirit of humor" or more clearly a joke. If Christ Church has impeded our god given right to laugh, both at them and ourselves, they have allready won. Please take my plagiarized ditty for what it was, a editorial cartoon,whistling past the graveyard. I will try to refrain from upsetting the apple cart any further. But did you hear the one...........
