Churches for decades have relied on tried and true methods of fundraising when tithes and offerings left vision-thick congregations in a lurch.

But Wabash Christian Center has taken a unique approach to supplying ministerial needs. Eschewing fundraising altogether, the 20-year-old fellowship collects Marlboro Miles to outfit its church.

Smokers for years collected Marlboro Miles from packs of cigarettes and redeemed them through the company’s product catalogue, which featured prizes ranging from T-shirts to camping tents.

Marlboro added “Spiritline” in 2008 and the congregation took full advantage.

“That’s how we got our new steeple,” said Reverend Tom Shipley. “Sucks to have that Marlboro logo on it but, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Shipley encourages his congregants to toss their Miles into the offering plate, often reminding them of the church’s needs. In December, a set of red and white Marlboro choir robes arrived just in time for the Christmas pageant.

Shipley keeps the youth group in the main service, knowing they can contribute to the church’s projects. The teens hope to have a Marlboro skate park installed by June. A half-pipe arrived two weeks ago after Lucas Hawes, an avid smoker, donated five years of Miles.

The church has remodeled its sanctuary with new pews, a pulpit and stained glass—all ordered from Marlboro. The latest addition was a silverplate communion set.

But the avant-garde money stream is not without controversy.

Dr. Melody Rudd, a researcher at Indiana Institute for Orthopraxy, said Miles circumvent traditional faith routes and may ultimately encourage Christians to abandon waiting on the Lord.

“We’re about half-way down that slippery slope,” Rudd said. “It started with the indulgences, continued with the bake sales, and here we are. Pretty soon, they’ll scrap tithes and offerings forever and just pool their money for Powerball.”

Shipley disagreed. The 47-year-old pastor believes his church is taking its cue from scripture.

“The Lord promised to give us beauty for ashes,” he said.

R.J. Reynolds plans to unveil its church catalogue for Camel Bucks in 2009.

“Corey used to just sit in the corner and listen to his iPod all the time, so we were really excited when our efforts to get him to talk and participate more seemed to be working,” said youth pastor Allen Kisner. “Then we started listening to the things he was saying and talking about, and we started to wonder if maybe Corey sitting quietly in the corner wasn’t so bad after all.”

Tait, now a 16-year-old 11th grader at nearby Eastern Plains High School, is a big fan of Battlestar Galactica and the popular massively multi-player online role playing game World of Warcraft. Thanks to the aforementioned efforts to get him to reveal more of his personality, he’s no longer shy about it.

“Once he started talking, it was all about power levelling, mana and cylons,” said Katrina Tappan, the youth group’s 12th-grade president, and by all accounts the student most instrumental in coaxing Tait out of his shell. “Not only does he talk about that stuff all the time, which, like, no one even understands, but he talks about it really loud and passionately. He even manages to start arguments with people who don’t even know what he’s talking about. It actually gets uncomfortable pretty fast.”

Although Tait’s unorthodox taste in television and video games have been giving his peers second thoughts about their efforts to get to know him better, it’s his sense of humor that really has the leadership of the youth group concerned.

“Corey never used to joke around with the other kids,” Kisner said. “We always thought that was a bad thing, but then we heard some of his jokes. It’s hard to explain without giving what would probably be pretty offensive examples, but I guess you could call it a weird mix of inappropriate practical jokes, knock knock jokes, ethnic slurs and misogyny – actually quite disturbing.”

Despite all of these concerns, tactics for returning to the days of a shy Tait have been elusive.

“Getting him back in his shell has proven to be even harder than getting him out,” Tappan said. “We’ve thought about having a music night when everyone can just bring in their iPods and listen to them all night, and he still doesn’t seem to participate much when we play sports, so we’re trying to do more of that. You know, whatever it takes to go ahead and hide that back under the bushel.”

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court last week, claims that Matthews gave herself a severe deep thigh bruise while slapping her thigh to the beat of a worship tune in an effort to get the congregation clapping nearly a month ago. The suit further claims that the church was criminally negligent in not providing Matthews with a headset, which she says would have allowed her to clap her hands instead of her thigh. Matthews said she asked church leaders to provide a headset on numerous occasions and complained about ongoing thigh pain.

Matthews is seeking remuneration for lost wages, saying she has been unable to perform her duties at her job as a dog trainer.

A weekend crusade for little people held last week at his Santa Ana church was virtually unattended, even though guest speakers included Verne Troyer of Austin Powers fame, and Bushwick Bill of Geto Boys. Each gave their testimonies to a crowd of five – Huber and his family.

Huber, often derided by local pastors who fish for congregants among Orange County’s elite, likes to remind his colleagues that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

VATICAN CITY — An unprecedented summit of Christian leaders convened here earlier this month to take part in a summit to address what many fear could be the greatest spiritual crisis of our time — a shortage of prayer.

“With the global economic crisis touching more and more lives around the world, we have just one question,” said Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley. “Where is all of the extra prayer that these people need going to come from?”

A portion of the summit, which included both evangelical and Catholic leaders from around the world, was focused on finding alternative sources of prayer to solve the looming prayer gap over the long term, but the vast majority of the sessions targeted ways to get Christians to reduce their need for prayer and become good stewards of what leaders are calling “supernatural resources.” All of these discussions culminated in a loud and clear message to Christians: reduce your prayer footprint.

While no formal definition of a prayer footprint exists, it is generally understood to be a rough calculation of the total amount of prayer used to address the requests and needs of a given Christian. Leaders are suggesting a number of simple steps for believers to reduce their contribution to the expected prayer shortage.

But a joint statement signed by the 200-plus summit attendees suggests that small changes in the way Christians around the world ask for and receive prayer won’t be enough.

“All available data points to Christians praying less and less while requiring more and more prayer,” the statement reads. “Eliminating obvious waste in the prayer process will alleviate prayer problems in the short term, but the long term solution will have to include both a significant reduction in the prayer footprint of the average Christian and a vigorous search for alternative sources of prayer.”

Accomplishing those goals, said summit attendees, will require a fundamental paradigm shift in the Christian community.

“We know that the average Christian prays just five to ten minutes a day, and that the number of Christians is finite,” said Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson. “This is going to lead to some tough questions. Does your sister’s ankle sprain really need to use up supernatural resources in these times? Do we need to pray for every single person who has a non life-threatening illness, or can we lump them all together into a single line item? As Christians, we need start thinking seriously about shepherding this resource in a responsible way.”

Summit attendees also began the process of establishing guidelines to help Christians calculate their prayer footprint, as well as details of a Supplication Mitigation system that allows Christians to offset an overuse of supernatural resources by purchasing prayer credits. Proceeds from the sale of these credits will go to fund research into alternative sources of prayer.

“We’ve been looking into the possibility of prayer centers in India to handle some of the anticipated prayer load,” Bell said. “We’ve also given some thought to approaching the Screen Actor’s Guild to get actors and extras in church scenes on TV and in movies to take an actual list of prayer requests when they have to act like they’re praying. These are the kinds of creative, out-of-the-box solutions we need at a time like this.”

It’s unclear whether the prayer footprint summit will be an annual event, but organizers are making an unusual request of the public.

“Please don’t pray for our efforts,” O’Malley said.

CHICAGO – A new study to be published in Christianity Today magazine exposes a dangerous wave of church subculture that has built enormous momentum over the past decade. Hazing, which until now has been almost entirely associated with college fraternities and sororities, has made its way into our churches as a method of initiating would-be small group members and filtering out those too weak to join. While most colleges have squelched hazing in recent years, a new surge in small group hazing—resulting in at least two fatalities—is causing some pastors to follow suit and ban the practice altogether.

“This has got to stop!” said Pastor Gene Appel of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL. “Even if there weren’t any deaths, it’s difficult for me to concentrate during my preaching when there’s someone skipping on stage behind me wearing nothing but flannelgraph characters taped over his privates! I’m sure that’s not where cartoon-Moses wants to be poking his staff.”

Events like this are occurring across the country.

The study, conducted by Christian Research International, found evidence that services in every region of the United States are being interrupted by small group hazing. The McGeorge’s small group at Hickory Square Baptist in Keene, NH required all of its 6 pledges to shout “bless you” or “gesundheit” every time their pastor said “Gethsemane” during their Easter service. Arthur Culver, a small group pledge at Kendall United Methodist Church in Miami, FL, was instructed to sit in the front row and eat and drink all of the communion elements when they were passed.

Other reported instances of hazing stretch beyond Sunday morning and into the daily lives of pledges. Sam Mills of Logan, MT was among the 4 pledges woken at 3am and instructed to shovel 9 inches of snow off Logan Church of God’s 2-acre parking lot immediately and barefoot. Terri Wendt of Sonora Bible Church in Texas was ordered to sign up for all 48 shifts of SBC’s 24-hour prayer watch in November.

“Who can measure the damage inflicted on the Kingdom due to things like this?” fumed Pastor Aaron Vang of SBC. “The only thing less effective than Terri’s last 10 or 15 prayer watch shifts is this hazing and its attempt to assemble quality small groups!”

Keith Hatter, 5-year “Alpha-Alpha-Omega” small group leader at New Faith Community in Seattle, WA, disagrees.

Pledge Clayton Briggs searches for Ezra 3:7 in a “sword drill” to avoid getting hit with “The Bible Thumper.”

“Maybe in the 80s small group pledging wouldn’t have had as good a purpose. But some churches are so large these days that there are enough people to make entire small groups out of just the cool people. There has to be a way to ensure that happens. C’mon, we don’t want just anyone signing up for Alpha-Alpha-Omega! They can go to the Forester’s group, which still allows sign-ups, thank God.”

But the sobering fact, as the study reports, is that there have been two recent deaths resulting from small group hazing. While some argue the deaths, caused by an automobile accident during two pledges’ “high-speed drive-by evangelism” duties, are atypical, many elders use the fatalities as a basis on which to ban hazing in their churches.

Leonard Kindred, principal investigator for the study, explained to THO, “We’re no longer just talking about doing the Bible study homework for the small group leaders, speaking only with small group brothers and sisters, or learning the small group anthem. We’ve recorded countless examples of dangerous spiritual activities taking place. One poor pledge was forced to eat nothing but unleavened bread for 40 days, which is the standard pledge period. He ended up in the hospital with chronic constipation and fecal impaction.”

With this study’s release, many church leaders are at a crossroads as to how seriously they will take the potential dangers of small group hazing.

Said Pastor Chris Malcolm of Sun Valley Episcopal in Fresno, CA, “I was unaware that these dangers could exist in my church, but I’ve decided to bring them up at my next small group meeting. My group has recruited like all of the best Christians in the congregation so we’ll stay on top of this issue!”

SANTA ANA, CA – For everyone who has ever tuned into the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN)—broadcast on satellite and cable systems across the country—and thought, “This can’t be serious,” it turns out you were right.

Local and federal law enforcement officials have uncovered an elaborate scheme engineered by an atheist group and aimed at embarrassing the Christian religion; a scheme that has been going on for nearly 30 years.

Among other startling discoveries, officials have learned that TBN—which has claimed from the beginning to exist for the purpose of furthering God’s kingdom – was actually founded by Broadcasters Against God (BAG)—a loosely organized faction of Hollywood atheists—in 1973 and has been operated by the group ever since.

“We’ve been on this case for years,” said special federal investigator Scott Hines. “I mean, come on. Have you ever watched this channel?”

A 250-page report released this week reveals that TBN’s ridiculous-looking sets featuring enormous purple thrones lined with ornate gold patterns and hosts with huge hairdos and caked-on makeup were used purposely to give bleary-eyed channel surfers a distorted view of Christianity.

“The biggest surprise to me is that we were able to get away with it for so long,” BAG President Wayne Mailer said in a signed confession included in the report. “I mean, seriously, Christians were actually giving money to keep this channel on the air! It was unbelievable.”

In fact, TBN was primarily supported by viewer contributions over the years, although officials are now taking a good, hard look at the motives behind a series of large gifts from media mogul Ted Turner.

“I pity the fools who gave money to this network,” born again entertainer Mr. T said upon learning of the scam. He’s just one of many Christians who unwittingly participated in the deception by making numerous appearances on TBN.

“This is totally whack,” echoed Christian music artist Carman, another TBN regular. “Anyone who would carry on something like this for so long needs a check up from the neck up. What the dilly?”

It’s unclear what charges will be levied against BAG since there are no laws against disingenuous programming. But one thing is almost certain—officials have no intention of walking away from years of investigating without handing down a conviction.

“Just putting together this kind of painful television for two decades deserves pretty serious punishment,” Hines said. “Believe me, we’re gonna make something stick.”

MUSKEGON, MI – In the days leading up to July 6th, the U.S. government and private technology experts issued warnings that hackers involved in a loosely organized contest planned to attack thousands of computers across the country. Although the contest is over and the severity of the damage is unknown, it is certain that at least the owners and users of BibleGateway.com have fallen victim to one hacker’s malicious and deceptive onslaught. The attack involved breaking into BibleGateway.com’s computers and switching the online versions of the King James Bible and the Amplified Bible. The results of this assault echoed through sanctuaries and chapels all across the nation.

From Sunday at 1:28 AM till Tuesday at 7:39 PM anyone at BibleGateway.com who looked up passages in the King James Version of the Bible was actually presented with passages from the Amplified Bible (and vice versa). It wasn’t until BibleGateway.com’s feedback center was bombarded with thousands of complaints that they looked into and resolved the issue. Compliments were also submitted.

Barbara Hamburg, one of the site’s support specialists recalls, “At first we were confused. I mean, the complaints were very confusing, like, ‘Your KJV sucks!’ and ‘What foul-mouthed blasphemer wrote your Bibles?’ So for a couple of days we just responded with our standard ‘Just trust in the Lord and pray—everything will work out for good!’ That usually does the trick.”

Rainford explains, “I was up very late on little sleep Friday night gathering God’s word for my sermon slides. I must’ve been too tired to notice the devil’s foothold pulling me down into the demonic realm of blasphemy. The screen said it was the KJV, but evil can creep in very subtly!”

Some of Rainford’s cohorts, while horrified by the mix-up, are surprised that he of all people could let this slip by. Pastor Dale Embrook, another speaker at the conference, explains, “Good mercy, there was nothing subtle about the toxin that was spewing from his mouth! How Satan was able to deceive him on such a simple verse, I do not know.”

The verse in question is John 11:35—the shortest verse in the Bible. Instead of reading “Jesus wept,” as found in the KJV, Rainford quoted the Amplified Bible and read, “Jesus, the certain god-man whose blessed flesh was pierced by the sword as he, the redeemer of all iniquity, stood troubled in the shadow of one man’s recent death as the power-indwelling Spirit set weight on his holy tear ducts, wept.”

Billy Zeoli, president and CEO of BibleGateway.com’s parent company Gospel Communications International, responded to the hacker’s attack, “We are truly saddened by this malicious act. Also, as unfortunate and disturbing as this attack is, it is clearly stated in our disclaimer that the accuracy of our online content cannot be guaranteed and Gospel Communications International is not in any way liable for the negative ramifications that may result from the use of its content. Again, our hearts are with each and every victim of this crime.” His compassion runs deeper still, as he later vowed to “pay more attention” to the integrity of gospelcom.net’s content.

As the AFBA and every other victim of this ruthless attack begins to heal, we are reminded that evil has no boundaries in its quest to corrupt what is good and deceive oblivious Internet users.

SOUTH BARRINGTON, IL – In perhaps the most extreme example to date of churches halting ministries during the traditionally slower summer months, Willow Creek Community Church – one of America’s prototypical mega-churches – has decided to close its doors until after Labor Day.

“The church leadership took a look at where attendance and giving were last summer, and when you look at the numbers, the case for closing shop just makes a lot of sense,” said Willow Creek Senior Pastor Bill Hybels. “For years we’ve been trying to justify the expense of operating throughout the summer when schools are closed and people are on vacation. We just couldn’t do it any more. If people are going to put their spiritual growth on hold until September anyway, why should the church fight it?”

While weekly services and other regular ministries have all been canceled, some special, summer-specific programs like summer camps will still go on as scheduled.

“It’s not like the church will be disappearing off the face of the earth,” said Church Administrator David Widener. “We’re still having the big Third Day concert, along with any other events that traditionally bring in a good amount of money. Plus we’ll still have a pastor on call at all times just in case anyone has a spiritual need that absolutely can’t wait until September.”

While many churches have been putting Bible studies, choirs and other portions of regular church life on the back burner during the summer for years, this may be the first example of a church scheduling a complete shutdown.

“I see this as part of a trend of church attendance as we know it taking a serious dip around the world, and not just during the summer months,” said Robert Holmes, president of the Center for the Study of World Religion – a London-based religion think tank. “With so many media options out there for people to get their spiritual enlightenment, the practice of church attendance is in real trouble. Mark my words. This is a harbinger.”

Not surprisingly, Hybels doesn’t see it that way.

Hybels is planning on 6 weeks in Tahiti

“Willow Creek has been setting trends for the rest of the evangelical community for decades,” he said. “When we started changing the way we do worship and outreach, you had people acting like it was the end of the world. Now they’re all doing the same things. This is going to strengthen our church. The money we save by shutting down over the summer will go toward reaching people for Christ during the rest of the year. When other churches see how this benefits us, shutting down for the summer will soon become as common as church names that have nothing to do with God or Christianity.”

Josh Allen – a 13-year-old who regularly attends Willow Creek with his parents – is on Hybels’ side.

“No more hymnals. No more pews. No more sermons to make me snooze,” Allen rhymed with glee. “I’ll see you at the pool!”

But not all Willow Creekers share Allen’s enthusiasm.

“We had skits rehearsed and ready to go for every Sunday in the summer,” said Willow Creek Drama Team Leader Leah Cress. “Now all that work is completely worthless. It’s not gonna make much sense to perform a theatrical representation of the importance of beach evangelism in the dead of winter, now is it?”

Despite the detractors, Widener is almost giddy about the concept of saying a fond farewell to summer services.

“No more bloated air conditioning bills for a room that’s only half full,” he said, eyes gleaming. “All that money being saved for God’s kingdom and not being wasted on a scant congregation that would rather be on vacation anyway. It’s a beautiful thing.”

BASRA, Iraq — Call it fowl play.

Open Doors, the legendary missions network led by Brother Andrew, recently smuggled one Bible into the Middle East. The big deal? Not in traditional format—print, cassette tape or MP3—Andrew’s crew floated all 31,103 verses of the Bible down the Euphrates River, via rubber duckies.

Visioneered in late 2006, the Rubber Ducky Bible took flight during Ramadan, when Muslims fasted and devoted themselves to prayer, and thus weren’t expecting a shock and awe campaign of bath toys.

“You got your KJV and your NIV,” Andrew said from his Webcam somewhere in the Iraqi desert. “But them Iraqis got themselves an RDV. And if we do it again, it’ll be an NRDV.”

Andrew readily admits that the toughest part was literally squeaking past the TSA when, a la the hashish smugglers in Midnight Express, his team taped the ducks to their bodies.

“Yeah, customs was rough, but in the end, you’re dealing with government workers. They pat you down, and, you know, especially around the unmentionables. If you start squeaking down there, you just cough or sneeze and look around. They don’t notice a thing. I could hear Brother Zack getting his Habbakkuk squeezed a bunch of times, but he still got through. Squeeze. Squeak. Sneeze. That’s how we roll.”

Shiite Cleric Skandar Akbar was incensed at the outreach, citing passages from the Koran at a news conference in Basra: “In the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed (peace be upon me), I issue Edict 17: The Rubber Ducky Fatwa.”

A jihad was declared against the Rubber Ducky Bible.

“Fatwa? What in Sam Hill is a Fatwa?” Brother Andrew asked. “Sounds like one of those special effects from that campy Batman in the sixties. You know, the one where the Caped Crusader would give a knuckle sandwich to The Riddler’s cronies? BAM! BOFFO! FATWA!”

Brother Andrew was unfazed after he got schooled on Fatwa. “We have prayer partners around the world, each sponsoring a ducky. I think they’re up to the challenge. We basically told them, ‘if anything happens to your ducky, we know how spiritual you are.’”

Open Doors plans to release the Rubber Ducky Bible on the Tigris and Jordan rivers during Ramadan in 2008.

“Hee hee hee,” chuckled Andrew. “This is about the only instance I can think of where it’s OK for a Christian to give someone the bird.”