Pastor Dave Charlton tells us, 'After a worship service at First Baptist Church in Newcastle, Kentucky, a mother with a fidgety seven-year-old boy told me how she finally got her son to sit still and be quiet. About halfway through the sermon, she leaned over and whispered, 'If you don't be quiet, Pastor Charlton is going to lose his place and will have to start his sermon all over again!' It worked.'

A little girl was sitting on her grandfather's lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again. Finally she spoke up, 'Grandpa, did God make you?'
'Yes, sweetheart' he answered, 'God made me a long time ago.'
'Oh,' she paused, 'Grandpa, did God make me too?'
'Yes, indeed, honey,' he said, 'God made you just a little while ago.' Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, 'God's getting better at it, isn't he?

Finding one of her students making faces at others on the playground, Ms. Smith stopped to gently reprove the child. Smiling sweetly, the Sunday School teacher said, 'Bobby, when I was a child, I was told if that I made ugly faces, it would freeze and I would stay like that.' Bobby looked up and replied, 'Well, Ms Smith, you can't say you weren't warned'.

How many observe Christ's birthday! How few his precepts!
O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.
Benjamin Franklin

Hate the sin and love the sinner.
Mohandas K. Gandhi

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends.
But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion.
The other is mere business.
Mohandas K. Gandhi

God is dead. -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead. – God

The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?
Judith Hayes

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
Helen Keller

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.
Abraham Lincoln

God listens to knee-mail.
Methodist Church of Valley Forge

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
Dante Rossetti

If two philosophers agree, one is not a philosopher.
If two saints disagree, one is not a saint.
Tibetan saying

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said "Let us pray," and we dutifully shut our eyes. When we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible.
Desmond M. Tutu

We are sure that you have come across our extremely successful products already. Among our lines are cardboard police cars to discourage speeding, and cardboard policemen to deter shoplifters, as well as other standard lines.

Following on the success of these we are pleased to announce that we can now supply cardboard clergy ...

The cardboard Priest is invaluable to hard-pressed clergy who need a holiday. It is life-sized and comes in progressive, middle-of-the-road and the Tridentine models. It is especially effective when stood behind the lectern. Field trials have shown that when a cardboard Priest was installed without the congregation knowing, forty per cent of those later questioned had noticed no difference, while twenty-five per cent said there had been a considerable improvement.

Soon we hope to have available a cardboard Bishop which can be placed in the diocese while the real bishop is away in Rome. Trial models have been installed for some time in the Bishops' Conference without being detected. One is even said to have made a short excellent speech, which was actually related to its topic.

Work on the cardboard Dean has unfortunately been abandoned. Market research demonstrated that since nobody actually wants the real thing there would therefore not be much demand for the cardboard substitute.

Our cardboard congregation is however now on the market, and selling well. Its response to homilies is indistinguishable from the real thing, and it has the positive advantage that when volunteers are called for nobody makes a dash for the door. In some churches there has even been a marked improvement in the singing.

We recommend our quality products for your consideration and hope that you will find that they are just what you have been looking for.

Yours faithfully,

C. Board
Marketing Director