Written by a street preacher in Nashville:

I live in Nashville where more Bibles are printed than anywhere else in the world. We have more Christian publishing houses in Nashville than anywhere else on the face of the earth – more churches per square mile – and, outside the Vatican, a greater percentage of bodies in buildings on Sunday morning than anywhere else on earth. So we in Nashville have a better chance to get it right,  wouldn’t you say??

We have 1000 churches and 4000 homeless people living and dying under bridges and in culverts. I know because I have prayed with them and lain with them as they died, and every week I feed and pastor them. We can’t even get it right enough for every church to reach out to 4 homeless people. And yes, that includes children as young as they get.

Nashville is the headquarters for a swag of church denominations, and para church organizations like the Gideons, and from this buckle on the Bible belt of the richest nation on earth, missions go out all round the globe. Those missions are funded with .01 percent of all monies collected in North American churches.

That’s right! For every $1000 collected by North American churches, ONE Dollar is sent to evangelize those who have never heard the name “Jesus” - but from the latest stats, are probably well aware of the name “Coca Cola”.

And frankly, whereas I once despaired of these manifest failures of the church, now I say, Bring it on! Let the world see forever the rich failures of putting religion before Jesus, ritual before relationship, rules before lives and liturgy before love.

When the world at large finally see that the emperor has no clothes, so also will the light of the real gospel of grace and peace shine the brighter. For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!

Let it get darker, our Jesus will shine brighter.

"...Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me..." Matthew 25