"I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how would you break them?" - Leo Durocher

My first Dollar Shave Club package arrived Saturday and I used the first razor this morning. I got a really nice handle and four blades the snap in/out, with four more blades arriving every month. First impression: this may be the best $6 per month I've ever spent. Yep, $6, with no S&H. Noticeably better shave than I got with moderate razors Pam was buying for significantly more money, even with a coupon.
If you signed up and used my code I'd get a $5 kick-back in the form of a credit. Naw, that's OK. But if you shave with a razor this is a pretty sweet deal.

We topped 110 today...by two degrees...and this is now the pattern for longer than I want to think about. Overnight lows will drop to about 80. From here to the end of September is the AZ equivalent of Dec. to April in the upper midwest. Just stay inside when possible and soldier through. The good news: you don't have to shovel heat, it isn't slippery, and it doesn't ruin your clothes and cars.

Tonight's "Sixty Minutes" was especially good.

What if a prophet arose, a man with all the gravitas and authority of a Jeremiah, or Joel, and delivered a direct message from God for all the churches in the United States:

"On a date certain in the near future God will close the books and call all churches to give an accounting of their efforts. As each church is called forward for evaluation no mention will be made nor weight given to their numerical size; the number of people in attendance or on the rolls will be no part of the evaluation. Instead, they will be judged on the following criteria:

• Worship; did their designated worship time have as its goal and clear outcome the ascribing of praise and glory to God? Were the people drawn together around a common focus, entering the presence of God for the purpose of acknowledging his surpassing greatness, both for who he is and what he has done? 
• Fellowship; were they knit together as a unified body in supporting, encouraging, and caring for each other? Did this commitment and service to each other override any disagreements and conflicts that arose between individuals so that each part demonstrated greater concern for the others than for self? Did the word love best describe their relationships with each other?
• Learning; did they demonstrate a reverence for and commitment to the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God by teaching its truths to one another? Did they acknowledge the Bible's ultimate authority as God's revelation not only in credal statements, but by the effective preaching and teaching of its content so that individuals were constantly maturing in their knowledge of and obedience to its commands? 
• Service; instead of a consumer ethos did the people of the church model a life of service, both to the congregation and to the world? Did they spread the good news of the gospel in their individual lives and through congregational involvement in reaching the unreached? Did they embody God's love and grace by a pattern of acts of kindness for the poor and suffering? 

To the degree a particular church embodied these standards they will receive commendation and blessing, and to the extent they've misplaced their priorities they will receive rebuke and the shame that goes with it. This sharp adjudication comes because God has decreed the local church as the locus of his work in this age, his beacon to the world and the embodiment of the new life that comes through the atoning death of his Son."

That prophet won't appear; the canon of Scripture is complete; no further revelations have been or will be given. And nowhere in the Bible is there any indication that churches will be called forward for a judgment re. their conformity to those four standards. But the Bible is very clear that those are the four things God has called each congregation to manifest in obedience to him. You won't find a single verse about the size of budgets, the congregation, or programs. Nickels, numbers and noise don't appear anywhere on the pages of the New Testament. They are irrelevant and indicative of misplaced priorities. Worship, fellowship, learning, and service - over and over again throughout the epistles. 

The American church has too frequently adopted a business model for its work instead of a biblical model. As a result, what gets labeled a success may, in fact, be so wide of the mark that it has traded man's approval for God's blessing.