Pastor Pitstop hasn’t called or written for some time. We were worried that he might be angry with us. Then, we got this letter. Pastor Pitstop is very concerned about Cody Cooler, the new Youth Pastor up at Mighty Mountain Mega-church.
Dear Catholic Fundamentalism:
It’s not fair! It used to be that when young people would come to our Sunday Schools, they’d have fun.
You Catholics never bothered with making Sunday School fun. You don’t even have Sunday School! You have CCD. Whatever that is. Even Catholics don’t know what CCD stands for. Who makes up such boring names?
Really, why don’t they call it “Catholic Sunday School”? Something simple that everyone could understand? The Catholic Church is so bad at marketing that you’d think they didn’t care. That they only wanted people who were serious. There’s something else wrong with Catholic CCD. It is boring!
That’s why we Protestants have fun Sunday School. For a while, we actually called it “Funday School!” Everyone thought that was very clever. You Catholics think you’re so holy with all your boring old saints and scholars. We wanted Catholic parents to hear their kids whining all the time: “Mom, why do we have to go to boring old Catholic CCD? We want to go with our friends to Pastor Pitstop’s Church have fun! Aren’t all the churches the same, really?”
Well, that worked for generations! But, our plan had a flaw that we didn’t see at the time. It turned out that you Catholics ended up with all the serious parents’ kids and we ended up with the sort of people who left our church when another promised more fun. I’m not saying they are shallow, mind you. Well, maybe I am. I just don’t know, any more.
Now, our kids are being drawn away. Not to your boring, Catholic CCD classes that no one can stand. It’s something far worse. Minister McMacMack, up at Mighty Mountain Mega, has hired a new Youth Pastor. His name is Cody. Cody Cooler.
I don’t know if that’s his real name. It may have been invented by advertising experts behind the new marketing plan at Mighty Mountain Mega. They may have thought it was a non-threatening, friendly name that sounded even more appealing to teens and pre-teens when said with the last name first.
Up at Mighty Mountain Mega, they don’t even bother having Sunday School classes any more. Minister McMacMack gave Cody Cooler the money to put in huge, go-cart track! Fifty or sixty cars with kids roaring around and around on an enclosed track instead of going to class. “Racing for Salvation!”, Cody Cooler calls it.
There’s more! He’s put in a dozen “Get Close to Heaven Trampolines”! Bumper cars! Three horses, six ponies, nine mo-peds, a petting zoo, and a baby tiger! The kids get to feed the tiger! There’s even a Ferris wheel. Cody Cooler claims: “Kids get closer to God a dozen times a ride!”
We don’t have a single child left in our Sunday School! Not a single one. Minister McMacMack and Cody Cooler have taken every single Sunday School student from my Padded-Pew Perkmistianist Church. And,they’ve gotten almost every Sunday School student from the remaining Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches for miles around!
You know what happens, then? Once the kids start going to Mighty Mountain Mega, their parents follow along.
“Really, Pastor Pitstop,” one of my former congregation told me, “You really ought to hear the ‘Rock ’em! Sock ’em! Skeet Shoot Sermons! He reads a couple of Bible verses in the huge stadium-sized chapel, shouts “Pull!”, whips his shotgun up from the pulpit, blasts two or three clay pigeons that shoot out from the skeet/bell towers, the choir sings a couple of Hallelujahs!, and Minister McMacMack reads some more Scripture. Once, I got a piece of a clay pigeon! Dropped right into my lap! I’ve never felt so close to God!”
It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. People should be more concerned about Christianity, and the ancient principles of our faith. In our case, they reach all the way back to the mid-1800s, when we Padded-Pew Perkmistianists made the complicated theological arguments to put comfort ahead of suffering and provide our pews with pads.
People just don’t care enough, any more. But, I do. If those kids all start going to different Mighty Mountain Mega-churches all over the country, who will be there to make the contributions necessary for my projected pension requirements?
This is serious!
Sincerely,
Pastor Travis T. Pitstop
We certainly believe that Pastor Pitstop has correctly made the proper population projections. If twenty years of Sunday School students disappear, the Padded-Pew Perkmistiantists will have to close. The huge endowment funds, put in place when their denomination broke away from the Plain-Pew Perkmistianists, are gone.
Should Pastor Pitstop hire Youth Minister Cody Cooler away from Mighty Mountain Mega? Could he afford to do so, in his church’s financially weakened condition? Once again, the Protestant denominations have grave theological issues at hand.
