…to support his kids’ school! And since it’s also my kids’ school, I share that same goal.

Just like last year, The Cambridge School is having a super-raffle. No macrame plant-holders or peanut-butter-coconut cream pies here; this raffle has 50 prizes, ranging from $100 all the way up to a 3-year lease on a BMW 528i. Accordingly, tickets are $25 each. To sweeten the pot, the raffle imposed a cap of 5000 tickets, so each ticket has a 1/100 chance of winning some prize, and if fewer tickets are sold, then the chances of winning are commensurately better.

The early-bird drawing has already occurred (Nov 6), and the grand prize drawing is coming up fast (Dec 5), and coming up even faster is the deadline for purchasing tickets: 4pm (Pacific), Dec 2. It is possible to print out a form, and fax it with a credit card number for instant purchase; or you still have a day or two to mail a check and have it arrive on time.

So please help out a good cause and buy a ticket or four. I wish you good luck providence!

Rube Comes East!

Outhouse contributor RubeRad has finally decided to take a pilgrimage to the land of his fathers and America’s golden city of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy and piety. Yes, he’s coming to GRusalem (or “Little Geneva” or whatever other name you may have for Grand Rapids, MI). To mark this historic event, The Confessional Outhouse will have a dinner and beverage meet-up at a local tavern. This is open to all Outhouse contributors, commenters, fans, lurkers and contrarians that happen to be nearby. If you are reading this and will be in the Grand Rapids area on Thursday, July 16 2009, you are invited to come and enjoy food, spirits, and a lively discussion. How exciting. Please R.S.V.P. in the comment section so we can get a estimated head-count. Must be 21 (unless you bring a parent). Here are the details:

What? The Confessional Outhouse 2K9 Symposium.

Where? At the HopCat in Downtown Grand Rapids. 25 Ionia Ave SW.The corner of Ionia and Weston, one block east of the VanAndel Arena. MAP

When? Thursday, July 16 at 6:00pm. Arrive when you can, leave when you must.

Questions? Ask them below.

We go Dutch (separate checks).

Hope to see you there. BYOTP.

A friend of mine at church is a Baker blue-blood. He has given me some scoop on an author event Baker Bookhouse will be hosting:

On Thursday, March 26 at 7 PM Michael Horton will be plugging Christless Christianity. Baker will be discounting authors’ books by 20%. There is no fee, seating is first come, first served and in the music department at the East Paris store. (I believe this will just before the Philadelphia Conference at Byron Center CRC.)

The Confessional Outhouse again finds itself behind on the cool blog trends. I just discovered Wordle a week ago and have been trying to get my Java Script updated for the past few days to get this thing to work. So here are a couple of (late) Outhouse Wordles:

‘Good Time’ Graffiti (LINK):

The whole blog (LINK):

I really don’t understand why my name appeared so prominently*. I wish ‘lapsed’ or ‘Episcy’ would have shown up. Maybe we’ll get a better one if we try it again some other time.

*Edit: It just occured to me that the ‘Rick’ is probably Rick Warren.

Let’s have some Friday fun.

Best caption wins 5 Outhouse bucks to spend at the Outhouse store. Void where prohibited.

BTW, that’s Barack Obama.

BTW#2, that’s the Wailing Wall

Last night I attended a live taping of WHI, and was this close to presiding OHS Horton, OHS Clark (subbing for OHS Riddlebarger), and hosting pastor OHS Hyde. I loved every minute, and even my Reconstructionist buddies (frequenters of the Outhouse will know that I roll with Kazooless and Ron Smith) were able to look past their distaste for 2K enough to agree that Selling Jesus: Consumerism and Market Values in the Church is not a good thing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to press the flesh with any of the luminaries (and the post-event Irish pub hangout was a wash, as the pub was already at capacity before 100 Calvinists attempted to swarm in). I do have a new post brewing, inspired partly by the event, but for now I just wanted gloat to the non-West-Coast-based Outhouse Sitters in a timely fashion.

[UPDATE] If anybody that was there can help me track down the Nathan Hatch quote(s) that Clark read at the very beginning, I’d appreciate it.

[UPDATE²] Nathan Hatch, Democritization of Religion in America, pp 3-4, in case you want to read ahead.

Please offer your suggestions for a great tagline.