OC megachurch pastor asks for urgent donations

[ccharles000]

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- Evangelical pastor Rick Warren appealed to parishioners at his Orange County megachurch Wednesday to help fill a $900,000 deficit by the first of the year.

Warren made the appeal in a letter posted on the Saddleback Church Web site. It begins "Dear Saddleback Family, THIS IS AN URGENT LETTER."

"With 10 percent of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated," the letter reads.

Still, Warren said the church managed to stay within its budget, but "the bottom dropped out" when Christmas donations dropped. "On the last weekend of 2009, our total offerings were less than half of what we normally receive - leaving us $900,000 in the red for the year," the letter reads.

"It's basically having to do more with less," church spokesman A. Larry Ross said. "The seasonal Christmas offering was down significantly and, commensurately, the need for services the church is expected to provide is up," Ross said.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/12/31/general-us-rel-rick-warren-donations_7244003.html

[CreekDog]

1. Megapastor?

:hide:

[Initech]

4. To quote Jon Stewart:

"Megachurches. I cant be the only one frightened when our houses of worship sound like they could take on Godzilla."

[muntrv]

2. Suck it up, Ricky!

[Initech]

3. I'll give him 900,000 of these:

Fuck you Rick Warren.

[salguine]

5. Burying your church in crushing debt is Jesus' way of saying you're an asshole.

[TokenQueer]

8. Lol.

:spray:

[SoCalDem]

6. send him a penny..taped to a pizza coupon

:)

[NMMNG]

7. "Services"

Is that what he's calling it now?

[Dappleganger]

9. Will Warren cash in some of his 401k savings to bail them out?

That's what we had to do in our family and we didn't ask NOBODY for a freaking DIME.
If he really believes that Jesus was a servant then ol' Rick needs to pony up and break his personal piggy bank.

[walldude]

10. Makes you wonder just how much they were expecting

in donations. They only got half and they are short almost a million dollars?

[chollybocker]

11. His team of accountants can ascertain that his debt is

exactly $900,000. Yet they still have trouble filling out tax returns?

[jmm]

12. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. (n/t)

[CreekDog]

13. That's a lot of pork rinds

:D

[ccharles000]

15. lol

[Ocracoker16]

14. funny how he mentions caring for OUR community

He doesn't care about helping needy people. The mission work he does in Africa is such a total scam. He should not be able to get tax exempt status for handing out copies of his book translated into Rwandan.