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Welcome to Maple Mudpuddle Community Church

The Pastor at Maple Mudpuddle Community Church answers questions in response to a petition that circulated in the town of Maple. They were accused of discrimination:

Q: I guess what people are asking themselves is why Maple Mudpuddle Community Church would be anti anybody?

A: Maple Mudpuddle Community Church is not anti-anybody.

Q: Is the Mudpuddle an affirming and accepting community of faith?

A: Our church was founded on the idea that people matter to God. All people. All people of all backgrounds, all colors, ethnicities, and sexual orientation. The mat at every door on this campus has always read “Welcome.” And since the Mudpuddle  was a wee little droplet, we have flung the doors of this campus open to the widest array of humanity I have ever witnessed in the global ocean of Christiandom. And thousands–tens of thousands–have come to learn the teachings of Jesus. So to suggest that we ask anyone to check any kind of issue or sin at our solid doors is simply not true. And to answer your question, yes, we are an accepting and affirming community.

Q: How do you and the folks at Mudpuddle come to terms with ‘love the sinner, hate the sin‘?

A: Just ask the hundreds of greedy generosity-challenged consumers who attend our church every week. Now what is true is that we challenge the greedy and the non-greedy to live out the financial ethics taught in the Scriptures–which encourages a generosity-lifestyle between the poor and the wealthy in the context of community and prescribes greed-abstinence for the greedy as well as continued non-consumerism purity for everybody else who isn’t already greedy.

Q: That must be hard. How could you ever manage to monitor the lifestyles of all those people at the Mudpuddle?

A: Even as we challenge all of our people to these biblical standards, we do so with grace-filled spirits, knowing the confusion and brokenness that is rampant in our fallen consumer-driven world. And at Mudpuddle we honor the journey of everyone who is sincerely attempting to follow Christ. So it’s unfortunate that we could not have explained this to those pro-greed activists with their consumerism agenda who called us anti-greed and started this petition.

Q: Do you and your people at Maple Mudpuddle ever buy Starbucks coffee?

A: I don’t see how that has anything to do with this.

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