Websites

FWOTW: goodnewsofcr.com

161 Comments

This week’s selection of fundy website is goodnewsofcr.com which makes the grade based on its design choices alone.

If that weren’t enough, hosting Chuck Cofty for revival services and taking church trips to PCC affirms their fundy cred. What is a little confusing, however, is their use of an image from the godless Hollywood movie, Back to the Future (wherein is drinking, dancing, cussing, and fornicating of all kinds) to promote their “Future Friday Night” program. They need to come out from among them and be separate, amen?

I’ll leave it to you all to find any particularly interesting content as I am now seeking treatment for burned out retinas.

161 thoughts on “FWOTW: goodnewsofcr.com”

    1. I’ve been reading this site daily for almost a year, I love it, I’m a ReformedFundegelical (Reformed as in Theology). Thought is was time to post, since I was first today.

  2. How many times can you say “Good News Baptist Church” in one paragraph. It’s like a game, come on meow everyone play!

    “Hi my name is Forrest, Forrest Gump, my friends call me Forrest Gump.”

    1. I’ll be honest… er, I mean, serious, for a moment. It’s probably a search engine optimization thing gone horribly wrong. Text that is used prominently on a page contributes to its ranking for searches using that text. They seem to have gotten a little carried away with that, as they seem to have done in many other areas (e.g. color choices).

    2. i should start a church across the street and call it “great news baptist church”

  3. I just took a drink every time I read “Good News Baptist Church”. Having trouble tp0ienangfjal;fj..

  5. When I first read the web address I thought it said goodnewsofer.com and thought ‘somebody can’t spell’. Apparently, I just can’t read. Maybe its just all that red in the image…

    1. Since they’re still preaching against The Beatles, Elvis, and hippie hair I would have to say “no”

  7. Okay, now I’m offended! First thing I looked at was the Caleb Club since I wanted to know what that was… “Caleb Club stands for Christian Association of Loveable Elderly Believers, and is for elderly believers 50 years old and above.” 😯 FIFTY is considered ELDERLY in this church. 🙄 And here I thought 50 was the new 40…not that I’m closing in on 50…yet… 😉

    1. Fifty is old enough to get solicitations from AARP in the mail every week.

      My church never segregated adult Sunday school classes by age, though (nor by marital status, as some seem to do). We prefer to have older and younger people learning from each other.

      1. I get emails from AARP about once a week…and I’m nowhere near 50. haha.

        To be fair to AARP, though, they just classify you as retired, not elderly. Labeling a class that goes down to 50-year-olds as for the “elderly” is a bit much. But then, we all know how much fundies like their acronyms. 😀

    2. I dunno, INT, my mom was in Naples, FL, day before yesterday and she said she could get the senior discount at the shop they were in at the time. The age was 50!

    3. Loveable Elderly Believers? So Cranky, Curmudgeonly Elderly Believers are right out?

      1. Its kinda like the singles class only older!

        Those Calebs haven’t lost that lovin’ feelin’

    4. First thing I clicked on was Super Church because wow that sounded fun… and then it looked like it wasn’t.

  8. I thought only the liberal southern baptists called themselves ‘family friendly.’

  9. What’s with the Good Friday service? Crypto-catholic, anyone? All true Baptists know that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday!!!

  10. The pastor of the church looks like he is 18 years old (which, for IFB churches, is ancient).

    1. I was thinking he’s about 10. I thought maybe he picked the colors on the web site, which would explain a lot.

      1. I thought the same thing. That’s probably why he considers 50 years old to be ELDERLY!!!!! 👿

    2. Some quick math…

      He graduated PCC and spent 4 years at Open Door Baptist Church before taking his own church. The average age of a graduate is about 22, add 4 and you get 26.

      So he started as assistant at approximately age 26 in 2007 and then took over as senior pastor in 2010. Which would having him starting the senior pastorate at about age 29.

      That’s a ripe old age in fundyland.

      1. Apparently 1Timothy 3 was tossed out the window with him. “A bishop should be the husband of one wife”? Or “One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)” he apparently has neither from the staff page…… But he’s the M-O-g, so it’s all good, right? 😯

  11. IDK if it’s just a mac thing, but I’ve tried 3 different browsers (including the native safari), and approx half their webpages (including the home page) have either iframe or table issues, as there is text on top of text, or pics on top of text, and the only way to find what is actually written would be to copy & paste it. Whoever told them they could code basic HTML wasn’t being very honest or putting in any effort on that site.

    1. If you run it through W3C validator it fails horribly. (Non-geeks: this simply means they didn’t know what they were doing when they attempted to code this web page. Of course that’s obviously visually….) Ah.. created in Yahoo SiteBuilder.. there’s your problem

        2. Well, when you change SFL’s background to searing red, let us know so we can start mocking you too! 🙂

      2. I experienced the text on top of text as well, I thought it was cause I was on my itouch….. But apparently not. Super church has some awful picture alignment as well. Anyone know what cms he used?

        1. Apparently yahoo sitebuilder. Am I more embarassed by the fact that two people said that and I apparently missed it or the fact that someone actually created a website with that? Seriously. Just go to wix.com or weebly.com and use those. Apparently they’ve separated enough to not know what those are. Or could it be that they’ve decided yahoo sitebuilder is old enough to be appropriate? Hmmm what an interesting conundrum. 😛

  14. Click on the their missions page and follow the link for Fred and Donna Aljets, the first missionaries listed http://www.aljets.org/ Wayne does not look like he’s on board at all. See below:

    “Since 1993 our team members have included the Eppersons. Working secular jobs, they have worked along with us in many events. Currently, Susan feels called to full time service in children’s ministry. Her husband Wayne fully supports this call and works in the ministry as much as possible.”

    2. Did you see that one of their missionaries was named “Missionary”, with his own field?? I got a laugh out of that.

  16. I just got into web design less than a year ago, and this is just golden. Yahoo! Sitebuilder 2.6, tabular layout, positioning of every last element as absolute as their doctrine. Ever heard of opacity in a banner background image, guys? And is that Old English Text font? Beautiful.

    My favorite part of this post is the tooltip about the church carpet. Spat my coffee laughing on mouseover. 😀

    1. My current church has red carpet and pews but it is a darker red…you know, the color of scabs! :mrgreen:

      Of course, that is MUCH better than a former church of mine that had ORANGE carpet and pews! 🙄

  17. I like the “Ladies Bible Study” on Wednesday mornings from 9:30-10:30… because everyone knows Godly ladies couldn’t possibly have anything to do at that time of the day, like go to work. At my church, only the senior adults (aka retired people) have events/meetings in the mornings. But we’re worldly like that, soooo….

    1. I noticed that as well. I realize I’ve been out of the IFB alternate universe for a while, so holding a women’s Bible study during hours when most people are working probably never gave this church pause. But now, I can’t think of a single event for adults at my church that takes place on a weekday morning. The closest we probably come is an unofficial but well-attended Wednesday morning men’s prayer time at Chick-fil-a, but that wraps up early enough for everyone to get to work.

  18. I’m a little annoyed at how on their statement of faith, the “Bible” section is listed verse, of course holding up the KJV. Why isn’t God, or even salvation first??

    My church’s website is like that. Don’t know why it bugs me so much.

    1. Easterlily, I hate that too. God is completely secondary to the Bible in so many of these churches (and colleges–thinking of a certain creed I was required to recite every single day in chapel).

        1. Say the Nicene Creed or some other great Christian creed under your breath. It was really fun for me 😆

    3. That’s pretty sandard fare, IMO in about any sola scriptura church. Becoming less do, but isn’t that far out of touch, I don’t think. The KJV emphasis is nutso.

    4. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that some churches worship the Bible more than (and instead of) the Lord God.

    5. I’m not sure why GNBC lists the Bible first, but you can make a case for starting off a doctrinal statement with your beliefs on Scripture and inerrancy. After all, our doctrines about salvation and God are derived from the Scriptures, so it does kind of make sense to listen your position on authority and inerrancy first.

        1. Really? That dog don’t hunt.

          Inerrancy gets you a text free of controversy regarding editing, redacting and tampering. Nothing more.

      2. But if God wasn’t God and Jesus Christ didn’t come to save sinners, there would be no Bible as we have it.

        God came before the Bible, you know?

  19. In the “Staff” section (which, incidetally includes ONLY the pastor) click the link to see this guy’s Facebook page. You can’t see his wall, but you can see what questions he’s asked and answered recently. The top of the list? “Is the IFB church a cult?” To which he answered “No.”

    Is it sinful and cruel of me to have answered his question with a “yes” just to stick it to the man? All 17 of his friends answered “no,” and that little, lonely “yes” needed some affirmation.

    2. Maybe if IFBers tried to avoid the appearance of a cult instead of avoiding the appearance of normalcy…

    3. I think whether or not your church is a cult is a question like how handsome and charming you are. It’s best answered by people on the outside, not the person or people concerned.

      1. YES!

        At our old fundy wacko church, everyone on the outside would agree it was very cultish. We couldn’t/didn’t see it. Looking back on it, yup, we can see it.

        Outside-looking-in person has a whole different perspective.

    4. Did you see the picture on his Facebook? He looks a lot older than on the church site. There he looks like a high school student. And on the Facebook pic, he’s laying on the beach with a girl!! The scandal!!!

      1. You’ve got to admit that the lady’s swimsuit is decidedly modest, though.

        My favorite thing on the Facebook page is the under “Activities and Interests,” the first thing listed is “Olive Garden Italian Restaurant.” For realz?

        1. She must’ve attended the fundy camp featured this week so she knows how to dress properly for swimming! The v-neck is a bit low though. I wonder if it passes the four finger rule. 😯

        3. Actually in my fundy college it was the THREE finger rule…FREE’s college must have been liberal, AMEN?

          Anyway, the females place three fingers side by side horizontally on their collarbone and where the 3rd finger ends up, is as low as their neckline can go and still be modest. 🙄

          Did anyone else notice that fourth on his list of likes is “MAGIC JOHNSON”? 😈

        4. He’s listed as an NBA fan, and that’s not unreasonable, Magic was a huge star. IDK if that guy was from Iowa, but Magic is a big star still in Michigan & Northern Indiana and other Michigan State areas as well. Apparently has found a spot where it’s OK to be a sports fan, or has made it OK to be a sports fan.

        5. Somehow I doubt most people would consider BJU overly liberal! In fact, sometimes when I’m out drinking with friends I start telling of the rules and we laugh and get another round! 😀

          My roommates and I had a saying when we saw a girl with what seemed like a low cut blouse. We would say, “Man, that girl has some fat fingers!” 😆

    5. OK, you guys must have done something to get their attention because now the Facebook page is “currently unavailable”. :mrgreen:

    1. Is this church paying royalties on all the copyrighted music, videos, movie bits, etc. on this web site?

    2. I’ve seen those guys in the second vid do an incredibly funny sketch on the Gadarene demoniacs. That video on the other hand made me very uncomfortable. 😯

      2. That definitely is the Skit Guys, who are hilarious as always. I didn’t know fundies knew about the skit guys and they definitely should be separated from them. I know they sell their stuff for part of their livelihood. Some of it is OK to post (I believe they’ve released some), but it’s fairly questionable if they got a license to post that.

        1. For those that don’t know they skit guys, they are incredibly hilarious. One of their non stop gags is that Tommy over does his characters, and will go off script to break Eddie (bald guy), who can’t contain himself and stay in character. They are phenomenal and will leave you in tears both from laughter & just beauty. Both were interns & I think on staff @ Saddleback in their younger days, and if you ever get the chance to see them you really really should. They podcast, but I think you have to have seen them in person to really get it.

  21. maybe darrell should dedicate a week to stuffexfundieslike. “being first” and “bringing up drinking when it doesn’t fit into the converstaion” would be at the top of the list. drinking post fundamentalism must get you a cool card.

    1. Yes, ex-fundies are constantly shoving their drinking in the Weaker Brother’sâ„¢ face. I don’t why they have to be so open about it (it’s like they don’t even think it’s a sin!!) and constantly bringing it up in conversation, like it’s just a normal part of their lives.

      Stuff Ex-fundies Like: good-naturedly making fun of our past selves on SFL. Therapy, dude. 😀

      1. If it helps their ‘ministry’ to use a copyrighted pic to promote their activity it is all good. Remember Fundies are always right and you are always wrong!

    2. that reminds me, the last advertisement that I saw for FBCH’s youth conference had a guy with the UnderArmor logo on his shirt.

      Not sure if that is above-board or not. Probably not.

  24. Oops. Facebook page now says ‘This content is currently unavailable’. What have you done?! javascript:grin(‘:lol:’)

    1. I can still view it. I think you just need to be signed in. We still haven’t put “yes” greater than “no”… Keep working on it. Haha.

  25. Two things I noticed:

    – Their list of “Upcoming Events” is all out of date; it irks me if they cannot keep a list updated properly.

    – The pastor took over last year, but there is nothing anywhere about the previous pastor… bit of a red flag – did he get caught in some heinous sin and get fired (maybe he wanted to change the carpet to blue 😉 )

  27. I liked the newsletter where it said, “Don’t give God your leftovers…put leftovers in the trash where they belong!!!!”

    Umm…as a good, quiverful, fundy PW, I find throwing out leftovers wasteful. 😯 Obviously, a parable gone terribly wrong. 😆

  28. Why, in fundy churches, are they always called “ladies” and not “women”? That’s a question worth pondering.

    1. Fundies like to substitute myth for actual help and compassion.

      In this instance, calling women “ladies” counts for “respect”. This is in place of actually respecting women and treating them as equal with men.

  30. “lovable elders”? This is like when people see a person over 50 lift a box or say something quick witted and the two younglings (30ish) look at each other and say “bless her heart….”
    I will shank the first person to deliver this condescending remark when my time comes, amen?

  32. What on earth does the pastor mean by “We need to get a burden for the 20s and 30s”?

    Sounds like he wants to weigh the poor things down with something. Whatever happened to “His yoke is easy and His burden is light”?

    1. It means their church is skewing old, and he knows he needs more people in their 20s & 30s to come join.

    2. That simply means that they want their people to get a burden to return to the Old Paths of the 1920’s & 1930’s. You know back to the days of Billy Sunday, Mordicai Ham and Bob Jones Sr. (and of course prohibition) Back to where the IFB all get started. 🙄

      1. hey george?
        yeah Don.
        next time why don’t you just use “git.”
        I don’t git it?
        yeah, that’s what I mean, it should have been “Where the IFB all gets started.
        Oh, ok “thats where the IFB all gits started.”
        That’s better, thanks.
        Don’t mention it.

        1. Hey. Will you 2 guys stop. I still have a piece of green bean casserole stuck in me. Please clean me! :mrgreen:

  34. FWIW, I know there’s been a lot of Facebook checking, but twitter is as if not more telling. His tweets are lame (most exciting ones is about Iowa football), but who he follows is hilariously predictable, some big name fundies, others probably just classmate fundies from PCC or where ever. Had tweeted for about a month or 2 in ’09, stopped till this about a month ago, and has 0 followers in IA that I can see. Most of his tweets seem to be inspired by fundies i.e.: “Going soul winning”, or “PCC is so awesome”, etc. The most he’ll let off the fundy act was occassional Iowa football tweets, and absolutely nothing meaningful or revealing in any of them.

  35. When my baby’s walking down the street
    I see red, I see red, I see red.
    How could someone wicked walk around free
    I see red, I see red, I see red.
    I see red, I see red
    (red!), I see red.

  36. “Now how can I get some yung peeple to come to my gud ol’ fashioned church? I know! Get a Twitter account that I don’t use to connect to my community, link my Facebook to the church, and write one blogpost. This will let my college friends know that I am doing stuff for gid!”

    Stuff Fundies Like – thinking using technology in lame ways makes them relevant.

    1. Glutton for punishment. Although being a PCC guy, probably won’t be screaming, but they still have plenty wrong & lots of anger.

    2. I’m feeling another SFL field trip!

      Remember: Bring the kids! They must be in the main service! (make sure you give them an espresso and pixy sticks beforehand)

  38. Off topic, but I just have to say, Darrell you are great, but I just love the comments on SFL!

    Now back to it, guys and dolls! :mrgreen:

      1. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

  40. Score for Darrell.

    They have removed the obnoxious orange and all the juicy links.

  41. The pages are still there, but the links are removed. I read the statement of faith.

    What it does mention:
    1. The Textus Receptus and Masoretic Text
    2. NOT speaking in tongues
    3. “Biblical Seperation”

    What it does NOT mention:
    1. God the Father (outside of his being a member of the trinity)
    2. Inerrancy
    3. Atonement
    4. Repentance
    5. Santification
    6. Election
    7. Church Government

    It seems every IFB church has a different doctrinal statement. When I first considered becoming Southern Baptist, what immediately stood out to me is how more compehensive and explicit the Baptist Faith and Message was than any IFB doctrinal statement I’d ever read. I doubt many IFB pastors could quote the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed. Comparatively few show any knowledge of what they are.

    Despite their rhetoric, it is very obvious that IFBers do NOT care about doctrine. If they did care they’d know it better.

    1. I don’t think PCC teaches Church Government frankly. The Campus Church is such an *f*ed up organizationally they like to not mention the subject (“Preacher” is a mouthpiece for the puppet masters, there is not deacon board, no business meetings, membership is meaningless — no business meetings or say whatsoever, etc, etc).

        1. I used deacon liberally. It’s the terminology I’m most familiar with, but there’s absolutely no input whatsoever from membership. No deacons, no elders, no positions whatsoever for the laity to influence anything about the church or the college.

  42. What happened?? I can’t find any of those links that everyone is talking about?? They are usually the best part…..

    1. We should all tweet him that his website is half down, and we were just starting to have some fun with it! 🙂

    2. if you appened /files to the domain name, you’ll get a directory listing of all the files, and you can kind of browse around for the pages there.

      1. Dang it, that actually is just a files folder, not a root listing of all the files on their website. Nvrmnd.

        1. You can google them and click on cached will get you the links that are still functional, just pulled from the site (apparently).

  43. They’re supporting 3 “Missionaries” to Canada (not including the Canadian Indians), 2 to England, 1 to Wales, and 1 to France. Just totally wasting their $ “evangelizing”places that already have full & complete access to the Gospel. Grrrrr.

    1. Some of our French friends have said the same thing. Why are Americans coming to France to make their own brand of something that already exists and most don’t want? Better yet, how in heck do they fool everyone to give them money so they can not work and vacation in France? I guess insert a lot of other countries in there and it would be the same.

  44. Okay, I was trying to be nice… But…. Ya’ll know that I do hair as my occupation, and I do they “flip in the front” style for many a male client, and most of them can wear the style and look great with it.

    BUT.

    I’m afraid…

    Yeah.

    😉

  45. May the HTML gods have mercy. Every last element on that page is an absolutely-positioned div (which is why thing are overlapping all over the place); the line breaks are hard-coded BR tags; and is it just me? I can’t find a single blessed hyperlink on the entire page. I can’t navigate anywhere. I have this pimply-faced kid staring at me and I can’t change what’s on the page. THERE ARE NO LINKS. ANYWHERE. How are the rest of you guys navigating around the page? Seriously – I’ve tried in both Firefox and Safari on my Mac and it’s nothing but text, no interactivity whatsoever.

    I’m sorry – I sometimes give passes to churches because they don’t have money and a lot of older fundy churches just don’t have anyone in their church that they can guilt into making a decent website. But this…the only way to describe this abomination is “half-assed.” There are some badly-designed sites; this is so bad it’s off-putting. Do they not realize this? How can they look at this site and think, “Yup, that’s acceptable!” I’d sooner not have a website than have this representing my church.

    1. You have to use a cached page, they apparently took it down. Have to assume they got wind of being mocked.

      1. I just went there and got the home page… but that vibrant red background was gone! Phew! Now I don’t have to go around looking like this: 😯

      2. Which once again shows the IFB is a network. Or there are a bunch of spies. Or both. I mean, really. How in the world did a small church out in IA (apparently filled with people over 39) get wind of this website and the fact it’s being mocked?

        1. Referrer logs. When I checked it out in Firebug I noticed that it was sending the referring site URL to their servers.

          I must have commented here while they were in takedown mode because there are actual links on the cached copy.

  46. … This is a church I atended back in the day.. It is funny reading the comments, I agree with most of them lol but they try their best to reach the community for God, but the truth is, when things are always half a**ed then it is deserved that this would happen. 😐

  47. …so persecuted they the prophets which came before you. Rejoice when you are persecuted for righteousness sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven. Matt.5:11

  48. Holy Moly they took the entire site down?

    I’m getting a blank white page when I click through to their home directory (the link).

  50. He was probably pastor for so long because nobody else wanted the job title of,”Leader of the Cult”.

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