When I started writing this blog Charlie Sheen had a total of 798,947 followers. His first tweet ever was only 16 hours prior to writing this post. That is about 50,000 followers per hour. All the news is about him, everyone at the gas station, grocery store, and work is talking about him.

I remember one time when a house was on fire in my neighborhood. My neighbor came over and knocked on the door to tell me. What did I do? Did I thank them and then shut the door and go back to watching television? Absolutely not, I spent the next three hours...

It is scary of the amount of jobs that are being lost in the past 4 months. American job loss has accelerated at an alarming rate, especially at the end of 2008, and 2009 is keeping the trend strong. Pastor friends of mine has experienced this. I spoke to one pastor luckily enough, who's church administration chose a 5% reduction in pay for all staff instead of having to let go of great leaders. His comment to me was, "We couldn't think of trying to decide who is 'it' to let go. Ministry is what we do and our life is designed to love others. We couldn't even think to have to let someone go."

However there are a couple other churches in Arizona, megachurches, who are on their second and third job cuts. This takes a huge toll on the emotional and spiritual climate of a church.

Having the largest job loss at a level higher than that of the last six decades for America as a whole is a tough reality. There is an implosion in the job market and Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute says,"We're seeing a complete unraveling of the labor market and are on track for getting beyond 10% unemployment."

This WILL affect the church. In multiple ways:

• Those needing help and the church being a help financially.[This definitely will be a larger topic in the near future for the church response to this issue]
• The church not being able to 'afford' to keep staff or able to keep paying staff as they are currently being payed.
• The churches ability to pour money into evangelistic efforts.
• The ability for children, students, and even adults in participating in events that costs money. [Blog to come to discuss how do we do ministry less expensive but still good]
• Families that have one or no parents that are working. They will need groceries and clothing for their families. How does the church respond?