Until today.

The Tim Hortons Fathers Day promotion was well advertised, and was promising to be quite the deal.

Starting at 2 pm today, 2300 Tim Hortons across Canada were selling a Tassimo brewer and a carton of Tim Hortons variety pack coffee for 40.00. (With tax 45.20 – still awesome).  Each Timmy’s was supposed to have about 40 brewers/packs.  That is a deal, given the Tassimo T46 brewer sells for $130.00 retail my area.

Right now the main Tim Horton website is down, a message on Tim Horton’s FB page tells customers to use RedFlagDeals to read about this promotion.

There has to be thousands of angry and disappointed Canadians such as myself, every few seconds another one piles on FB. This was one of the most poorly anticipated, poorly communicated and poorly executed promos I have had the misfortune to try to take advantage of.

I expect line ups – but to have locations giving out tickets two hours prior to 2 pm, having employees also have to take advantage of a customer promotion….really bad idea. Frustrated customers who stood in line,  weren’t told about the tickets etc., don’t need to see employees carrying Tassimos to their cars, only to find out there are no more units available.

I commend Tim Hortons for including employees in this promotion – but not at the expense of customers who came early, waited patiently, only to find out they couldn’t even get a ticket. When a location is technically out of a promotion prior to the 2 pm starting time, you can’t blame even patient  and loyal customers for being frustrated.

I’ve filed a complaint with Tim Hortons and with Bosch (not their fault if they had 40 units at 2300 locations), but the bottom line is, pffft.  I’m not so loyal any more.

Apologies to my readers, as a grinding schedule at work has kept me busy. But, that said, I have some “stop press” type items to pass on.

1) Faytene Grasseschi’s big pro-life march on Ottawa appears to have finished–at least her part of it anyways–on May 13, I am guessing per what I read on her Twitter feed. Quite low key, compared to the beginning of the walk, as I see a lot more references to the plans and the start than what happened.

No doubt the pro-life participants got a lot out of the march, from their point of view. May we hear more?

2)On her Twitter feed on May 29, the day that Dr. Henry Morgentaler die, she wrote Emphasis mine:

Faytene Grasseschi
?@Faytene

Father or abortion in Canada, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, just died. Praying for many to come to know Jesus at his funeral. #comfort #salvation

(No doubt my pro-choice Christian readers will find this interesting to parse. )

3. The mini-Faytene’s play to be active at the federal Conservative party convention. A motion on “gendercide”–remember the attempts at private member’s motions in the House of Commons–will be presented at the convention for party members to make party policy, possibly. Says the My Canada e-mail from late last wee [emphasis theirs]k:

If you are attending the convention and would be open to being a part of a team that would work together strategically on the ground to pass the resolution please let us know ASAP. We would be happy to work with you.

At the last Conservative Policy Convention two MY Canada volunteers were instrumental in seeing the passing of the unborn victims of violence resolution and had a tremendous impact. We would love to see that happen again.

Lots of Charisma issues with the Faytene cover story are available from MY Canada, by the way. They can send some to you.

Catherine has been able to tap into the marvel of social networking to align advocates and survivors together for projects that are having a global impact. Catherine is much sought after by ministries and organizations that see she is passionately aware of the needs of abuse survivors in faith-based environments. She has a passion to see faith communities rise to their God-given responsibility to acknowledge and care for the needs of those wounded.

Catherine helped start the Facebook group for Prairie Bible Institute abuse survivors.

You’d think, given her skills and her polite Canadian approach to PBI leadership, that asking to befriended by a FB group called Friends of PBI wouldn’t be a problem. Since Prairie Bible Institute went to national media in 2011, Catherine has been reaching out to PBI President Mark Maxell and his family members involved with the Alberta bible school. She is a bridge builder, and wants to help PBI alumni understand why PBI survivors aren’t giving up.

When I talked with Mark Maxwell, I mentioned that I felt it was important for me to be able to gain access to group members in order to clear up any misunderstandings, and allow members to ask me questions if they wish. He emailed me a couple of weeks ago to see if I had reconnected with Ruth, and if I had been given permission to join the group. The reasons for banning me make no sense whatsoever!

Friends of PBI, are not interested in befriending Catherine, or any PBI abuse survivors. While I wouldn’t bother trying to be part of a group which does not want anything to do with me, I admire Christians like Catherine who honour their calling as teacher and peace maker.

Since the end of 2011, many PBI alumni have had great difficulty acknowledging abuse occurred at their bible school, and many have been aggressive and passive aggressive in their opposition to PBI abuse survivors.  You’d think someone as skilled and as experienced as Catherine would not be a threat, and her peace making skills would be welcomed as encouraging and positive. Nope.

…the administrators have decided that it’s not in the best interest of the group as a whole to have you join our conversation. We don’t mean to offend; however, please understand that we have observed a history over two years in which you and others have joined “general-purpose” FB groups and dominated them with discussions around abuse, be they PBI-related or otherwise. This has typically led to some unhelpful hostility on both sides and resulted in good people leaving the groups previously enjoyed by all. While we believe that the topic of abuse is a very important one and is deserving of FB group time, it’s not the purpose of this particular group. We would say the same to someone who was “taking over” the discussion about any other particular passion, be it homeless in Chicago or AIDS in Africa. We affirm your passion to bring healing to abused people but suggest that instead of bringing that to this group, that you continue to do so in groups that exist for that express purpose and for an audience that share that same passion.

Amy Smith is a courageous woman, who attends a SBC church and who is also the Houston director of S.N.A.P. For years she has been pointing out how SBC churches neglect their responsibilities in reporting paedophiles, protecting children, and SBC failures in ministering to abuse survivors. Her stand has cost her.

And it is costing her again.

Amy and her husband Matt have never named the church they attend on her blog, Watch Keep. Until yesterday.

A pastor at our church of almost 18 years, Houston’s First Baptist Church, has told me and my husband this week that it’s for the best that we step down from serving there, teaching in the youth ministry, since we don’t see what I’m doing is a problem, like he does:..

I want to be clear. The post doesn’t say the pastor demanded the Smiths discontinue in leadership. The post doesn’t say he directly asked that they step down from volunteering in ministry, he just did what he needed to do to steer them in that direction. Why?

The Houston First Baptist Church lead pastor (who is also the President of the SBC Pastors Conference) saw her blog. Particularly, the May 23rd entry:

The SBC annual meeting is June 11-12 in Houston. The SBC pastors’ conference is June 9-10, same place. Jack Graham, pastor of megachurch Prestonwood Baptist Church and former, two-time SBC president, is a featured discussion panel leader on the topic of “leadership.” We are planning an awareness event outside the convention to stand for those abuse survivors who don’t have a voice or whose voices are being callously ignored by pastors and leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention.

You can read Amy’s post about the phone call and her husbands meeting with this pastor, and what S.N.A.P. is planning for the awareness event outside the convention. I’ll wait.

About the last 10 minutes of their meeting was a discussion of us stepping down from teaching. Doug brought this subject up. He told Matt, “Amy told me yesterday that she is stepping down, and I told her we should think about it. But I have been thinking about it overnight, and I think it’s for the best that she step down.”

To that my husband asked “Why?” Doug said, “You don’t see it as a conflict?”

Doug never once told me or my husband that he wanted us to keep serving in the youth ministry.

That’s not the way of the Jesus I know, love and serve. He called out sin, wrongdoing and corruption among his own followers.

No where in the post did I read that the Smiths stated they were asked to step down. I know I said that already, but, if you think this approach by leadership being made public wasn’t going to be protested by  Houston First Baptist Church, you’d be wrong.

Associated Baptist Press picked up the story of the pastors approach, and the decision of the Smiths to step away from youth ministry in their home church. This is the statement from Doug Bischoff, the pastor who put the pressure on the Smiths.  It’s all the Smiths fault, they ‘misinterpreted’ him:

When I spoke with Amy and then with Matt, I expressed that we as a church are not — nor have we ever been — against them personally, their organization or their mission to protect children,” he said. “Houston’s First Baptist Church takes very seriously the safety and well-being of the children who attend our church, and we hope and pray that other churches — of all denominations –are doing the same. We applaud Amy for her dedication to SNAP and the survivors whom they serve.”

Bischoff said he did not ask them to resign from their position as teachers in the student ministry, but they suggested during conversations that he did. “The resignation from ministry was at Amy’s insistence,” he said.

Oh. Gotta love the spin.  Why did he call the Smiths about the blog and his concerns about ‘conflict’ if there wasn’t an agenda by First Baptist Houston? How stupid does church leadership think people are?

It gets even more interesting. Amy Smith received a call from Houston Police later in the week. (Shades of Chris Tynes and Prestonwood?) Amy Smith:

Also, did someone at HFBC or the SBC alert the Houston police department and give them my name and number as well as David Clohessy’s, our national director? I got a voicemail today from an officer in the HPD criminal intelligence division stating he was calling to find out if SNAP is planning a protest or rally next week at the SBC.

S.N.A.P. holds quiet, off site, respectful small protests, holding up pictures of abuse victims and speaking to people who chose to speak to them. This is a well known, professionally run national US organization, not thugs or threats to the SBC status quo. I’d bet the farm the SBC phoned the Houston Police Department, and I won’t hold my breath waiting to be proven wrong. If I am wrong, it will be duly noted.

Houston First Baptist cannot deflect this into ‘misinterpreting’, but they are trying, sending their ‘communications director’ to the Associated Baptist Press article.

Oh. I am going to say this again. No where in Smith’s post does she say she was asked to resign.  I think that is what her friends and colleagues at her church will be told behind her back. I think that is what will circulate at the SBC convention. It’s called spin, deliberate and wilful deflection. Houston First Baptist  is not a misunderstood institutional victim here. This is an attempt to marginalize and discredit and sadly, once again, the SBC will probably be successful.

Below is a pic of  S.N.A.P.  at the 2007 SBC Convention

The take away for anyone reading Amy’s post, the ABP story and the Houston First Baptist Church  comments?

You tell me.  Here is what I hear, “If you defend abuse survivors, if you point out the SBC lack of national  policies on abuse, if you raise awareness publicly, you are in conflict with your home church and the SBC. Good of you to step down, glad you see it our way…”

Keep speaking up Amy.

S.N.A.P. statement

Update:

This resolute group of three is who Houston Police were called about (probably by First Baptist Church Houston leadership). S.N.A.P protest outside the Southern Baptist Convention. This comment at The Wartburg Watch gives me a bit clearer picture about why Amy Smith’s pastor at Houston First Baptist Church would ask one of his underlings to put pressure on Amy and her husband to stop volunteering at their church.

Convention attendees passed a non-binding resolution on reporting of child abuse to law enforcement.  As well, an amendment to the resolution sent a covert but strong rebuke to Southern Baptist friends of Sovereign Grace Ministries founder CJ Mahaney.

It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor [oppressed] than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:19

A powerful response to neo-reform leaders in the US, who prefer to promote CJ Mahaney of Sovereign Grace ministries, than to fulfil their calling. Thank you Thad Norvell:

When shepherds refuse or fail to live humbly among the people – when leaders are consumed by agendas (however noble those agendas may be) other than caring for the community of God’s people “like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thes. 2:7) – when pastors are inaccessible, unapproachable, or just too busy to listen to and know their people…these are not secondary ecclesial breakdowns. They are an abandonment of primary pastoral calling that signals a stunning disconnect from the evangelical ethos Jesus declared (Matt. 22, Jn. 13) and prayed into being (Jn. 17) and that John affirmed as central to Gospel identity (1 Jn. 3).

Our zeal and skill for expanding the doctrine of the Gospel simply cannot obscure or replace our humble submission to life in the crucible of the Gospel’s work — the community that the Gospel creates where the greatest become least and the last become first. (And if that does not mean that the vulnerable, the weak, and the exasperating folks in our churches get at least as much attention from us as our successful friends and heroes, I do not know what it means.)

The Church is not first and foremost an audience for our sermons and our books; it is the people of God among whom we are our real selves. If we live above or apart from that Church in any way, our doctrines and words about the Gospel become theory and conjecture, not a testimony to a truth we know by experience.

Rachel Held Evans, Boz Tchividjian, Zach Hoag, Matt B. Redmond, David Clohessy

via: Spiritual Sounding Board
Hall of Shame Together for the Gospel, The Gospel Coalition

Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor, D.A. Carson, CJ Mahaney

Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues. Proverbs 17:28

Update: The Southern Baptist Convention passed a non-binding amended resolution, which looks like a public rebuke against Mohler.

10:05 a.m. — Messengers passed an amended resolution “On Sexual Abuse of Children.” A first amendment asks that SBC leaders and employees practice the highest level of discernment in affiliating with groups or individuals that possess “questionable” policies and practices in protecting children against sexual abuse. A second amendment asks that churches report “any accusation” of child sexual abuse.

This is something that BDBO readers already know, but Douglas Todd of The Vancouver Sun reminds us of something interesting on his blog.

He’s reporting on the Bridging the Secular Divide: Religion and Public Discourse conference at McGill University earlier this week and what struck his interest was that there were several progressives there:

Liberal MP John McKay, NDP MP Joe Cromartin and former NDP leadership hopeful Bill Blaikie, a United Church minister, said it was discouraging to realize many of their own party members thought it was bad to bring a Christian perspective into politics.

The Liberal and NDP politicians cited the profound Christian convictions of NDP founders Tommy Douglas and J.S. Woodsworth, the Catholicism of Pierre Trudeau and Paul Martin and all made references to Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister.

Thanks to Mr. Todd for the notice and the reminder. In his post he quotes a book by former NDP MP Bill Blaikie, which speaks to all this.

40 year old Malcolm John Fraser is also the Development Officer at WinePress Publishing, a business connected with Sound Doctrine Church.

Background here and here.

The Enumclaw Courier-Herald:

Fraser had been charged with two counts of first-degree child rape and two counts of first-degree molestation. The case involved a girl who was 11 when the incidents took place; she is now 18. The incidents occurred in the girl’s home, while Fraser was living with her family.

The jury found Fraser guilty on all counts.

Updated and detailed report.

Last week, what we could define as Todd Bentley’s travelling circus hit the road.

Starting on May 15, the Bentley revival moved from the Durban area to the “Pretoria Show Grounds” in South Africa. I find that interesting in that the Durban meetings seemed to have lasted about the same amount of time as the well publicized part of the “Lakeland revival”.

Any longer in Durban and it may run out of steam and there would be time for people in the Durban area to notice it and give it a careful examination? Who can say?

My guess is that their “fair grounds” would be like holding the revival at the PNE or the Canadian National Exhibition, which seems a little ironic.

{Bentley has followed up his announcement of the move on the 9th with another anouncement that we are in the midst of “Another Pentecost”, writing:”We don’t need to prophesy any more about a coming healing revival or about a coming harvest; we are already in the season of harvest at the end of the age more souls will be saved than ever before.” No pressure, Todd. No pressure at all.]

Wendy Alec, of GOD TV fame, has chimed in with what looks like another prophetic word channeling “God”. “In case you were not paying attention the first time, THUS SAITH THE LORD”?

Todd Bentley sent it out April 30. I’ll be quoting it in the comments for future reference, but one part, directed at Todd personally, really rubbed me the wrong way:

It reads:

“…For my son beloved son,

Do you not realize I knew when I birthed you all those years ago? I knew when Lakeland was aborted; I saw this very day.”

It is bothersome in that “God” is seeing Lakeland” as something that was living and perfect that would have been born and prospered if we would have let that take place. And there is so much evidence to the contrary, which I am sure that my readers are well aware of.

Wendy Alec as carnival barker? Perhaps….

via: Spiritual Sounding Board

Update: The plaintiffs plan to appeal. I need to clarify that two of the plaintiffs are not bound by the Maryland statute of limitations which got this tossed. The law states that a person has 3 years after turning 18 to file a civil suit.

Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nighmares episode  Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro  aired recently in the US. It was the first time Ramsay walked away from a restaurant.

The battle spilled onto the internet. Buzzfeed has details, as does Ragans PR Daily.

The owners of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro, unhappy with reviews on Yelp and comments on Reddit, started battling back on their Facebook page. Then this:

Uh huh.

Forbes: Lessons from Amy’s Baking Company: Six Things You Should Never Do On Social Media

KPHO TV: Restaurant owners slammed on national TV speak out

Plaintiff lawyer Bill O’Neil May 16, 2013 Janet Mefferd Show (starts at 7 minute mark)

WJLA: Plaintiffs and lawyer Susan Burke