A Pastor's Thoughts

America is a great county, a great place and a great idea.  One reason it is great is our constitution.  There are three inalienable rights listed in the constitution.  Inalienable means that these rights cannot be taken away and they cannot be given away.  In other words, Americans are stuck with these three rights.  They are, for review purposes, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness .  The constitution actually says that these three rights are given by God, which means they predate America.  The constitution is only stating what actually is, it is not inventing or creating rights.  These rights, therefore, do not come from the government, at any level and they cannot be taken away by the government, at any level.  This is where government has failed. For the most part, governments are pretty good about not depriving people of their lives.  Apart from the unborn, which is another blog, governments take great pains to ensure there is a valid reason, before they put someone

Every church in America does fund raising.  Some do bake sales, other do car washes and many churches only have their building to use so they rent it out for weddings and funerals and other sacred events.  Most  churches do not charge rent, but accepts donations.  Yet when brownies are being sold, a fixed price is stated, that is usually not the case with building rentals.   Alameda County has a policy for what churches can and cannot do with their building.  I read it and had many others in my congregation read it.  All of us lay people found that it was acceptable to rent our portions of our building for sacred events.  I handed the policy to a lawyer and within 30 seconds he found that the policy clearly stated we could not, under any circumstances, rent out our hall for sacred ceremonies.  Therefore, it is clear that the policy of Alameda County is intentionally vague to trap people into breaking the law.  A small church like ours does not have any lawyers or accountants, we

San Lorenzo Pastor Says County Trying to Shut His Church Down By Jim Knowles CASTRO VALLEY FORUM  08-29-18    A San Lorenzo Baptist minister says the county is trying to take away his church’s tax-exempt status and shut it down to build housing or shops that produce more tax revenue.    Rev. Michael Wilson of Cornerstone Fellowship on Lewelling Boulevard says the county has been harassing him and threatening to take away the church’s tax-exemption. He says he believes that his church has been targeted with inspections by the county’s health and building departments as part of a county plan to force out the church.    “What Alameda County is doing is illegal. Under our Constitution we are allowed to worship freely and at a place of our choice, especially one that has been a place of worship for seven decades,” Wilson says. see CHURCH on page 6    Wilson says he now has two tax bills, totaling $17,000 on his desk. And the county has threatened to sue the church if the b

Recently there was the story of a couple of people who demanded that evil was a make-believe construct to explain complex people.  To prove their point, they got on a plane and went to the middle east.  They then began to bicycle across the desert.  A car drove by the western dressed couple, turned around and ran them over.  The five Muslims in the car then got out and stabbed both people to death and they kept on stabbing.  This is because, the Muslim’s said, they were cleansing the world of unbelievers.   These two people had a radical misunderstanding of how the world works.  They are now dead and they are in torment awaiting final judgment when they will be sent to the lake of fire for all eternity. This is because evil is not make-believe.  Evil is a real thing .  I say thing because it is an action, a belief, a worldview and there are beings who are pure evil in the spirit world.  Today we call them Satan and his demons.  They are all equally evil, because when every mo

Press release Our Church is under fire! The San Lorenzo Baptist Church for the past eight years has been the subject of harassment by Alameda County agencies. They have been doing this by using tactics from different agencies such as threatening removal of tax exempt status because they rent their church six times a year to the Spanish community for quinceanera celebration (this is when a 15-year-old girl is brought under God's care.) This celebration is considered very sacred by the Spanish community. This church is shared by two other Spanish-speaking congregations. Alameda County has used different agencies such as: the building department, health department, sanitation department and the state tax board over the years because they feel the property the church sits on would be better used for housing which would include a higher tax income as suggested by its principles. One example of the Alameda County tactics is when they proposed beautification and improvement on the Le

Today I read that another baker in Colorado was being sued by the Colorado government because this baker would not bake a wedding cake that showed the progressive transformation of the male groom into a female groom, ending with two male figurines on the top of the cake, modified to be wearing wedding dresses.   First we need to understand that no one walked into their shop asking them to do this.  No, tax dollars were spent by the Colorado government, as they did research and found this baker so they could be sued.  In other words, the government wanted to sue someone so they invented someone to sue.  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid and stupid. I read the constitution and the bill of rights and the amendments and the federalist papers and I come to a very basic conclusion.  The government is allowed to make laws at the federal, state, county and city level.  These laws must be in concert.  If these laws are knowable and known, I can know them and I will obey them.  If

Psalm 29 is a song about God’s power and God’s holiness and God’s glory.  It is a song that ascribes or assigns all the proper glory to God.  It is a song of pure praise and worship of the most amazing, powerful, holy and righteous Lord of Lords.  Too often churches today want to focus on the blessings and the prosperity of Christians.  We love to praise God when healing comes, or a job is found or a house is sold, and that is right.  But we also praise God because of his power.  No one else can create a hurricane or a tornado or make the earth quake.  We can figure out how these things happen, maybe, but no human can budge a major fault, no matter how much they try. I was in Santa Cruz in 1989, and witnessed the earthquake first hand.  Initially there was shock and surprise.  Eventually, however, we need to understand that God is glorified in every earthquake, every storm and every weather phenomenon.  God is glorified because God is the only being who can do these things.  We lo

Free speech is a term that is thrown around a lot today, in all sorts of situations.  People accuse Facebook, Apple and Google (YouTube) of stifling free speech.  Recently the conspiracy follower, Alex Jones was removed from Apple podcasts, Spotify podcasts, Google's YouTube and Facebook.  People all over these social media are claiming that this is a slippery slope for free speech. First, we have to define free speech.  Free speech comes from the first amendment to the constitution.  The Constitution is a founding document for America.  The body of the Constitution lists the limits and responsibilities of the federal government.  The Bill of Rights or the first ten amendments to the Constitution list the protections of the people who are living under this federal government.  The first amendment reads like this: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

Alameda County has come against San Lorenzo Baptist Church/Cornerstone Fellowship every two years since 2010.  This last attack started in October of 2017.  Israel Padilla Villafuerte has been the main instigator.  He does not like the fact that we allow other churches to use our church for weddings and other sacred celebrations.  When I ask him specifically what law or policy I am violating, he will say something like, “its not like you are breaking a law, its more like how you are doing it.”  This, of course makes no sense.  Mr. Villafuerte is a government employee with enforcement power to force non-profits to conform to a policy, or get taxed out of existence.  I have asked him dozens of times, over the phone, in letters and face-to-face to tell me what we did wrong so that I can fix it and become compliant.  He refuses.  The latest information is that Mr. Villafuerte has enlisted the county lawyers and the county is now suing our church for fraud and non-compliance to some unknow