Oil prices fuel fury from the pulpit

Some clergy question the car's role in society as gasoline costs keep some of the faithful away from services.
By Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 17, 2008

Excerpt:
Pastor Matthew Barnett is spending nearly $11,000 a week to power a fleet of aging trucks and buses that ferry members to his megachurch at the historic Angelus Temple in Echo Park.

The buses also are used to give teens in troubled neighborhoods an all-day respite at the church's Dream Center and to deliver food and medical care to the poor. Financial advisors and other church leaders have suggested diverting the money spent on the fleet to a television ministry.

Barnett doesn't think so.

"I know a lot of churches that are folding up their bus ministries, but when you're called to do God's work, you have to weather the hard times," Barnett said. "The way to impact a community is to keep showing up and being consistent. We have to be a positive force, and there's no amount that gas prices can go up to that will stop that." the rest image