The Christian faithful are being encouraged to attend special seminars while on a cruise in the Caribbean, Mediterranean and the Pacific aboard luxury liners. It's a kind of "meet the Lord on the Lido Deck” moment. According to one of the brochures, you can get intensive leadership training, worship training, apostolic instruction and prophetic insights "without the normal pressures of daily life and the familiar surroundings of the home church.”

Another brochure reads, "Throughout your cruise with us, attentive cabin stewards provide discreet, unobtrusive service replenishing ice and arranging fruit, turning down beds and delivering pillow chocolates. Anticipating your every wish, our gracious crew members dedicate themselves to providing you the best...” As an "out of church” guy, the idea of luxury (Luxurious: definition. 1. lecherous - 2. Marked by or given to self indulgence.) and religious training cohabitating seemed incongruous. But I suppose with no viable alternative even the most ascetic among us would have a hard time turning down those pillow mints and iced diet Pepsis.

What we need here is another option more in the stream of real spirituality, yet keeping with the theme of getting away from the routine and pressure of daily life and the familiarity of the local church. I want to help people dodge the bullet of self-indulgence, which seems the main focus of luxury liners, and be able to truly have a life-changing experience. Now of course, to keep us on an even spiritual keel and economically conservative, we would have to forego expensive "face time” with religious celebrities, those who ride free on our collective dime. They may still want to join us, but I doubt it. That unobtrusive service and those seafood buffets for free might be hard to resist, but such delectable perks wouldn't be part of my alternative solution.

So what is the alternative to the luxury cruise? It is " Go Greyhound”, or as an urban friend of mine called it, "ridin' the dog”.

One cruise in particular caught my attention: "Join our prophetic Cruise Team on Holland America to the Caribbean.” Why do we need a prophetic team on a luxury liner of notable predictability? Instead, the team might want to reconsider their Caribbean adventure. On the cruise ship everything is already scripted. There isn't much need for them, since the folks that run these ships pride themselves in having taken care of all the details. Maybe they are there for other reasons.

But for sure they would be needed on the 'Dog. There most of the passengers are living lives of notorious unpredictability. On the 'Dog, you'd be ridin' with the folks that turn down your sheets, those minimum wage people trained in discretion and unobtrusive service. The housekeepers, bus boys, short order cooks and janitors. The invisible people. They could use a bit of prophetic assurance, and you could use a bit of prophetic practice, away from the predictable, the vain, and the pretentious. Isn't that what drives most people to escape the familiar surroundings of their local church?

I remember ridin' the 'Dog many years ago. I met a man on his way to a VA hospital. He was in a foul humor, drinking from a bottle in a brown bag. We were across the aisle from each other.

"You know you lay down your life for your country, and what do you get?” His voice rose. Before I could answer, he continued. "I'll tell you what you get, you get this piece of sh*t.” From down around his right side