I have friends in Houston, and when I get to the work email there will be a quick note to them. If they can get it: I have visited them and this is normally a street.

Houston is flooding. No city expects the kind of rain that it has now: usual hurricanes they can handle. If we get 20 -30 cm of rain in 24 hours we flood: they have had 100 cm a day for days on end. But consider what to do.

This is a time for those places on dry ground to open their doors. For redundancy. For people to sleep in the nave and unflooded crypts.

For generosity. Some rich churchians do not get this.

Televangelist Joel Osteen canceled services at his Houston megachurch Sunday and has yet to reopen its doors — despite the fact that thousands of flooded-out residents are desperately seeking shelter.

The perpetually smiling pastor told followers on Twitter on Monday to lean on their faith.

“Jesus promises us peace that passes understanding,” he wrote. “That’s peace when it doesn’t make sense.”

But Osteen’s comforting words didn’t sit well with critics, who want to know why the doors to his 16,800-seat arena at his Lakewood Church near downtown Houston are closed.

“You have taken so much money away from your people to live like a king,” entertainment publicist Danny Deraney blasted. “It’s the least you could do.”

Washington, DC-based writer Charles Clymer tweeted pictures of Lakewood Church, which did not appear to be damaged by floods.

“It doesn’t make sense why you’re not opening up your mega church to house Houston citizens, help me understand that. Jesus,” according to Florida-based writer Emily Timbol.

While the church and its arena have not suffered any flood damage yet, ministry spokesman Donald Iloff said their property is inaccessible because of surrounding waters.

And it makes no sense to open church doors when the city and county are already treating thousands of flood victims at the nearby George R. Brown Convention Center, according to Iloff.

Worship in a time of flood is not preaching. It is firing up the kitchen, making soup, and filling sandbags. You can clean up the church once the people have homes they can return to. But now we should be doing charity from our churches. For they are not ours, but Christ’s.

And our worship of Christ is costly.

Mark 14:1-11

¹It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; ²for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

³While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. ⁴But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? ⁵For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. ⁷For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. ⁸She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. ⁹Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

¹⁰Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. ¹¹When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

There are many who consider the business case for their church and urge caution. I believe that is an error in this time. We are under attack. We must do good, for we are commanded to act out our faith. We cannot sit by.

Besides, our churches can and will destroyed. The Muslims are doing this where they can: and the church burnings continue in the USA… and are not unknown in New Zealand.

The large cross in the field next to a Marlboro Township church is wrapped in crime scene tape.

Marlboro Township police and fire personnel remained at St. Nikolai Orthodox Church, 9831 State St. NE in Louisville, most of the morning as they, along with the Ohio Fire Marshal’s office, looked for leads into who attempted to burn down this two-year-old church.

Crews were dispatched to the church around 8:26 a.m. Sunday for the fire, after Father Mikel Hill had arrived to prepare the building for that morning’s service and was greeted by the smell of fuel and smoke.

According to Marlboro Township Fire Chief Matt Anstine, a broken window on the back side of the building was used to gain entry. Most of the blaze was out with crews tackling some hot spots, but a haze of smoke remained, he said.

Marlboro police chief Ron Devies said that there was evidence that diesel and propane may have been used as accelerants. He estimates that the blaze had been set shortly before 6 a.m., which would have been 3 1/2 hours before the liturgy service was scheduled to begin, according to the bulletin discovered on the church’s website.

“Whoever did this definitely wanted to send a message to this congregation,” Devies said, adding that while it is too early for a damage estimate, the facility suffered water, fire and accelerant damage. Devies said that he is unsure if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Church Task Force may take interest in this particular case.

Parishoners of this church moved into the facility two years ago, when Orthodox church bishops in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania acknowledged the need for a pan-Orthodox church in this area. Less than four years earlier, the bishop of the Bulgarian Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America had blessed the church’s future site, five acres of the neighboring Rainbows End Farm.

The St. Nikolai Orthodox effort was founded by some members of St. George Serbian Orthodox Church, who sought out a place where people of all cultures, races and religious backgrounds would be welcome.

Father Hill, who has been with the church since June, admits that although he and the parishoners are sad about the destruction of their house of worship, they have to reformulate a plan to continue. “I’m thankful that the building damage was relatively minimal, but obviously the person who did this must be an unhappy individual,” he continued.

“We pray for his salvation, but I now have to look for a temporary place of worship. Our job is in knowing Christ and we can do that anywhere. I am hopeful and confident that God will allow us to continue forward,” Hill concluded

The woman at Simon the Leper’s house poured nard over Christ’s head. This was costly, and Christ praised her. In a time of crisis, we serve, and that will be costly. The alternative is that we let the enemy be praised, for they will open their mosques and their stadia, giving food, and preaching their lies.

Give them not the chance. Pray for Houston, but pray for those whose hearts are so hardened they see but the cost.