Kenny Got A Plane

Show open and the family movie filter

The hosts open the show from the Pathway studios in Johnston, then riff on rewatching childhood favorites with their kids. The Mask is ruled out — the innuendo sailed over their ten-year-old heads but will not now — and E.T. turns out to be, in their telling, every third word profanity. Adam Sandler and the Goonies are out too; they are hunting for the narrow band between My Little Pony and films their kids will quote.

The Hawaii false missile alert

• If you got twenty minutes' warning of an incoming ballistic missile, what would you do with it — and would it change how you live?

After a quick rundown of the night's stories, the hosts linger on the false ballistic-missile warning in Hawaii: the dropdown-menu text, the forty-minute delay in correcting it, and what anyone could do with twenty minutes anyway. That spirals into whether you would even want the warning, staring down tornadoes on the porch, and the thought that there is no getting off a small island — plus a note that a band member (Silversyde, ASR 'Silver Signed') was in Hawaii for a wedding when it happened.

Chasing half-committed disciples

• When discipling people who stay half-committed, is the right move to keep chasing them or to move on?

Talking over recent conversations with Joy Fatima of Wings of Refuge and an upcoming film on sex trafficking in Iowa, the hosts wrestle with a ministry frustration: people who profess faith but will not read, pray, or show up unless chased — 'did you read James three today finally, like we agreed?' They land on casting a wide net, celebrating the ones who latch on, and eventually shaking the dust off, noting the New Testament letters assume a committed church, not a recruitment strategy for the half-in.

Kenneth Copeland's new Gulfstream

The hosts read a news story: televangelist Kenneth Copeland has acquired a Gulfstream V jet (bought from Tyler Perry) and is seeking $19.5 million for upgrades and maintenance, having told followers private jets help them avoid the 'unnecessary demons' of commercial airlines. The hosts are unsparing — contrasting the jet with the homeless Son of Man, the disciples who kept walking into the temple knowing they would be beaten, and the apostles' poverty and martyrdom — and one host jokes that if anyone ever calls him 'Iowa-based Mike Foost of Mike Foost Ministries,' they should shoot him.

Why people keep giving to men like Copeland

Addressed by name, Dan is asked why people keep giving their money to men like Copeland. His answer: charisma plus relentless promises that God will bless the giver, which hooks people in desperate situations — 'robbing poor people to buy his jet.' He then confesses his own junior-high version: saving four years of change and mailing $40 to Jim Bakker's PTL club for a special Bible, money his family did not have.

Perry Noble and the 'praying for you' text

The hosts read about pastor Perry Noble — formerly of NewSpring, now of Second Chance Church — lashing out on Facebook at a text from an estranged acquaintance that read 'I am praying for you,' calling it condescending. The hosts grant he may be right about that sender, but argue the public rant is beneath a pastor's job, and land a sharper point: it is pride that fights being prayed for — humility hears 'someone else cares about me' and says thank you.

Anne Graham Lotz on judgment coming to America

A skipped headline gets a brief stop: Anne Graham Lotz — identified as Billy Graham's daughter — warning that America's chickens will come home to roost, with judgment possibly arriving through a North Korean nuclear warhead or an earthquake. The hosts do not endorse or fully dispute it; one asks whether every earthquake should be read as the Lord's judgment, and the answer is no.

Job, Proverbs, and the prosperity promise

Returning to Copeland, a host argues from the book of Job — which he is teaching in youth group — that God does not run the world on a fixed recompense scale where good gets good and bad gets bad; Proverbs describes what usually works, not what God guarantees. Promising worldly prosperity in Jesus's name, and filching money on that promise, 'scares' him. The news block closes with the hosts agreeing.

The dream with the 'you've got your neck' song

A host (addressed as Dan by the others in the audio) tells the oddest dream of his life: a delivery truck crashes through a church window and speeds off, he gives furious chase with his wife Cheryl until the truck is lost in a bigger city, then crests a hill into a car wreck where a band is standing in the street with its instruments — he must have hit them. The lead singer, guitar in hand, sings him a song whose verses are two-line boasts ('I got this guitar, and it's really cool... I got this really cool unibrow') that always resolve to 'but you've got your neck.' The other hosts offer mock-serious interpretations — you kept your head on straight, you are the calm in the storm — and threaten to send the song to Chris Tomlin.

Dear LFTP: rejected for the job, lost my vision

• Dear LFTP: After a humiliating job rejection and losing my sense of direction at 25, how can I find my way again?

A 25-year-old writes that he was rejected for a job that would have become a career after telling everyone it was in the bag; humiliated and shaken, he says he knew what he wanted in middle school and has lost his vision since. The hosts advise: stop running your mouth before the offer is signed, pray for God's different plan, and know you can reinvent yourself — people do it three or four times now. The middle-school nostalgia gets deflated with a Batman confession and the Secular answer: learn from the mistake, consider career counseling and aptitude tests at a community college, and keep the next candidacy quiet until it is official.

Dear LFTP: first communion on a tight budget

• Dear LFTP: With no budget for a first-communion party, how do I tell extended family they are welcome at the church but there will be no party?

A mother writes that her son's first communion is coming, the family cannot afford even an inexpensive party, and she wants to limit the celebration to parents and grandparents — but feels guilty about the godparents and extended family. The hosts' verdict is blunt and unanimous: do not have a party, tell everyone the truth and invite them to stop by the church, then do Dutch treat on dinner afterward. They note it is a big Catholic milestone with its own industry of dresses and suits, and counsel living within means and telling the truth.

Skipped-headline speedrun

The host rattles through stories he skipped: a limbless evangelist, Mike Pence, Ed DeYoung, someone who saw ten-foot-tall demons in a hotel room, and Jim Bob Duggar announcing his daughter Jenna is still single at twenty — which prompts baffled discussion of why that is news and a memory of the Duggar bus rolling through a local political event years ago. He also cannot find the promised 'three tips for hosting a potluck' list and hands off to the next letter.

Dear LFTP: the cosigned college loan

• Dear LFTP: My grandson defaulted on the college loan I cosigned — make the late payments, pay it off from savings and deduct it from his inheritance, or what?

A grandmother writes that she cosigned her grandson's college loan, he flunked out, he keeps missing payments, and she is tired of the late-payment letters hanging over her credit; she can pay it off from savings and deduct it from his inheritance. The hosts see no dilemma: pay it off, take it out of the inheritance, done — he did not earn the money anyway, and as one host half-remembers from Proverbs, unearned money does nobody any good.

Three tips for a church potluck and the 'Jesus table'

• Is it wrong to bring leftovers to the church potluck?
• Why is Revelation 3:20 a bad proof text for the 'Jesus table' potluck pitch?

The host finally finds the potluck article and reads all three tips: set an abundant table (Jesus spent his days healing and eating, say scholars John Dominic Crossan and Christine Pohl), invite the needy, and 'expect Jesus to show up.' Tip three gets the business: the article's claim that the early church set an empty chair for Jesus at agape feasts is 'kinda cool' but the 'Jesus table as a portal between the house of God and the house of humanity' is 'really, really wonky theology' — replacing the Holy Spirit with a buffet. The Revelation 3:20 proof text is ruled a bad reference ('he's knocking on the door of the church,' addressed to Christians), and the riff runs through extra movie tickets for Jesus, counting Jesus in church attendance, and big churches counting web clicks. A genuine question gets a genuine answer: leftovers are fine only if nobody has picked at them.

Humility, hubris, and counting web clicks

The show turns reflective: Paul humbly followed God while getting his tail kicked everywhere, and it was never 'Paul's ministry' — yet so much of modern church carries hubris, from disgraced pastors climbing back on stage to megachurches padding numbers. The hosts' rule: you should be nonexistent, Jesus should be big — 'I must increase' is the bumper sticker, and it is a mistake.

Closing: next week's interview and the sign-off

Closing the show, the hosts preview next week's interview about a film on sex trafficking in Iowa — a follow-up to the earlier conversation with Nate and Joy from Wings of Refuge, who noted how surprising the scale of it in Iowa is — and joke about patrolling the Super Bowl in Minnesota if someone tells them what to look for. They point listeners to new Bible study notes on the website (the minor prophets) and sign off: 'Be faithful in means. God will handle the ends.'