The devil was interviewing candidates for the position: Chief Marketing Strategist. He was getting weary of hearing so much blah, blah, blah. At last a smart, neatly dressed young whip stepped up.

The devil asked, "So, what do you got, kid?"

The young whip simply spoke, “Make ‘em Wordy Birds.”

“Don’t get cute with me, kid,” the devil snapped, “it’s been a long day.”

“No, let me explain,” the whip urged. “Here’s the deal. What you want to do is keep the earnest disciples studying, learning about Jesus, and hashing out all the fascinating stuff in the Bible.”

“Make church the point. Keep ‘em going, and giving time and energy to all the great programs and activities. Make it the center, and not the training center, of their lives.”

“Above all, keep them talking. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk."

"These people want to think they’re good Christians. So, serve them a slew of fascinating topics to talk about - good sermons, thrilling books, religious movies and TV, Hebrew and Greek word studies. And oh, politics - very hot right now.”

“Yes, we'll make ‘em Wordy Birds. They just gather in trees and tweet. They flap and fluff and cackle on and on while worms crawl in fearless freedom below.”

The young whip, realizing he’d caught the devil’s interest, straightened up and leaned forward to deliver the punch for his pitch.

“Just think,” he said, “when Wordy Birds go blah, blah, blah, it’ll be our happiest song.”

“What are you talking about?” the devil interrupted.

“Well, while the birds are talking,” he asserted with a sinister squint, “all that going, all that preaching, all that doing what the Bible expects . . . just never gets done."

The devil paused. Then he extended his open hand, directing the kid to his own spacious office and his large, polished desk.