THE POWER OF PRAYER

Beer joint sues local Baptist church after lightning strikes and burns down Billy Bob’s Icehouse following morning, afternoon and evening prayer sessions calling for demise of the bar

The Unconventional Gazette / February 26, 2013

CROCKETT, Texas – Billy Bob’s Icehouse is a popular beer joint in this small town located in the piney woods of East Texas.

When the owner began construction on an expansion of his building to accommodate the bar’s ever-growing business, the congregation of the Bethel Baptist Church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding – circulating petitions and holding morning, afternoon, and evening prayer sessions at their church, praying for the good Lord to smite Billy Bob’s Icehouse.

Work on Billy Bob’s continued right up until the week before the grand reopening when lightning struck the beer joint and burned it to the ground!

After the lightning strike had burned down the bar, the church folks were extremely overjoyed and set off bragging about "the power of prayer."

But late last week Billy Bob Bogart, the bar owner, sued the church, preacher M. E. Thane and the entire congregation on the grounds that the church ... "was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building and his business -- either through direct or indirect divine actions or means."

In its response to Billy Bob’s complaint, the church vehemently and voraciously denied any and all responsibility or any connection to the building's destruction.

The district court judge read through the plaintiff's complaint and the defendant's response. At a court hearing he commented, “I don’t know how the hell I’m going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, that we now have a bar owner who staunchly believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that now does not!”