Stan Yoder @stanalyst

Today I’m sharing something I’ve been praying over, researching, and refining for more than a year. For 20+ years I’ve served the Church — first on staff, then by building tools like Rock RMS. My heartbeat has always been to serve pastors, not to speak out publicly. But something has shifted. As I’ve watched secular companies — including private equity firms — rush into the church giving space, I’ve seen practices that don’t honor the Church, the tithe, or the people who give sacrificially. For years I stayed quiet. Recently, that silence became impossible. After a year of prayer, research, writing, and counsel from pastors and industry experts, I’ve written the most important piece I’ve ever released: 👉 Turning Tables in the Digital Temple 📍 protectthetithe.com This is not about promoting a company. It’s about protecting the Church from being quietly exploited in one of her most sacred acts: generosity. If you’re a pastor or church leader, please read this. If you know one, please share it. The Church needs to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. Together, we can protect the tithe.

I'm concerned that many people do not understand the historical and institutional context in which the DOGE labor reforms are unfolding. They look at this as if these are some random, chaotic, arbitrary, strange, and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service. The reality is very different, and I'm not even sure that Elon entirely understands this. For more than a century, even dating back to 1883, the civil service has grown and grown without check from the elected branch, either the presidency or the legislature . The bureaucracies have ballooned from a few to 450 or so. The bloat and absurdities have grown too. Get this: no one has ever known what to do about it. Not Coolidge, not Hoover, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton, no one. No president has been able to crack this nut. The only reforms ever to have made it through are those that make the administrative state bigger, never smaller. Countless cabinet secretaries have come and gone, always with the intention of making a change but leaving saddened, demoralized, outwitted, outgunned, and ultimately devoured. No president has seriously taken on this problem because they simply did not know how. The unions are powerful, the intimidation from the deep institutional knowledge is overwhelming, the fear of the media as been powerful, and every single president comes to power vaguely feeling threatened by the intelligence agencies. The industries that have captured every single agency were also far too powerful to unseat or control. This combination of institutional inertia has blocked serious reform for a full century. No one has dared. No one has even had a theory or strategy about what to do about this problem. It had become so terrible that most people in politics have simply surrendered, like homeowners who know there are rats in the basement and bats in the attic but long ago gave up trying to fix the issue. All this time, the American people have felt themselves ever more oppressed, weighed upon, taxed and regulated, spied upon, brow beaten, and otherwise overwhelmed. Voting never made any difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies ruled all. The Biden years underscored the point. We didn't even need a conscious and present executive. We only needed a figurehead to pretend to be president, just like the Soviet premiers in the old days. The institutions ran everything and the people controlled nothing. How to deal with this? Trump alone figured it out in his last term: he simply took charge of the agencies in a limited way. There were screams of horror and plots galore. They performed a long stream of clever schemes to destroy him and show him who is boss, which is not the democratically elected president but the forces behind the scenes. The job of the president, goes the message from all the insiders, is to PRETEND to be in charge but not actually do anything meaningful. Shut up, mug up, obey, and disturb nothing, let the administrative state do its thing without oversight or disruption, and then you will get your honorary library and bestselling autobiography and go down in history as great. Trump refused the deal and look what happened. Four years have gone by and Trump is back again, this time with a determination to slay this beast, one that he knows all-to-well. The efforts of DOGE and MAHA and MAGA are epic in scope, breaking a century of pathetic acquiescence toward the deep, middle, and shallow states, at last using moral courage to confront the problem head on, come what may. They are profoundly aware that they MUST act fast and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, else we will default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded system runs things behind the scenes. It has been this way for TOO LONG. The voters this time have demanded change, and mustered the faith to believe that change is possible. This is precisely what DOGE is attempting, to make good on a promise, a promise that for once the voters actually believed was credible. They simply must succeed. There might never be another chance. The way of failure is the path everyone knows the US was on, toward economic stagnation, political scolerosis, and eventual irrelevance in the unfolding of the next stage of social evolution.

@jonedmiston Ooh ... I see that coming in handy. Thanks for the update.

@NFLonPrime what’s up with the picture quality for the Chiefs/Raiders game??? Seems way over exposed/saturated.

@gregholder_ He is risen indeed!

Today is my 1 month anniversary @summit_is … a team outing isn’t a bad way to end the day. @ Coors Field, Denver instagram.com/p/CULKanvp6GS/…

Great turnout for Baptism 2021 @crossingstl instagram.com/p/CTvNelcL-GP/…

Maybe I should have stayed in Denver for one more day. @ Lake Saint Louis, Missouri instagram.com/p/CTFGQt1L94S/…

The cherry on the top of a great week. instagram.com/p/CTD2CJYDVDz/…

Heading back home to STL after a great first week @summit_is. Excited to be coming back again next week! @ Denver International Airport instagram.com/p/CTDusbtDU0H/…

Just one of the many perks of my new adventure - the views don’t suck. Good morning Rocky Mountains. @ Broomfield, Colorado instagram.com/p/CS9QoqsL9DX/…

First day in the books - and I’m already on the office signage. instagram.com/p/CS7zQT4jULI/…

And the new adventure begins today. Off to a great start - exit row and 1/2 full flight. instagram.com/p/CS6bSVvLVKe/…

Bit of bittersweet week. Tomorrow is my last day @crossingstl - a little sad but also reflecting fondly on my 12 years here. Also extremely excited to be joining @SummitIS next week to start on a new adventure. Can't wait to see what the next 12 (or more) years will bring!

@JonAcuff @netflix I found photographic proof ...

Another one done. Only 1 more to go. instagram.com/p/CPyEvGTDHL4/…

It’s been WAY too long. But couldn’t ask for a more beautiful night for a game. instagram.com/p/CPJuJTMDFj1/…

Maybe instead of the Libertarian Party, we could start a Librarian Party so I could tell everyone to just be quiet.

One last chance to invite your friends to Christmas Eve services online. AND for every retweet, $5 will be donated to Living Water International!

Just a little ditty for all my IT friends this holiday season... (to the tune of Winter Wonderland) Alarm bells ring Are you listening On the LAN Apps are crashing A terrible sight We’re scrambling tonight Working thru the night once again.