In these pages we often skewer religious types for taking something so seriously that they make an idol out of it. It’s the old joke about sacred cows making good hamburger. And it’s always an easy shot, because idolators never ever see it coming.

Take the Taliban for instance. In a special report for The Door website, we find these Afghan jihad warriors fending off a dastardly sneak attack by two menacing Buddhist statues. Targeting the Taliban is always at least as easy as shooting Buddhas in a barrel, I always say.

But as I was cooking up a new iconoclastic hand grenade to lob in this issue, I was blindsided by a big idol of my own.

Simply put, I haven’t been practicing what I preach.

Let me explain.

I've always been quick to point out that an inability to ask for help is really the most offensive form of pride. Someone in need is really a great blessing to the rest of us, because they provide a place for us to give, to pour ourselves out. Our individual needs provide the mortar that binds us together in love. Asking for help makes community possible.

On the other hand, our decades-long adventure of investigating and sometimes exposing the fundraising improprieties of the big-money televangelists has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth and a total disdain for asking for money. I hate to even teach on tithing. I hate to discuss the very real financial needs of a ministry such as Trinity. I hate to ask for help.

Well, there it is – the big P – pride.

Over the years, I have loved to boast about the attempted bribes: "$50,000 a month for your ministry if you'll just let Brother Bob be" or "$5 million if you'll just disappear." I've taken pride in saying "we never make public appeals for money" and "we're fully funded by internal tithing and we never solicit memberships."

When we organized Trinity Foundation way back in 1972 we structured it as a 501 (c) 3 public non-profit just so we would have to file a yearly IRS Form 990. We have almost obsessively tried to be above any suspicion of wrongdoing.

But recently an IRS auditor castigated us for not asking the public for financial contributions and for not encouraging people to become members of the foundation. "You're a public foundation, a public charity, and you need to broaden your membership base," he said. In effect, it was a direct order from the IRS.

And remember, these are the people we’ve worked with for years during investigations of shady dealings by TV preachers. If you ignore them, you get in trouble. (Just ask W. V. Grant). Still I resisted. Surely we could fund the foundation in general and The Door Magazine in particular through our own management and marketing skills.

Uh...wrong.

This is our 32nd issue of the magazine since Mike and Karla Yaconelli donated it to us back in December of 1995. It was losing $30,000 a year then. We thought we knew how to improve and expand it. But our red ink bottle is just about twice as big as it was 32 issues ago.

One reason is that back in April of 1998 we got involved in a program to provide safe, clean housing to middle and low-income families. It was supposed to have a positive cash flow that would help us continue and expand our ministry programs. But instead, it's been a drain on our already strained resources.

Now we need your help.

The magazine's in great shape creatively. But we need two things: more subscribers and more money.

There are two realities of the publishing world we must face.

First, there are the economies of scale. Simply put, the more copies we print, the lower the cost and the higher the profit. We just don't have enough subscribers to support the high quality (and therefore not cheap to produce) magazine we're putting out. But it's not impossible. If you'll get a couple of friends to subscribe (instead of letting them read your copy) we can afford to pay the printer.

Second, direct mail advertising is the lifeblood of any magazine. If you don't use direct mail to secure new subscribers even the greatest of magazines will lose 5% of it's reader base per issue just through the vagaries of subscribers moving, dying or forgetting to renew.

The frustrating thing here is that we know what to do but we don't have the funds to do it.

That’s where you come in. (Dang, this is mea culpa stuff is hard).

Sit down right now – or heck, lean against the nearest wall – and write a check to Trinity Foundation. Make it as big as you can. We'll use it to continue to extend the reach of The Door Magazine and our other good programs. Mail it to Trinity Foundation Inc., 5634 Columbia Avenue, Dallas, TX 75214. We'll get a tax deductible receipt right back to you.

Then you can congratulate yourself for helping strike a blow against pride.

The IRS will be pleased.

And I won't be able to brag, ever again.