The pastor and members of a Memphis church claim the face of God recently appeared on the ceiling of their sanctuary.

Pastor Reginald Lowery of Miracle Crusade Bible Church Holiness was preaching a sermon entitled “God Knows Where We Are” on a recent Friday night, when God chose to reveal himself to his daughter. The Lord, apparently as enamoured with cell phones as the rest of his creation, chose the ubiquitous device as a conduit for his holy works.

“I was preaching … and all of a sudden a big bang hit the church,” explained Pastor Lowery.

Car alarms around the neighborhood started going off, including those at the church. Then, according to the pastor, something else happened.

“The lights on the inside went to solid gold,” he said.

It was then, as church-members gazed in wonder as the chandeliers transmorgrified from gold-tone electroplated steel to solid gold, that Lowery’s daughter decided to photograph the newly-minted earthly treasure. What she saw on the LCD of her cellphone camera was, by all accounts, astonishing. It was, according to churchgoers, the face of God.

Apparently, the Lord knew that the combination of the digital processing performed by the camera’s CCD with the poor contrast of the camera’s LCD screen would result in His digital likeness. That God is using cellphones for His holy work anecdotally suggest that He might be employing techniques like cell tower triangulation or the built-in GPS capabilities of some modern phones to track the movements of His faithful. Adding weight to this conjecture is the remarkably sanguine title of the sermon being delivered that night: “God Knows Where We Are”.

Generally speaking, the mirari trifecta (an unexplained bump, blaring sirens, and commonplace elements turning into gold, in that order) are trusted signs of an impending miracle. But some pundits claim the resulting face on the ceiling may be that of a different Lord — one just crafty enough to bring his age-old confidence scam into the modern age — a biblical phishing expedition if you will. These pundits see the face of the devil, horns eminating from either side of the head.

“If that’s God, I’m scared shitless,” said one miracle onlooker. “He looks mad as hell.”

“And if that’s Satan, what the fuck’s he doing in a church!” wailed another.

Moderates are weighing in as well. Philosophers and physicists alike are suggesting a rationalist approach: spinning the chandelier in question. Doing so would determine whether rotational properties extend beyond the physical realm into the spiritual realm, the answer to which might have profound implications in the long-held understanding that the Lord is not constrained by such earth-bound forces.

The leader of the church, however, prefers to view the miracle from the perspective of the lowest common denominator.

“It really speaks for itself, you know?” Pastor Lowery said. “It’s not from here, because you’ve never seen anything on Earth like it.”

Until a few years ago, no-one had seen anything like the cellphone cameras used to take the divine images. Or for that matter, a heavenly host of other things, such as the Teletubbies. Like God’s recent decision to utilize cell phone technology to reveal his presence, Laa-Laa, Tinky Winky, Dipsy and Po made their first earthly appearance on an equally ubiquitous form of technology: TV.

This congregation did get one thing right though: The location of their church. It’s at the corner of 6th and Looney.

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