Pastoral Foibles

Sometimes in ministry you have many experiences that cause you to laugh or have people laugh at, I mean with, you. At our Coastlands Unit Christmas party we somehow got on to the topic of things we have mistakenly said from the pulpit or been involved with in various church settings. Here’s a sampling…

One shared how early in ministry, while nervously closing one of their first sermons, they gave an altar call. Feeling flustered and nervous, they then mistakenly invited the youth to come and ‘give their lives to Satan’.

Another shared how they were preaching a sermon about praising the Lord and the importance of it in our lives. They were passionately waxing on how praise should be something that is in every part of our lives and said something to the effect of, ‘even let your hooters praise the Lord.’ The congregation just dissolved in laughter. The speaker was confused at first because in their country of origin 'hooters' meant a horn, nothing more. ‘nuff said.

Another shared how a parishioner told how they dealt with their cats when the cats were disturbed. She went on to say that she had the ‘gift of kitty tongues”. She told the person that she would speak in these kitty tongues to the kittens and they would totally calm down. Interesting…

Another shared how they were preaching at a youth retreat. It was a ski retreat and they were using the illustration of challenging yourself to be a ‘black diamond’ Christian, i.e. really living life on the edge for God. That was good, but then they went on to tell the kids to not be a ‘whanker’. They couldn't figure out why the kids were snickering and giggling. Apparently, they had worked in an environment where this term meant someone that was not doing so well because they were lazy as they started in the new profession. By the way, if you don’t know what ‘whanker’ means, I’m not going to tell.

Another told how while they were preaching, they slipped and fell down the stairs of the platform. They really banged their wrist when they fell. They dusted themselves off, got up and continued preaching. While they were preaching, they watched as their wrist swelled up. At the end of it all, they found out it was actually broken!

One shared how in a passionate prayer meeting with about 40 people, they prayed that God would help them that when ‘we come to the fork in the road, we don’t fork off’ . This person is an immigrant and with the accent, the ‘fork’ did not sound like ‘fork…’

For the ultimate foible, watch this..