Monday Morning Scattershooting

Monday morning scattershooting while wondering why I thought style of article was a good idea.

  I love freebies. You know those trinkets you can pick up at conventions and trade shows.  A couple of years ago I picked up a little tube of hand sanitizer that is about the size of a pen from the Duke consulting table at Polishing the Pulpit. I still carry that around because it is so handy.  Most freebies are like that, they don’t cost a lot but the people that get them really like them.  We should give spiritual freebies to strangers. Things like compliments, congratulation, credit. Those don’t cost us much but can make a big difference to other.  I did a sermon series on a book called “Try Giving Yourself Away” by David Dunn. The book has several great ideas along those lines.

   I saw in my news feed another celebrity had a “wardrobe malfunction”.  I really hate that term. Most “wardrobe malfunctions” could be solved if people would dress with any kind of sense. If turning around too quickly is going to cause you to expose yourself that might tell you it is not appropriate to wear!  People have lost all common sense. It remind me of an incident a couple of years ago when I drove by a man that I though was “sagging” (the style of wearing your pants well past your backside) only to realize it was an insane person that had pulled down his pants in a fit.  If your style can be confused with traits associated with a mental deranged person, it is time to think of a new style.  Wardrobe malfunction! Let’s call it what it is the natural result of immodest dress.

  I am not a big believer in the idea of a “noble profession”. You hear it when people assume that if a person in a <blank> then they are also all the attributes of that work. For example, he is a minister, he must be honest and kind and good, she is a housewife she must be super busy, he is a doctor, he must be smart in everything. You can be a lazy housewife that never cleans cooks or does anything around the house. Your doctor may have passed his medical test but can’t balance a checkbook. You can be a minister that is the crookedness, vilest, meanest person to walk the earth but hides it well enough to stay employed.  You are not what you “do” you are what you do. It is not you occupation that makes you good, it is if you do good at that occupation. I wonder if that is why the only work related statement about elders is that “they not fond of sordid gain” (Titus 1:7).  I think one of the biggest mistake people look for unconsciously in elders is a “good successful career” Does it matter if he is a rocket scientist or delivers mail?  What should matter is he is Godly in whatever work he finds to do.

I have an odd sense of humor.  One thing I find funny to do is keep a list of “sermons that would get me fired here even thought they might not be unscriptural”.  For example at the last congregation I was at was a military town and had many former soldiers and on the list was “Are veterans really worthy of two holidays?” At my current job in Arkansas, it would be “Worship God not Razorback Football”.  This is a joke but I wonder if some preaches really need the list. We preachers can be so insensitive sometimes to how our message will be perceived. We think I am preaching the truth so nothing else matter, but it still need to be the truth in love. I sure Paul’s lesson on Mars Hill wouldn’t have worked if it was titled “None of those gods are real, you dummies”

Finally, a woman called the church building and asked if the preacher would perform a special funeral. The preacher replied, “What do you mean a special funeral”? She spoke thru her tears, “It is for my cat, Peaches. He was my only true companion for the last several years, and I can’t bear the thought of not having a service for him. The preacher was dumbfound at the request but didn’t want to  upset the lady any further by telling her that don’t have service for pets. So instead he made a suggestion, “Mam, I not sure I would not know how to properly do a service for a cat, have you tried calling any of the other denomination in town?  She replied, No not yet. And she added, “I wasn’t sure what it might cost. I was planning to pay the minister a thousand dollars for the service. Do you think that will be enough?”  The minster paused and then replied “Oh, well you didn’t tell me Peaches was a member of the church!”