Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Things People Do When They Find Out I’m A Preacher

There are relatively few places in our immediate area (Steele Creek, Lake Wylie, Fort Mill) where I can be genuinely incognito.

I’ve lived here just long enough and we are just large enough as a church that it is inevitable someone in any public setting knows that I am a pastor.

Which is why I relish those occasions where people don’t.

And maybe I relish those occasions even more when the people who don’t know I’m a pastor discover that I am one through some incident, comment, or question.

Those reactions are then priceless.  And fairly predictable. 

Here are the top five:

1.  They clean up their language.  Not a lot of F-Bombs get thrown around at Good Shepherd (at least as far as I can tell).  They do at the Y (I think people forget what the third letter in the Y stands for).  But if people have been using their usual, um, vocabulary, and then it slips out that I’m a pastor, apologies often ensue.  With promises to change.  Because my ears obviously can’t take it.

2.  They talk about how they want to get back to church“You’re a pastor? Really?  I’ve been meaning to get back to church.  I just haven’t found the right one.”  That’s when I can pull out a Good Shepherd invite card and World Famous Refrigerator Magnet!

3.  They tell me about their preacher at their church.  If I’m walking in the Spirit, I cut the conversation short.  If I’m walking in the flesh, I pull up a chair and say, “tell me more!” 

4.  They ask where I stand on one of the no-win-in-public-conversation-hot-button-issues.  “So do you think homosexuals are going to hell?”  “Do you believe in evolution?”  “Where do you stand on abortion?”

5.  They ask where I get ideas for sermons.  Answer? “From conversations with people like you.”