We’ve been so busy with all this political rhetoric (which I am totally tired of and won’t be revisiting anytime soon. Ugh) that we haven’t had our regular “Open Mic” post. So here’s our “open mic” question for this week:
Have you ever just “lost it” (i.e. found something unbearably funny) in church? Gotten so “tickled” that you had to leave? Found something so funny that it was all you could do to contain yourself from exploding with laughter? Well, what was it? We want in on the story.
What happened in church that was so funny you “lost it?”
There was an older lady at the church I attended in high school who loved to sing, and thought she was great at it. God bless her little heart. So, she gets up to sing one Sunday night, with her dyed, golden hair, a solid purple long sleeve dress, with gold cords lining the seems, and it started right then. I couldn’t help but notice she looked like an unopened bottle of Crown Royal. It only got worse when she began to sing, and we all wondered if she had actually been using the stuff, instead of simply dressing like it.
She sand “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” She sounded like Kermit the Frog doing drunken karaoke during a dinner cruise in rough seas. It was wretched. I’ve heard people sing poorly before, but this was by far the worst. Almost every person in the room was staring at the floor, some with their hands over their faces. The pastors daughter actually laid down in the pew she was sitting in, as she couldn’t control her laughter. I made the mistake of saying these things to my best friend, and we absolutely could not stop laughing. We felt horribly, and tried to stop, since we didn’t want to be bad people. But we couldn’t. We were reprimanded by several people (most of whom were laughing during the song as well), and would couldn’t even take that seriously.
To this day, we will leave each other voice mails that only include singing a line or two of that song, imitating the wretchedness of her solo that night. We still belly-laugh every time.
-Alan
We have communion the first Sunday of the month at our small Baptist Church. This particular Sunday the pastor must have been thinking of other things. The table was set up, the Deacons were in place, Sermon was delivered, invitation given, last song sung and the pastor is at the back door ready to greet people leaving. And there sat the communion table at the front of the church. No one moved or said anything and it took him a minute to figure it out.
One Sunday morning, our pastor was recounting a weeding he had performed the previous Saturday. Apparently, he knew the couple very well and was quite fond of them. He launched into an illustration about the beuaty of marraige and how God’s best is for two people to wait until the marriage night to consummate the relationship. Unexplicably he said, while referring to the couples wedding night, “I wish I could have been there….er….in a G-rated sort of way”. Creepy laughter ensued.
I was once involved in the sending of a summer missionary to Australia. During the prayer over the missionary, the pastor asked that she be able to “touch all those people down under.”
I’m usually the one telling everyone to grow up, but I was definitely biting my lip to keep from laughing.
I don’t know why I found it so funny, but the minister called out a song name and number from the hymnal, but when I realized the name didn’t match the number I look at another dumbfounded musician and started laughing.
After the first verse the minister stood up and said to me, “Hey smiley come sit up here in the front so you can smily at the rest of us.”
I was late for Mass with two of my young children and the only seating was in the choir loft of the old Church, this a year so before it was torn down to make room for the new building. Father Kevin was the lone celebrant on this warm summer Sunday, assisted by two altar boys. What only the few people seated in the folding chairs in the loft could see was that there was a mockingbird jumping and flitting between the rafters.
One of the two altar candles– positioned on either side of the table — blew out. Fr. Kevin — a stickler for proper liturgy — seemed to be waiting for one of the boys to relight it. When that didn’t occur, he went himself into the sacristy on the side of the altar platform and got the candle lighter. He lit it on the one burning candle and then crossed in from of the table to light the other one. He then brought the lighting tool (whatever it’s proper religious name is) back into the sacristy. He then took his place back behind the table to continue the celebration. The mockingbird promptly flew from his place above the altar directly to the candle Fr. Keven had just re-lit, and snuffed it out with his wings and flew back to his perch above the congregation.
We were astonished. And we knew the bird was there.
I can just imagine what all the people below thought….
And — no — he didn’t try to light it anymore ….
The hymn “Oh Happy Day” never fails to send me into a fit of giggles.
At the church where I grew up, under the lead of our choir director, “O Happy Day” was the slowest, saddest, most somber and serious hymn you could imagine. My mom (who, back then, was usually a very tight-lipped church-lady type) and I could never get a word out because we were too busy trying to swallow our laughter. It didn’t help that everyone would look so serious while reading the words from the hymnbook and singing, “Happy Day, Happy Day, when Jesus washed my sins away!”
This happened while my husband and I were visiting my brother and sister-in-law’s church one Sunday morning. At the time, they attended a pretty charismatic church. Anyway, we had all been waterskiing the day before and every one of us were horribly and visibly sunburned. When we got to church we were introduced to the pastor and we made the usual small talk. At the end of the service, there was a time for anyone who felt led, to share a “word from the Lord” with the congregration. Well wouldn’t you know it, the pastor’s word for the day was “sunburn”. I can’t even remember how he spiritualized it. All I remember is that if you thought that word was spoken for you, you were supposed to come to the front. My husband and I chose the back door and a bottle of aloe vera instead.
Once a funny-looking person came into the church late, after the sermon has already started. I don’t remember what the funny-looking person looked like; I just remember that my friend Staci and I found ourselves smothering in quiet giggles. Staci’s mother, who was in the pew in front of us, immediately turned her head toward us and whispered, loudly and harshly, “Don’t laugh when funny-looking people come into the church!”
If she meant to make us stop giggling, it didn’t work.
My wife and I almost lost it totally one night recently.
Our church’s Saturday night service is set up so that the speaker (Sr Pastor, Asst Pastor, or guest speaker) can answer questions after the sermon. The idea is that it gives those who want further, more in depth information to get it.
Anyway, we had a guest speaker from India who spoke about his ministry. I never heard the question that provoked this response, but the guest speaker started talking about how different Hebrew names in the OT were really based on Indian names. My wife and I both looked at each other and quietly quoted a line that the father in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” repeated…
“Give me any word and I’ll show you where it came from in Greek”.
at a revival service in NE Alabama a local guy who was a little “slow” but functioning took out his guitar and proceeded sing “If Heavan Ain’t a lot like Dixie”
there is a guy who travels around locally who comes to church dressed in a white shiny robe with all sorts of weird sayings on it
my family still (NE Alabama again) takes pictures of the deceased at funerals, i preached my great grandfathers funeral about a year ago, you would have thought my cousin was doing a photo spread for a magazine there were so many shutter flashes, my wife was mordified
for some reasons I’ve been in two churches where the song director (to use the term generiously) had a major speech impediment, (not making fun) but I just wonder why and how that happened you couldn’t understand a word he said
an SBC preacher friend of mine went to preach at at “True Vine” Baptist church that his wife had some family connection at, as he came in the door the pastor confiscated his Bible and told him to preach with his (the pastors) bible, it think it was to insure he didn’t use notes and get all uppity
When I was about 12, a man in our church sang “The Holy City”. One lyric says, “Until the day I see the city”, only he started to sing the word “temple”. He got out the “T”, realized it and changed to the right word, thus singing “until the day I see the titty”. Classic.
We were having a very intense prayer meeting, speaking in tongues, layin hands, etc. Every so often someone who beging singing a song that the holy spirit would lay on our hearts and we’d all begin worshipping. So it reached a point where it was really quiet and I started singing:
“I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart! I will enter his gates with praaaaiise!”
I guess I broke the intimate mood or something because no one joined in and people just looked at me weirdly and I all of a sudden felt mortified, but I felt like I had to keep singing even though I knew the song was going down like a lead balloon, and then the pastor just started laughing uncontrollably
Our chapel was an old building with a shallow foyer in back. The bathrooms in the foyer had the unique ability to project every sound into the sanctuary. Our friend’s son (about 10 or 11) had a pervasive habit of always singing or humming, usually without even knowing it. The worship was over, he snuck out to powder his nose, and the preacher started praying.
We all held it in for a couple of minutes until his dad got up. Soon we hear mumbling, then a “What?” Then, “They all can hear you!” Then muffled crying!
He is a very good singer, fortunately.
Then there was the Bible study where we had our resident toddler, but the hosts were also babysitting their toddler nephew. “J” cast a cat toy on the end of his fishing rod for an hour. “A” spent ten minutes trying to diaper the baby while he was standing up. The baby’s parents showed up and, despite having no Christian leanings, decided to stay. The mom decided it was time to nurse, which was fine, we’re just used to women covering up while doing so. “JP”, the one guy who would have been absolutely mortified, was sitting a couple of people down on the couch and didn’t see what she was doing while he engaged her in a serious conversation.
“N” and I made it to the prayer at the end, but we were finished. JP got mad at us for giggling while he was praying, but it didn’t do anything but make us laugh harder.
I grew up in a tiny country church with a shortage of educated laity. My Sunday School teacher when I was a teen was a man with a big heart, who had a little trouble reading. That was a problem, because for our lessons, he just read straight from the book. This caused several funny blunders over the years.
The funniest of those was when he came upon the word opponent. It completely baffled him.
He said, “Ah-penent, Ah-penent . . .” That ain’t spelled right is it? My best friend and I had to cover our faces to muzzle our laughter.
This man, who again has a huge heart and is a fine Christian man, was also our worship leader, but he coudn’t sing at all. I mean, maybe the worst singer in the entire church, but he was willing to serve. So we had very interesting worship services to say the least. Inability to read plus inability to sing . . . that’s a tough combination for a worship leader.
Our pastor was doing a series on “Storybook Lives,” revisiting the classic stories of the Old Testament. For the beginning of each sermon, a video had been prepared of one of the children in the church telling that story in his/her own words. On the morning he was to preach on the story of Jacob’s life, a very precocious 6-year-old girl told the story. She gave a very dramatic and humorous rendition of the story of Jacob being placed in the well by his brothers, acting out both the parts of the brothers and Jacob. The crowning moment, however, came at the end of the video. She had gotten down off her stool and started to walk away, but stopped suddenly in her tracks, as if she had just had a brilliant thought. She turned around, climbed back up onto the stool, looked straight into the camera, and pointing her finger at the audience, said, “But you know, being in a well is better than being in hell!” The entire congregation burst into laughter. The minister got up to preach the sermon, and he was laughing so hard, with tears streaming down his face, that he called one of the elders up to say his traditional pre-sermon prayer for him. Despite this, he nor the congregation could contain their laughter for about 10 minutes. It was a great moment in the life of our community.
A few years ago, I was helping out in the 3-year old class in the nursery of our church. The service was the last Sunday before the Christmas holiday, so instead of the praise/worship team, our church had a traditional choir performing. A lot of the 3-year olds parents were participating, so I (and the other volunteer) thought it would be nice to troop the 3-year olds into the back of the auditorium for the choir performance. We ended up getting there too early, and the praise team was still doing their songs before the choir came on. So, we were in back with about 20 3-year olds, and some were standing, dancing, others were sitting and clapping. All of a sudden, I saw one take off down the aisle of the auditorium all the way to the front. Her daddy was the drummer, and I was afraid she’d try to go up on stage, so I took off after her. She had a fairly good headstart and I of course was trying not to make a bigger scene. She turned left at the front of the auditorium, ran across and then back up the other aisle where the another parent and I finally trapped her. It wasn’t until then that I realized the congregation was laughing hysterically, and not just because of what they had just witnessed. The song the band had been playing was “I am Free to Run” by the Newsboys.
I think it is fair to say — we all LOST it.
I still laugh (and want to cry a little too) when I remember the song our worship leader came up with to motivate people during a building campaign. The chorus contained the lines,
“We’re Building for Life…
Keeping unreached people our goal.”
They sang it every week for like 6 weeks and never saw any irony or humor in it.
Thank you for making my lunch fun.
As a boy I had decided it was time for me to walk the aisle in my home Baptist Church.
It was discussed with the preacher and so I would do so that Sunday.
My mother, God bless her suffering soul, was in the choir.
My dad was sitting next to the aisle, my younger brother next to him with me on the inside.
When the choir started “Just As I Am” I knew it was my time so I got up to edge by my brother and dad.
My brother grabbed the belt loop in the back of my pants and refused to let go.
He is very strong and strong willed and my dad couldn’t even get him to let me go.
Finally, he blurted out so loudly that you could hear him all over the church,”What’s he doing? Gotta go pee?”
The church dissolved in laughter as my poor mother dissolved in the choir.
I once pastored a church in north Georgia. The ushers came to get the offering. We asked an elderly member to say the offertory prayer. Here’s how it went, all of it out loud and easily heard by all:
“Lord, please bless this food we’re about…oh sh-t!”
I looked up to see this big fellow on the front row white-knuckling his pew and shaking his shoulders laughing. That, more than the prayer itself, made me lose it.
One more and I’m finished.
We had a Sunday school teacher who was also the volunteer church janitor. I put this in to point out the humility of this godly man.
He volunteered also to teach a class of 12 year old boys. Unfortunately he was terrible at it and could only read the lessons to us in the most monotone boring voice imaginable.
It was summer and being the 60′s we didn’t have air conditioning (this is Texas in the summer) so all the windows were up.
Our little closet of a class didn’t even have a window.
A wasp had gotten into the room and the biggest smart aleck of us all was standing on his chair swatting at the wasp as the rest of us hooligans cheered him on ignoring the teacher altogether.
Mr. ******* kept telling us to ignore the wasp and it would ignore us.
Well this went on for most of the class until finally the wasp landed on the back of the teacher’s neck and stung him.
He reach back and said,”damned wasp!”
He then looked up to see the astonished faces of seven 12 year old boys and jumped an ran out of the room.
He resigned as teacher immediately feeling he had disqualified himself in spite of the preacher begging him to stay.
For the next several weeks we were allowed to attend the girls class ( a heresy in those days) and wreak havoc for the poor lady atempting to maintain order there.
I was leading a team on a six-week language/culture study/mission trip in Moscow during the final months of the Soviet Union. We’d gotten to know a fellow believer, a British university student, who was staying in our same hotel, and who’d been studying Russian there for six months. Once we asked her why it seemed that Brits had so much trouble with Americans, and she told us, “Two things: 1) you always hear them before you see them; and, 2) when they get there, they always take over.”
Our British friend invited us to go with her to a small Baptist church in a village about an hour outside of Moscow. We were squeezed into a room with about 200 others, sitting on hard wooden benches with our knees pressed into the backs of those in front of us, waiting for the service to get underway. The gentle hum of Russian voices was suddenly shattered by a loud female Southern drawl floating in through the window from the courtyard outside: “So, wha-yir ah we suppose to si-yet!” Within moments the traveling choir from some American Bible college was filing into the front of the meeting, displacing the Russian parishioners, until the entire front of the meeting room was filled with navy blue blazers and navy jumpers over white blouses.
Slowly it dawned on us as to the accuracy of our British friend’s assessment of Americans. It was all we could do to contain ourselves.
I heard one sermon where we were told about the enemies of Israel which included the Pissites.
The preacher caught himself and was a little upset that we were all laughing.
Sad thing is that I was part of that church for ten years and that is one of the few things I remember from any of his sermons.
Our church choir once set somebody up. We planned ahead of time to stop right in the middle of a verse. The singing, the music, everything just came to a sudden halt while one poor sap sang about 3 more words alone. (You should try this sometime, it’s hilarious.)
Our church was doing some sort of promotion for a bible study and discipleship. The Sunday morning Bible Study class that my husband and I attended decided to do the circle prayer thing and go around the circle and let those who wished to pray about it. When it got around to my husband he accidentally blurred some words together and ended up praying for “bibleship” – whatever that is:>) It was all I could do to hold myself together. We still tease him about it. Maybe you had to be there but it was hilarious.
Our church had about 4 very wide steps from the aisle to the platform. During a Christmas program the 3 or 4 year old class was doing a little scene where the teacher was seated at the edge of the platform in a tiny chair & the kids were sitting and standing on the steps while she read them a Christmas story and asked them questions. One little boy lost his balance on the third step and did a perfect back flip in the the layout position, body fully rigid, neck never bending. One moment he’s standing there, and the next he is totally upside down, feet straight up in the air. A total miracle, and the funniest physical act I have ever seen in church. The whole church let out a gasp as he immediately jumped back up and ran to his position, afraid he would get in trouble for moving out of place. The teacher’s eyes got as big as saucers. My brother and I lost it, not sure we had actually witnessed it, but the confirmation was the fact that the teacher was visibly shaken by the spectacle. I was videotaping it and the platform upon which I was standing was shaking we were laughing so hard.
I just thought of another time I about “lost it.” After my mother-in-law passed away, my husband’s brother arranged for a rosary to be done (read? said? I’m not sure how you put it.) Though my brother-in-law is Catholic, my mother-in-law was not (She was from East Tennessee–Primitive Baptist.) I really try to be respectful, I really do. But I had never heard the rosary being done before, and when I thought they said “Fruit of the Loom—-Jesus”, all I could do was picture Jesus in his underwear. I could barely contain myself through the rest of the service.
By the way, Austin, there was a lot of picture-taking by my mother-in-law’s East Tennessee relatives at her funeral. I’d never seen such a thing!
Another one from my daughter (and another children’s address ruined).
Minister: We’re going to have a game of 20 questions. You’ve got to guess who I’m thinking about and I can only answer yes or no.
My daughter: Is it a woman?
Minister: Yes.
My daughter: Is it Mary Slessor?
Minister: Emmm… Yes.
Cue much laughter from the congregation.
If it had been a man the answer could only have been Jesus or David Livingstone.
For this to make sense you have to appreciate I’m Scottish.
A very nice, but slightly nervous young man was preaching his first sermon in our local church. He got half way through his talk when a lady suddenly stood up and crashed out of the room. He thought it was something he said.
What he hadn’t seen, seconds before, was a young man who had reached into his T-Shirt to retrieve his pet rat which was wriggling around. He picked it up by the tail and held it up infront of the poor woman, giving her the shock of her life.
I was in a church that had wooden pews. Someone wearing shorts (I guess) rubbed their skin against the pews and made a sound similar to that of a fart. Two boys thought it was the funniest thing. They were laughing and laughing and laughing.
Two stories. The first may be apocryphal, although a former pastor claimed he was in the service where it happened.
-Just before the sermon, the pastor would ask someone from the congregation to pray. On this particular occasion, he called on old Miss Peabody. Somehow he accidentally jumbled his words, and said “Miss Praybody, would you please stand and pee for us.” Apparently, neither the pastor nor the congregation were in any condition to make it through a sermon after that request, and the service was dismissed.
-I was in the service where this one happened: We were “between pastors”. A college student preparing for the ministry was filling in as pastor. An older, experienced pastor who supervised the pastors of all of the churches in the area was visiting our church that particular Sunday and was going to bring the message.
The fill-in pastor’s job was to introduce the older pastor before the sermon. When the young man got up to make his introduction, he told us that he had dreamed the night before that he and the older pastor were riding in a car together to the service. In his dream, a tire on the car had a blowout. The car careened off the road and smashed into a huge tree.
The next thing he knew, both of them were standing by the wrecked car, looking at the mess, including their dead bodies. When they realized they had died, they looked around and saw golden steps going up into the sky.
They decided they should climb the steps. Eventually, after climbing untold thousands of steps, the young man grew tired, and sat down. He told the older man he couldn’t go any further. The older pastor told the young man he couldn’t give up, because they must be almost there. So he offered to carry the young pastor on his back.
Traveling this way they eventually reached a glorious meadow, with golden gates on the other side. When they reached the golden gates, an angel came out to meet them.
The angel greeted the young pastor by name.
“Welcome Bill! Glad you made it. Climb down and come on in. You can tie your jackass to that tree over there.”
When the college student/fill-in pastor finished the story, there were several long seconds of total silence while we all absorbed that ending. Then Mrs. D. started to shake. Then she snorted while trying to suppress laughing. Then everyone in the church started laughing. I’m not sure if we were laughing at Mrs. D. trying desperately to suppress her laughter, at the story, or at the idea that the young fill-in pastor would have the audacity to tell a story with such an ending.
About ten minutes later, presumably after the laughter had finally died down, the older pastor attempted to preach a sermon. Every few minutes, Mrs. D. would start shaking again, and it would start all over. I remember people literally laying down on the pews and laughing until the tears flowed.
The older pastor finally gave up trying to preach and dismissed the service. I don’t remember anything the older pastor said except, “I give up. Let’s dismiss and go home.
I had a friend relate this story to me. He was in a service where they had a Children’s sermon. The pastor commented to a young girl, that was around five years old, that she had on a very pretty dress. The little girl said thank you but my mom says it is a B#&%$ to Iron. Don’t think her mom thought it was that funny but it cracked everyone else up.
I remember attending a co-worker’s wedding at a “Metaphysical” church. The minister conducting the wedding used some way-out quotes as part of her wedding sermon.
“Be like two trees, standing together, but a part…” stuff like that.
My wife and I were sitting up towards the front–and I got to chuckling, she felt me chuckling, and soon she was chuckling. I had to bite down on my tongue so hard to keep from laughing out loud.
Finally the service got over and everyone laughed and applauded, I burst out laughing-the bride and groom just thought I was happy for them. Little did they know! (But the minister did-giving me the evil eye during her homily).
Moral to the story: Don’t preach wacky stuff if you want people to take you seriously!
Our start-up church met in the basement of the local Masonic temple…with the lit-up Coke machine right behind the portable pulpit…and the men’s room just to the left of the pulpit & ladies room just to the right. During the sermon, a little boy (about age 4) ambled into the ladies room. Then he ambled out with his pants down around his ankle. I have never seen a woman move as fast as his mother did when she ran up there and shoved him back in the ladies
)))))
That infamous ladies room had a little vestibule without a light–the light was right OUTSIDE the door. Another night, a gal sneaked in during the sermon and found that the light hadn’t been turned on. Funniest thing to see her dis-embodied hand sneak around the corner to turn that light on!!
And then there was the elderly lady who played the piano. At the height of the Wisconsin humid summer, the keys always stuck. She stood up, looked under the hood and sat down and continued playing the offeratory without 2/3 of the keys.
Those were the days.
One time while leading worship I hadn’t bothered to spell-check the Powerpoint slides. When we sang the hymn “All Hail the Pow’r of Jesus’ Name” the slides said “let angels’ PROSTATE fall.” Oh, what a difference an “r” can make.
In the mid 1980′s, our (then) lily-white church had its first high-profile interracial wedding. The bride was the sister of a famous Hispanic preacher, and of course the whole family turned out. Everybody was supportive and happy for the couple, but cultural faux pas’ were inevitable.
This event was also the first time we were using a wireless mike system, and the technology of that era was such that, as the sundown wedding commenced, it started (unbeknown to the sound tech) to pick up an AM radio station. The preacher-brother gave away the bride, and as they ascended the steps to the altar, the wireless mike channel was turned up, and the radio station played War’s “Low Rider”!
This was before we had stage monitors, so thankfully the bride and groom could not really hear it… but it was quite obvious to everyone else in the sanctuary.
The sound tech tried to pull it down in the mix, but when they exchanged rings/vows, he turned it back up, and a supermarket commercial said “Lucky! Lucky! Where great deals begin for less!”
A Reformed Baptist church I used to attend used the word “unction” quite often to describe zeal for religious things. The way it was adopted into their subculture was very funny. One day at my next church, a guest preacher used the word in his sermon, and I lost it. Stomach muscles in knots, turning red, almost convulsing from laughter driven coughing fits, I hit the side exit door.
Another one. Our church was small and the person who prepared the Lord’s supper was out of town at a funeral. We realized a miscommunication and scrambled to gather some bagels and punch from that morning’s snack table. The pastor took the “bread” and discovered mid chew that it was a jalapeno bagel. The look on his face (not fond of spicy food) was priceless, and we lost it.
1. For several years, my father was the pastor of the church we currently attend. One weekend my grandparents came down to visit and brought another couple with them; these friends had never heard my dad preach before. When church was over, the husband walked back to where Dad was shaking hands with everyone. He stuck his hand out and said in a hearty, booming voice, “Hell of a sermon, Robert!” Mom wanted to crawl under the floor.
2. Back at Christmas, we were having choir practice one evening and our current pastor, who was brand new to us at the time, was sitting in the seat beside me as we were singing. He crossed his ankle over his knee, and I looked down to see that he was wearing black socks with wreaths and “HO HO HO” spelled on them in red and green. I’m glad he was so secure in his masculinity, because I completely lost it for the rest of the song.
Here’s another…
Funny, I don’t even have to be creative to come up with amusing stories from when I worked in church. All I need to do is be still for a moment and allow myself to remember. The longer I’m quiet the more information floods my memory, seems like I have a hefty reserve available.
This came to mind.
The young boys name was Monte. He was a tow-headed fellow, face full of freckles, great big toothy smile- probably around 7-8 years old. He made a point to speak to every person he came in contact with. Not being shy, he didn’t filter much of his conversation and one could expect a wide range of topics to talk about. He had no friends because of his difference. He was treated more like a pet than a child. Monte would try to fit in and become like the other children but he seldom found much success. He spent all his time with his grandmother in the nursery. She was the church’s paid babysitter during church services. She was quite old and her health was failing but Monte was always near her.
Monte had Down Syndrome and acted like any other child except he was limited on his functionality. Kind, caring, trusting eyes greeted every person. Even though he was alone in this world he was not a loner. I would often find myself on the floor engaged in deep conversation with him.
Monte had one peccadillo that caused many people in the church to have pause. I believe if this one little issue could have been addressed, his life might have been totally different. He might have been allowed to play with the other children had this been extinguished, but such was his fate. Monte looked different from the other kids and acted different from the other kids, yet deep down inside, he was just like each and every other kid.
His downfall stemmed from his discomfort with clothing. Monte simply didn’t like the way he felt when he wore clothes. To him walking around the hallway of the church completely barren was a natural as breathing. This of course bothered many of the people and his poor old grandmother would apologize and try to put his clothes back on him.
Imagine the shock of horror found on a visitors face as they approached the nursery only to be greeted by a nude boy walking the other direction. I’m certain he welcomed them and tried to strike up a conversation, but to no avail. Whenever a loud scream was sounded we knew Monte had decided to go for a walk and he happened upon someone who wasn’t quite as understanding as most of the people from our church.
Monte made that church interesting, he kept things really fresh, we never knew when he would take one of his famous walks. Truthfully, I thought he was entertaining and looked forward to each exciting chapter with him. As one would imagine, complaints began to accumulate and the grandmother was told she would need to prevent Monte from parading himself about the church or he would not be welcome anymore.
After this pronouncement I would go by the nursery from time to time and see Monte sitting with his grandmother with the life in his eyes beginning to dim. A sad image to take in. His spirit was broken and he became a lifeless little boy after that.
Like all good rebels in life, the downtime was actually used to plot his next move, and boy, was it going to be a doosie. Monte had a plan.
The sanctuary was full that Sunday morning, the choir looked angelic in their crimson robes, this was to be a Sunday service not soon forgotten. After a rousing anthem by the choir the pastor strode triumphantly to the pulpit. With his arms flailing and fists pounding, the message reverberated throughout the sanctuary. At first the sound was almost indecipherable, but then it grew progressively louder. Finally everyone focused their eyes on the location of the incoming noise. As the collective congregants watched, Monte leaped from the steps of the baptismal pool into the water. A wave of liquid slowly strengthened and delivered a baptism on the choir unlike any they had previously witnessed. The drenching was so complete that church members met some choir members seemingly for the first time. Make up and hair spray serve a purpose, especially for a choir made up of blue haired saints like these. Wow! The pastor stood stunned as the choir began to scatter in every direction. Sheet music went everywhere…people starred in disbelief. It was only a brief period but it seemed to last an eternity, this surreal moment had everyone asking, “did that really just happen?â€
When the ruckus dissipated all eyes were transfixed on the image before them. Swimming happily in the baptistry with only the clear glass wall facing the congregation was a naked Monte. Everyone in the church that day understand completely that he was all boy. And as a boy he would do the same things other boys his age liked to do and today that meant going for a swim. His big toothy smile was back in full view as he hung on the front of the glass waving to all the bewildered onlookers.
Monte and his grandmother didn’t come back to our church after that and they seemingly walked off into the sunset never to be heard from again. That was truly a shame. I’ll never forget that silly boy and his crazy antics that one very special day. He did what no one else could do back then, and believe me, many had tried. He managed to shut up that long winded preacher and allowed us to go home early.
I like to call it the “Miracle of Monte.â€
Peacetrain, no offense but that is the most ridiculous story I have ever heard! You’ll excuse me if I have a hard time believing it, but it was a great read all the same.
via a friend: Short on communion bread, someone grabbed a loaf of what looked like French bread out of the fridge. Unfortunately, it was garlic bread.
Back during the presidential election season in 1984, when Mondale and Ferraro were on the Democratic ticket, my Dad was on a business trip in Detroit. While there, he attended services at a large Assembly of God church. At one of the services there was a guest preacher who was a revered (and elderly) Pentecostal evangelist. Evidently the poor old fellow must have been drifting a bit into senility because he suddenly stopped his sermon and said “That damn Ferraro”. Then he resumed his message as though nothing had happened.
At the chapel services of the Christian high school I attended, our sound system would sometimes get interrupted with the messages from CB radios of truckers who were passing through the area. I wish to this day I could remember what exactly some of those messages were. “And the Lord said”. . . “How you doing out there, good buddy?”
Growing up in a SBC church in a small town has made for dozens upon dozens of ‘can’t hold it in’ stories. but here are the big two;
1. Somewhere in the 80′s, someone got the bright idea to have an Easter pageant every year. So the weeks leading up to Easter were filled with pretty much every regular attendee either singing or a part of the ‘drama team’. On opening night in ’88, we had reached the most solemn moment of the production, the actor playing Jesus (who was recruited because he had longish brown hair and blue eyes) had been lowered ever so carefully from the cross, carried to the “tomb” as the choir sang an acapella version of “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”. As Jesus was placed in the tomb, one of the disciples tripped and dropped Jesus on his head. We know this because of the “ow! watch my fu**in’ head” coming from Jesus’ open mic.
2. During high school, there was a guy named Allen in our boy’s SS class who was Forrest Gump-ish, only, not as smart. Which always made it entertaining. but one Sunday the lesson centered around 1 Sam 18:25ff…the story of David and the 200 foreskins. A lesson for high school boys…right. I must admit, we kept it together very well until the end, when the teacher asked someone to close us in prayer. And Allen volunteered. He started with “Lord, thank you for David and All Them Foreskins….” and it just went down hill from there. He literally said the word ‘foreskins’ no less than 10 times in a 30 second prayer.
1. My first Sunday as the new youth pastor, I was helping the Senior Pastor lead communion. I was supposed to pray for the wine. As I sat there, literally seconds before I was called on to pray, for some reason my communion cup tipped in my hands and dumped the wine right square in the front of my light tan cotton pants. The worst thing was that it caught me off guard and I started laughing. Most people couldn’t see what I’d done…they could only see me laughing during communion for no reason…
2. After church on Sunday at my Bible College, announcements were being made. One of the music groups that toured for the college needed a new piano player. The elderly professor who was making the announcement asked that anyone interested in playing, contact Mr. Russel, the faculty advisor for that group. However…his wording was unfortunate.
“Mr. Russel needs a pianist.” (say that out loud). Right away a group of freshman in front of me started laughing. I was trying to be mature (fourth year student) and let it pass. But the teacher just wouldn’t stop. He just kept saying it over and over.
Finally I lost it (along with 800 other students) when, with great gusto he said, “Please, I implore you…talk to Mr. Russel about his need of a pianist!”
3. Lastly, one Sunday an elderly homeless person came into our church and joined the service. It was a good church, and no one had a problem with that. They welcomed him and found him a place to sit. The problem was that he kept Amen-ing and shouting “Preach it brother!” through the whole service. We weren’t really a “Preach it brother!” kind of a church. What got even funnier was when, after the sermon when the announcements were being made, he Amen-ed those as well, with the occasional “Preach it!” thrown in for good measure.
There’s so many more…but that’ll do for now…
My friend was teaching the kids about the ten commandments. He was talking about the sabbath, saying that God commands us to have a a day when we rest, lie around & do little, etc. It came out “God COMMANDS us to sleep around…”. Funniest thing was seeing one of the other leaders rolling around on the floor laughing at this.
The worst song typo I have ever seen:
Bold shall I stand in that great day; And none condom me, try who may
I could feel the strain as 600 Christian uni students tried to hold straight faces as we sang that song. The following day we sang the song, with the overhead sheet reprinted, and you could still feel it in the room and see it on the song leader’s face as we sang that bit.
And then there was cousin Betty’s funeral. The funeral was pretty conventional until the very end, just after the casket was rolled down the aisle and the beneficiaries wadded up their hankies and followed it. As the rest of us sat reverently…there was an awful racket over the PA system. My little son, who’d fallen asleep, shot bolt upright in the pew, terrified. He’d never heard a loon call before. Scary stuff, but that wasn’t the funniest thing.
The pallbearers rolled the casket out of the front door to the waiting hearse and lifted it into the back, then got into their limo. The funeral director lined up the cars to follow it to the cemetery, and the hearse driver rattled the door on the driver’s side of the vehicle…without success. Then he tried to open the door on the passenger side. It, too, was locked, and he could see the only set of keys in the ignition. By that time, it looked as though Betty was going nowhere.
Finally the funeral director (all 6″+ of him) crawled into the back of the hearse, muscled Betty’s casket to the side, and crawled through the little window into the driving compartment to retrieve the key.
I think we all laughed after that…all except for Betty. She would not have been amused. And she was paying for the funeral.
ooh weddings are always a good source for amusement…
Here’s a simplified story (incase for some reason the bride or groom happens to frequent this blog – because it might not be hard to figure out who it might be – but I doubt I was the only one who found it odd)
Bride, in a wedding dress with a big beaded train, gets down on her hands and knees to wash the grooms feet, apparently to his surprise and certainly to the congregations.
1) I’d think you’d pick a simpler dress if you wanted to do such a thing and
2) it just seemed so medieval to me to only have her washing his feet – certainly not something I would have done personally – I understand the sentiment but 1) I wouldn’t be trying to encorporate it into a wedding ceremony, and 2) even if I did you’d better believe the groom better wash my feet as well! (I’m egalitarian if you can’t tell, but this was in all honesty a fairly complementarian church, even if its in a denomination that does ordain women – we just never saw any of them!)