Few people are truly aware of the constant requests, complaints, and criticisms pastors and other church leaders receive. I must admit, however, I was surprised when I asked church leaders on Twitter to share some of the more unusual comments they have received. I was first surprised at how many responded. But I was most surprised at the really strange things people tell pastors and other church leaders.
Many of the comments related to using the Bible too much or to being too evangelistic. I should make those a blog post by themselves.
I narrowed my selection to twenty-five, but it could have been much higher. I left off many great comments to keep this post manageable. I’ve only made minor wording changes to some of these. For the most part, I received these quotes just as you are seeing them. The parenthetical words after each comment represent my off-the-cuff commentary.
- “We need a small group for cat lovers.” (I guess they could serve Meow Mix as a snack.)
- “You need to change your voice.” (Yes ma’am. I’ll try to have that done by next week.)
- “Our expensive coffee is attracting too many hipsters.” (Yep. You don’t want too many of those hipsters in your church.)
- “Preachers who don’t wear suits and ties aren’t saved. It’s in the Bible. (I should have known that’s what Jesus and Paul wore.)
- “Your socks are distracting.” (I understand. I’ll stop wearing socks.)
- “You shouldn’t make people leave the youth group after they graduate.” (It’s going to get really weird by the time they turn 70 years old.)
- “I don’t like the color of the towels in the women’s restroom.” (I don’t understand. They match the towels in the men’s restroom.)
- “We need to start attracting more normal people at church.” (So, you will be leaving the church, I presume.)
- “I developed cancer because you don’t preach from the KJV.” (Major medical announcement! New carcinogen discovered!)
- “Your wife never compliments me about my hair or dress.” (There could be a reason for that.)
- “Not enough people signed up for the church golf tournament. You have poor leadership skills.” (I’m so sorry. I expected more since most of the deacons play golf on Sunday morning)
- “I think you are trying to preach caffeineism.” (Probably Reformed theology with an extra kick.)
- “If Jesus sang from the red hymnals, why can’t we?” (I think you are mistaken. He sang from blue hymnals.)
- (To a pastor who married interracially). “You are living in sin. You shouldn’t be married to each other.” (That one is not worthy of commentary.)
- “I don’t like the brand of donuts in the foyer.” (It’s better than Meow Mix.)
- “You didn’t wrap the hot dogs in bacon for the church picnic.” (I understand that one. Bacon rules.)
- “You shouldn’t drink water when you preach.” (At least not simultaneously.)
- “The toilet paper is on the wrong way in the ladies restroom. It’s rolled under.” (My guess is that it is still functional.)
- “Why don’t you ever preach on Tim Tebow?” (Be patient. I will be preaching a six-week expository series on him in the fall.)
- “You don’t have ashtrays in the fellowship hall.” (Yes we do. They are right next to the spittoons for your chewing tobacco.)
- “Did you see me waving in the back of the worship center? You preached too long. It was time to eat!” (Who needs a clock when I have you?)
- “The eggs were not scrambled enough at the senior adult breakfast.” (We thought you could jump up and down after you ate them to finish the job.)
- “You don’t look at our side of the worship center enough when you preach.” (That’s because you are on that side.)
- “We are leaving the church because you have a red cross on the building. That’s the color of the devil.” (I understand. It’s in the same verse that describes his pitchfork and horns.)
- “Your sermon needed more calories.” (Okay. I’ll feed it one of those donuts in the foyer.)
Pastors and other church leaders must have great patience and strength. They are faced with these and many other comments and demands every day. I love these church leaders, and I thank God for them.
Share with me what comments you have received. And tell me what you think of the twenty-five comments that were shared with me.
Posted on August 19, 2015
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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615 Comments
I had a meeting with an seasoned member of our church who was complaining that we needed to sing more patriotic songs in our worship service. She actually said, “You know, like Yankee Doodle Dandy!”
This just made me laugh out loud. Thank you for that! I definitely know of at least one or two elderly people from my congregation whom I could picture saying something like that 🙂
Wow. Just wow.
Thanks for sharing these. They have made me laugh, but are also sad. I’d like to share a few of my own:
“I’m tired of all this talk about smoking causing cancer. That’s an invention of George W. Bush and the Republicans!” (Her husband, a lifetime two pack a day man, was dying of lung cancer.
“This sanctuary could be filled to overflowing every Sunday, and I know how to do it; have more church yard sales and bake sales.”
“You need to do more outreach visitation in wealthy neighborhoods. Those people might join the church and they have more money to give.”
While serving as a youth pastor for several years, I was asked to preach while the real (senior) pastor was on vacation.
1.) one time an elderly woman saw that I was preaching and yelled loud enough for me to hear, “I didn’t come here today to listen to him, when is the real pastor coming back?”
2.) another time an elderly man met me in Walmart – where all kinds of crazy things happen – and told me that someday I would make a good pastor. This was after I was ordained and had been serving in that church for 6+ years.
Be glad you got to preach at all. In one church where I was an associate pastor I preached only once – and that was in one of the ethnic churches, not in the “main” (mainly white) “real” service. Made me wonder what the senior pastor was saying both about the non-English-speaking congregations and about women in ministry (I am one) and associate pastors (most of the other associates also preached seldom or never). It sure felt like we were second-tier or second-class servants of God. The church thought nothing of bringing in people from the outside to preach but never nourished the in-house staff the way it might have.
I meant to say I preached only once at that church in the entire five years I served there.
I’ve experienced comments like many of those above and was able to laugh about and forget them. The one unforgettable comment I received that broke my heart came from a man who publicly challenged me by saying, “If you continue teaching on the importance of becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, my family and I will leave (the church).”
so many comments, so little space:
(I am female)
1. Your lips are too thin, you need more and louder lipstick
2. Your earrings are distracting
3. You should cut your hair short like the men
4. * We’ve been wondering, since your pantlegs aren’t showing, what do you wear under your robe
5. Your husband writes really good sermons for you to preach–keep listening to him
Considering the comments 1-4, I guess the outrageous #5 is hardly surprising.
I’m a Youth Director in Oklahoma. I once gave a message over our “stuff” and how we replace it before it needs to be replaced. I had a student say ask if she was wrong because she wanted to buy a $1000 laptop. In the spirit of not hurting her feelings I asked how old her other computer was…she said she got it a few months beforehand…I changed the subject immediately.
My heart and prayers go out to all of you who serve in the ministry. At 62 and retired I can only wish I had chosen to go to college and seminary when I was young. Today, I preach when and where I can and I love to tell others about Christ. Please keep true to your calling and pray extra hard for the people that make these kind of comments. We gotta love them too!!
Well said, Willie. Thank you.
Amen.
This one touched my heart.
Yeah. Just listen with compassion. It help us understand human tendencies but respond graciously.
I was called to a church from the church planting field and was leading the church to engage the community around them. The community was at one time a middle-class anglo neighborhood but over the years had become a lower-middle class predominately African American and Hispanic neighborhood. One morning I was visiting the Sunday School classes before they started and a woman told me, “We should have never hired you, you’re not a pastor, you’re a church planter.” (Never mind that before church planting I had been in the ministry for about 12 years as a youth pastor and pastor). Later I was discussing how we needed to reach our community and share the gospel with this around us. One lady said we needed to get people to drive in to our church from outside our community and I said, “If we don’t reach our community we aren’t accomplishing the gospel, if we don’t reach our community we’ll die.” She responded, “Well, I guess I’d rather die.”
Things like that break my heart. Too many people, particularly from the older generation, view the church as some sort of country club and completely miss God’s entire purpose for us. I love your response to her and I hope that you have had great success in reaching the precious lives of those people in your community!
I’ve got to disagree with that, Jennifer. I my experience, the older generation is used to working in the church; spiritually and physically. I was always shocked at how lazy my baby boomer generation was when it came to doing anything useful. My own Dad was near 70 and still the one on top of the church fixing the swamp cooler, because the young men deacons and such, had JOBS. Huh. Dad was a deacon; filled the pulpit; was there Sunday morning( taught Sunday School)Sunday night, Wednesday night. He had fields to plow and harvest, cattle to feed and water, a wife who played the piano and worked with him, and three kids who were very active. That woman was just badly raised.
Baby Boomers are becoming the “older generation”. I have several in my church, and they tend to be more faithful and active. Millennials, on the other hand, are a different story. They talk a good game about reaching people for Christ, but I have a hard time getting them to commit to anything.
On my internship, a member of the church council stood up to make a motion that we change the name of the church and substitute “Country Club” at the end of it. The most offended by the suggestion? The same people who treated it as such. The council member simply wanted to bring up the attitude (didn’t change much for years though).
After a full day of serving our community (with about 60% of our congregation involved), one of our older ladies said, “We shouldn’t be doing this kind of work when the city pays people to do it.”
Oh well…back to “us-centered” only activities, I guess! haha
Wow! It’s truly sad that anyone could have that perspective, much less a “Christian!” But obviously most of your church is very outreach focused since you had such a good turnout! That’s awesome!
I wonder if she meant it the way we tend to take that statement. Having been in mostly older congregations my entire ministry, I have found that people of a certain age (Depression Era and shortly after) have a unique view on why ministry is done or not done. That comment could be taken as we initially hear it, but it can also heard another way. That statement can also be said out of concern for the paid worker’s job. If they lived in an era where jobs were scarce, many older adults would not want to do ministry that could jeopardize a person’s livelihood. You were there so you know how it was said, but I have become sensitive to hearing “other” ways people could mean something. Be blessed.
A lady came up to me after a guest sermon one morning and chastised me for mispronouncing “the.” She said I should pronounce it the right way – “thee” instead of “thuh.” She told me it was so distracting she didn’t even listen to what I had to say. (And, somehow, the Church of Jesus survives).
#21. A member said that to another member after my third Sunday at a church. The other member had been on the search committee. She responded by saying: “He’s making up for all the Sundays you skipped during the interim.” When she told me this, I asked, “What did first member say?” “He stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing and said, “I deserved that!” As we got to know each other, we came to appreciate a good laugh together!
As the first woman pastor in a two-point charge, I was asked by the music directors if I played the piano. should I place a tip jar on the piano while I accompany my sermons?
While you preach on tithing. 🙂