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
We have a small congregation and as the pastor’s girlfriend, I serve in many capacities. One of which is janitor. I had someone come up to me 2 weeks ago and ask who cleaned the church. I told them that I did. They looked at me in all seriousness and said, ” THIS is what you call clean?!” I thought my head was going to explode. This person has NEVER so much as offered to help clean the church. The church wasn’t dirty. I do heavy cleaning every 2 weeks and straighten up the rest of the time. The place was neat, the restrooms were clean and the floor didn’t need to be vacuumed. I have a full time job in addition to being a student. A little help instead of criticism would have been nice.
Oh Kay, church janitorial is thankless. We did it for 9 years in our large church of about 259 members, two buildings, and for the first 4 years, two schools! Plus, my husband and I were in ministry that traveled a lot. About 5 people ever said thanks, but many were quick to pick out a mess made after cleaning. The best was the guy who, while doing nothing, watched me clean the three picture window sized glass partitions in the back of the sanctuary. “So. You guys clean the church?” “Yes.” “Huh. So, when do you do it? About once a month or so?” I was dumb-struck. I said “Good heavens, man! You’ve got like 5 kids! What so you think your wife does all day? I have 250 of them!” lol!
While I was a youth pastor, I stepped into the roll of interim pastor. I applied for the senior pastor position. During this time, I had a couple who would say odd things to me. The one I will never forget; “You are doing a great job, but I am not sure you are the man for the position.” They would regularly encourage encourage me in this way.
I had an elderly woman tell me that her two favorite preachers were me and Joel Osteen. Talk about guilt by association.
I was similarly told, “You’re every bit as good a preacher as Joyce Meyer”. I said, “thankyou” and wanted to stab myself in the leg with a fork!
I think one of the worst was when a particular church belonging to a “non-denominational” denomination (most of which keep women out of official leadership positions and the pulpit) got a female ministry intern. On the internet, she was called everything including a “child of hell” and her soul’s salvation was even called into question. The worst comments came from other women.
These wonderful comments should be in a book to which pastors can retreat when such arise. My favorite: A very sweet, sincere, elderly lady came up to me after a service and said: “Thank you for that sermon. I’m hard of hearing, and couldn’t hear a word you said, but I saw your lips moving and know it was wonderful.” It was my all-time highest praise.
You just gotta love folks like that.
As a lay speaker, I had that happen. A dear woman told me she was sure that my talk was wonderful, but she hadn’t put her hearing aids in that day, so she hadn’t heard a word of it. [At least she was there. At our church, attendance is very low when the pastor is away.]
Great stuff. I once had a lady tell me she was leaving our church because it was too happy around here. BTW her name was Joy.
Wow again.
I had a retired, pastor’s wife come up to me and pat my right front pants pocket and say, “I was just wondering if that bulge was your keys or something else.” The next week I had the entire church re-keyed so I had one key instead of 16 so that would never happen again.
Oh my. No words
When I was candidating for a pastorate, a member of the pulpit committee prayed for another candidate during Sunday school to accept the call.
This was before hearing me preach my sermon.
I hope his prayer was answered. You didn’t need to go there.
I had a man tell me, “Your sermons make me hate you. But I am thankful for the truth!”
He was serious. He hated me and was glad he did I think.
Brings to mind a man in our church who told me. “You’re going to Hell because you’re not married.” I cried when I get home. I told him. “Yippee it would be better then closing and opening my eyes to you every morning and every night.” Than, he said you made a mistake I told him “At least I wasn’t ‘born’ a mistake.” He told me “That’s NOT in the Bible.” I turned and said, “Really, tell us what happened to you then.” One day he walked up to me and said, “I’ll never talk to you again………… I’ll never talk to you again.” I told him, “PLEASE, make only promises that you can Keep.”
“One of our former pastors was a man who owned in his own home and worked during the week, then came in and preached on Sunday without asking us to pay him. Now, THERE was a real Christian!”
After preaching a message on the reality of the Holy Spirit, a man who has stirred the undercurrent of the church met me at the pulpit. “That was a great sermon! he said. “I didn’t think you had it in you!”
He is the king of back-handed compliments.
As a worship pastor: “Thank you for the hymns this morning. It’s about time someone led us in some real worship!” I had been leading every Sunday for a year.
It’s hard to remember when you get a comment like these, but if you look around usually 99% of your folks are behaving themselves!
True. But the 1% can be really funny . . . or sad.
I took a church with 9 members left living,(12 died the year before) within a year we were up to 45 one of the original members told me I should have tried harder to get people who looked like them.I told him they all had 2 arms 2 legs 1 head and thats as close as I could get
Looked like them…wait. What?!