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.
More from Thom
615 Comments
My husband was once called into a serious meeting after church one night by the personnel committee to be told he needed to start teaching the youth more topically because, and I quote, “they will get all that Bible stuff later.”
I had a winner the other week.
The chairman of our Deacon Board decided (on the urging of his wife) to have an alternate church service in our building (before anyone else showed up), and brought in another pastor (who was previously dismissed from the church).
When I asked why he would do this and not talk to me about it beforehand, his response:
“Your opinion doesn’t matter. You’re just the hired help.”
Yep…that one hurt! Out of the abundance of the heart…the mouth flows.
And…another thought…the tenure of their typical pastor over the past 20 years? @ 2 years. They’ve gone through a bunch of them!
A friend of mine was interviewing with a pastor search committee once, and he asked them one of the routine questions: “Why did your last pastor leave?” They said he was lazy. Some mornings he didn’t show up for work until 10:00. My friend asked, “But how late was he up the night before?” They went into some spiel about how the pastor worked for the church and was expected to keep certain office hours. My friend said, “I’d better put something straight. I’ve been a pastor for 14 years, but I don’t work ‘for’ the church. I serve the church, but I work for the Lord.” Needless to say, he never heard from that committee again.
Of all the crazy stuff I’ve had said to me, here’s the top :
5. I did my first internship in a church where the pastor put an extraordinary amount of time and effort into his sermon preparation, and was a gifted preacher. After my first sermon, he and I were approached by an elder who shook my hand and said to me, “Boy, if you can preach like that all the time, we’re going to have to fire him!” My immediate response was, “If he goes, I go.”
4. After filling the pulpit as a guest minister: “We enjoyed your sermon, but we don’t think we’re interested in having you candidate here—after all, your wife has short hair.”
3. From my first call: “How long have you and your wife been married?”
“Well, we’ve been married a little over five years.”
“Wow, and she’s not pregnant yet? You don’t need some help with that do ya?”
I knew how much I had grown in holiness at that moment, because he left church alive and unharmed.
2. During seminary I was the supply pastor for a tiny Reformed church about 2 hours away. After a couple of months one of the members and his wife told me that he and his wife wouldn’t becoming back because they took from my preaching that I believed that there were actual Christians in Baptist churches.
1. The all time funniest and strangest: Right before I graduated from seminary, a different member of the church mentioned in #2 wanted to talk to me about planting a church in his hometown. When we met he opened the conversation with, “I know what we’ve got to do to get a church started up here in XXXXX County. You need to come with me to the militia meeting.”
Silence on #3.
Yep. But on the other hand, I’m the only pastor I know who’s preached to a crowd of drunk rednecks with AKs at “the militia meeting.” The militia needs the gospel, too.
My husband and I have been asked on more than a few occasions why we don’t have any kids, and when we plan on having some. Since I can’t have children, these questions have consistently reduced me to tears.
I’m sorry to hear that, Berta. It’s often done the same to my wife.
Please tell her she is not alone, and give her a hug for me. God’s blessings.
I feel your pain. My wife is also unable to have children.
I once was told, “Humor has no place in a sermon.” My senior pastor overheard the comment, came over and said, “That is a lie straight from the pit of hell.” She didn’t last much longer at the church.
…pastor’s wife comment….It was our first Sunday morning worship service and I was sitting on the front row before the service. A senior adult lady came over to me and said, “Oh honey, you are sitting in the wrong place. Our pastor’s wife always sits on the other side of the aisle.” In my most “southern hospitality” voice and with a smile, I replied, “Not this pastor’s wife, but thank you.” By the way, we have now been at our church now for 15 years, got to love them!
That lady would really have a problem with our pastor’s wife, if she’s not in the back with the kids, she’s on the 3rd row center, or is it 2nd. LOL
Early in my ministry, I was an associate pastor for a church where my father-in-law was the pastor. During a revival, the preacher preached against sin: drunkenness, nudity, cursing, etc. His last point was “an man who wears anything other than a white shirt is out of fellowship with God!” I looked at our colorful pastor who was red of face and blue of shirt.
I think blue shirts are prohibited in Scripture.
Unless worn with Pauline Kahkis
I once had a deacon tell me that my preteen son acted too feminine. My father is transgender, so this one really stung. Thankfully, his comment wasn’t true.
When my wife was going through breast cancer treatments at the age of 30, I shaved my head to support her. One of the older ladies in the church said, “I don’t think I can handle having a pastor who’s a skinhead.” Years later, I’m now bald.
Sad. Really sad.
I’m bald, too, so I often have to deal with kids and teenagers poking fun at me. Of course, they don’t mean any harm by it, but I do have a good retort for them: “I used to make fun of bald people when I was your age. Look what happened to me! The Bible says you reap what you sow.” That usually shuts ’em up.
Look what happened to the youth in 2 Kings who made fun of Elisha’s bald head…
Yeah, that’s a good one, too!
I was told that my going to a football game (it was on a Saturday, mind you) was sinful because alcohol is served at the stadium. Wonder how she feels about me going to the grocery store…
Lucky you’re not Anglican (Episcopalian) or how would she cope with the Vestry (Deacons) meeting?
“Your husband is a lot better preacher than I was told.”
*Every sermon you preach is better than the one after it.”
This one drives my husband crazy. “You improve every week!”…is that code for you weren’t very good to start with?
A think a little lady was trying to give me a compliment one day after a sermon when she said, “One of these days you’re going to make a good pastor to someone.” (Lady, I am YOUR pastor! Right now!)
Variations on a theme. Many times.
I once invited a couple to speak at our Sunday school class. They were a black couple, our church was white. After church the Pastor caught me in the parking lot. His comment was, “Well, they were clean”. I was stunned to silence.
Oh no.
“Uh… cleaner than your heart.”
Oh, 15 years of ministry, and so many of these to share, sadly.
Let’s see, we are a cash-only, Dave-Ramsey following family. We saved up to fully remodel a room in our older home, and a Deacon (who knows my husband’s salary), asked if we had been given a raise he didn’t know about.
One lady and her husband left our church because I wasn’t her best friend. Ironically, when we had been getting to know each other, I had specifically told her I would not have a best friend in the church, and I would be friends with as many ladies as I could. She also told me that my husband and I could not have done her pre-marital counseling or counsel her and her husband, because she was previously divorced and we couldn’t understand, but when she left she was angry with my for not discipling her. I was just confused.
One person started most conversations with, “You won’t get this, because you’re a pastor’s wife,” and then proceeded to tell me all the ways she was sinning, and justified them. Particularly, she liked to tell me why she did not need to submit to her husband (she was smarter, more experienced, etc).
One man complained to the elders that my husband (a youth pastor at the time), didn’t wear a belt. He also complained that he didn’t wear a suit the few times he preached a year. The church gave us $150 to buy a suit (our salary was below poverty level). Another elder’s wife gave me money to buy some dresses, because apparently my skirts and blouses weren’t right for church.
Thankfully, we serve the Lord and not man. And also, thankfully, my husband is so very patient, even keeled, and not ruffled.
Newly out of seminary, as a 25 year old solo pastor, my husband was handed an envelope with cash that was placed in the offering one Sunday marked “a pair of dress shoes from the Lord.”