Can I get an amen?
This morning, I happened to attend one of the later services at our church. Normally, I'm at the 9:00 service. But Janie slept late and I didn't feel like waking her up because she's been a little sick for the last couple of days and I figured she needed the sleep. So we had a bit of a lazy morning and made it in time for the 10:45 service.
It was during this service that I experienced the funniest church moment of all my 33 years of church attendance.
The pastor was continuing in his series about the fruits of the spirit. Today's fruit: patience.
One of his main points was that the opposite of patience is anger. He spent a lot of time talking about the havoc we create when anger goes unchecked and some steps to take to deal with and overcome anger.
But he did pause to point out that sometimes anger is a good thing and gave examples of righteous anger from the Bible. Then to bring the point home, he mentioned a local political action committee that was working with the city to correct something happening in our public libraries.
Pastor: "Did you know that our local libraries do not have p*rn filters on their computers?"
Man in church (very loudly): "Yes! Amen!" Clap, clap, clap, clap. "Thank you Jesus!" More clapping.
Everyone else in church: Awkward silence.
Pastor: "Umm, actually... they don't have the filters yet."
Man: "Oh. Uh. I thought you said..."
Everyone else in church: Hysterical, tears-in-your-eyes laughter for several minutes.
Man's wife: "If the rapture could happen right now that would be great." (I don't know if she really said - I'm just guessing on that part.)
After a minute or two, we all managed to quiet down and the pastor was able to continue his sermon.
At the very end of the service, the man ran up to stand next to the pastor and asked if he could say a few words.
Man: "I'm really proud of the political action committee. They do really great work. And I also think it's really important to have filters on the library computers. And really I just want to say that the committee is doing a great job. And the library is really great and I hope that they do get filters. I mean, I just want to support..."
Pastor: "Thank you sir. You're a good sport. It was an honest mistake."
Everyone else in church: Clapping and laughing.
Pastor (with a big grin): "Friends, this is why you should always listen very carefully to what your pastor is saying."
