Inside the mind of a 3-year-old preacher

Dr. Bob Rogers

Pastor, First Baptist Church of Rincon

Updated: Nov 10, 2011, 4:52 PM

Published: Nov 10, 2011, 4:54 PM

I have a guest columnist this week — my Mom.

Sometimes when I write these columns, she writes back to me with comments about memories, particularly memories of when I was growing up. In one column, I wrote about how when I was 3 years old, my parents were teaching me to say “sir” and “ma’am.” We had just finished a trip in the car, and Dad said, “Get out, Bobby!” I wanted to continue riding, and I blurted out defiantly, “No!” Startled by my negative response, my Dad demanded, “What did you say?” I thought quickly about the lessons I had learned in etiquette, and I replied, “No, sir!”

Retelling that story prompted a response from Mom. Here are a few of her thoughts:

“When you were about 3 years old, we were having dinner with my parents at Oak Grove (Mississippi) and a lot of family members were there. You wanted to say the blessing. You blessed everybody, then you started on blessing the food, dish by dish. ‘Thank you for the turkey, thank you for the cranberry sauce, etc., etc.’ After a while, some snickers were being heard, so when you took a breath, I said ‘Amen.’ You said, ‘But I’m not through, Mama!’ The laughter could not be suppressed.

“When you were little, about 3, I think, you asked me what angels did all day, did they just fly around naked? I can’t remember how I answered.”

Well, Mom, you know, inquiring preachers’ kids want to know these things. How are we going to find out if we don’t ask? Too often, people just swallow whatever they’re told in church, rather than checking it out for themselves. That’s like swallowing already chewed food. Personally, I’d rather chew it myself. That’s why I’ve always admired the Christians mentioned in Acts 17:11 who, after they heard the apostle Paul preach, “examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” They weren’t afraid to ask questions.

Maybe they even asked about naked angels. I wonder if they found out what those angels do...

(Copyright 2011 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Read old “Holy Humor” columns by visiting www.fbcrincon.com and clicking on “Holy Humor.”)

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Is there a church for a big woman with an itch?

Dr. Bob Rogers

Updated: Jan 23, 2014, 10:34 PM

Published: Jan 23, 2014, 10:36 PM

A pastor was called to be guest preacher at a church. He knew this church was different when the congregation ended every line of the hymn with the shout of “yeehah!”

As he stood to preach, he noticed that people were spread out on the pews. He would see a person, then a space, then another person, and another space. He wondered why nobody sat next to another person, when he noticed on the pew beside each person was a cowboy hat.

Another time this same preacher was invited to a new church in the city. He was surprised to see that everybody there looked like they had fallen face first into a tackle box, because they had piercings and earrings on every part of the body imaginable. A rock band was playing alternative music on the stage.

As different as these two churches were, they were both growing and reaching people for Christ.

Years ago I was pastor of a small country church in the backwoods of Mississippi. There was another Baptist church just five miles away in the town (population 600). The pastor’s wife at the town church asked me, “Why don’t our two churches merge?” I said, “There are people in my church who would not feel comfortable or fit in at your town church.” She said, “Oh, come on. We’re a small town church. What could be so different?”

I said, “Well, I got one really big woman in my church who, when she gets to feeling an itch, she pulls her dress halfway up and she scratches herself.”

The eyes of this pastor’s wife got really big and she said, “I see what you mean.”

I forgot to tell her about another woman in my church who saw a roach running across the wood floor, so she stomped on it with her bare foot, laughed and shouted, “Aha! I got him!”

Yep, the culture was definitely different where I was pastor.

Jesus upset the religious establishment because He crossed cultural barriers. He loved to eat with tax collectors and Gentiles and other strange people. Jesus walked into the land of Samaria, full of half-breed Jews who worshiped in weird ways and talked different and smelled different.

Jesus walked right up to a Samaritan woman at a well and started talking her language. He accepted her culture, but he let her know her sinful lifestyle had to change. Soon she had the whole town following Jesus (see John 4).

So what cultural barrier is keeping somebody in your community from hearing the gospel? If you tear down the cultural barriers to share Christ in your neighborhood, you may hear the angels shouting, “Yeehah!”

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