The little preacher and a church member named Monkey

Dr. Bob Rogers

Holy Humor Columnist

Updated: Apr 10, 2008, 9:00 AM

Published: Mar 19, 2008, 5:31 PM

There’s an old joke that goes like this: you can tell that you’re in a country church when you call for “Bubba” to take up the offering, and a half-dozen guys stand up and come forward.

One country church that I served as pastor not only had “Bubba,” but had people with all kinds of unusual nick-names. I think it was a family tradition. This was a church dominated by one tightly-knit family. In fact, I figured up once that out of the total membership of 86, we had 55 members who belonged to one extended family. You could say that this church was “home owned and operated.”

There was a woman in the church who had been called “Cooter” since she was a child. She married a Mr. Brown, so she became “Cooter Brown.” Cooter would laugh about her nick-name when she met people and explain that yes, she had heard of the expression, “Drunk as Cooter Brown,” but no, she didn’t drink. Cooter had a sister that everybody called “Sister.” Even people who weren’t related to her, still called her “Sister.” They had an Aunt Monkey. That was a really hard one for me. When she told me, “Just call me ‘Monkey,’” I said, “Ma’am, I can call a woman ‘Cooter,’ but I don’t think I can bring myself to call a woman ‘Monkey.’” She insisted I call her “Monkey” anyway.

Then there were the children. One girl was known as “Boo-Boo.” I think her family must have been watching Yogi the Bear cartoons at the time they had this child. She had a big brother they called “Possum-Eye.” I asked “Paw,” a family patriarch, where he got that name, and “Paw” said, “I gave it to ‘em, ‘cause his hair is so long that when you see his eyes stickin’ outta his hair, he looks like he’s got a possum eye.”

They had a nick-name for me, too. Being a young, inexperienced pastor, I was the “little preacher.” I hated that nick-name. I wanted to be a “big preacher,” not a “little preacher.” I should have been glad. That was about 25 years ago and 25 pounds ago. Nobody calls me “little preacher” anymore.

But that’s okay, because the Bible says I will get a new name one day. That’s right! In Revelation 2:17, Jesus speaks to the faithful believer who overcomes, and promises, “I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it.” Apparently this new name is representative of the new life we have as Christians, for the Bible also says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV). When we trust in Jesus, He gives us a new life, a new purpose, a new hope and a new name.

Maybe I’ll get to be “little preacher” again.

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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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