The preacher who learned not to show up late

Dr. Bob Rogers

Holy Humor Columnist

Updated: Jul 25, 2007, 9:03 AM

Published: Jul 3, 2007, 8:45 PM

There’s an old saying that some people would be late for their own funerals. I guess I may be one of those people, since I only got to my own wedding 10 minutes before it was to start (hey — it wasn’t my fault that a bowl game was going on and I didn’t know it would take so long to put on a tuxedo.)

However, if there is anything I have learned in ministry, it is that senior adults are not late. They are early. Once when I was a pastor in Mississippi, I took a group of senior adults on a trip to see Natchez. I told them to meet me at the church van at 9:30 a.m. the next morning. When I got to the van at 9:20 a.m., they were all on the van waiting for me, wondering why I was so late.

A few years ago I was invited to eat out with our senior adult group here in Rincon. Our senior adult director called and asked if I’d like to join them on a Saturday afternoon trip to eat in Statesboro. Since food was involved, it was a no-brainer. I said, “What time do I meet you?” We were to leave at 4 p.m. I decided to dress nice in khaki slacks, turtleneck shirt and sport coat. And I made sure to arrive around 3:30 p.m. so I wouldn’t be left behind.

At about 4 p.m. we had already left Rincon and were nearly at Springfield, when I got a call from my wife. Her frantic voice said, “Did you forget the wedding?”

Now before you envision an organist playing 50 verses of the wedding march while the bride and groom are feeling jilted by the preacher, let me explain. The wedding was not at the church. It was an informal home wedding. There had not been a rehearsal, and it had slipped my mind. Nevertheless, I was supposed to be there at 4 p.m. that Saturday. I rushed to the bus driver and gently screamed, “You’ve got to turn this bus around and take me back to Rincon!”

I have never had a more understanding, sympathetic group of people than that group of senior adults. They all said, “We understand about forgetting things.” They dropped me off at the church so I could get my wedding ceremony book. At least I was already dressed nice enough to go straight to the couple’s home. As the senior adult group drove off, they all waved, and a few said, “Poor Brother Bob.” I think they were afraid I was going to be the “late Pastor Rogers.”

When I arrived at the home out of breath, the bride opened the door with a wide smile. We went ahead with the ceremony, about a half hour late, and everything was fine. The bride and groom even gave me a gift — a calendar with a picture of us doing the wedding, and on the date of their wedding were these words written in ink: “Wedding 4 p.m.”

Aren’t you glad that God is never late? When Christ died on the cross, the disciples thought it was too late for Jesus. Little did they know that He would rise again. Sometimes it seems like He’s late, but He’s always on time.

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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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