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The secret plan to eliminate back row Baptists backfires
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Although the following story about "back row Baptists" did not actually happen, it’s still my favorite:

A certain Baptist church was building a new worship center, and the pastor saw it as an opportunity to eliminate his frustration with people sitting in the back. He shared his idea with the contractor, who was also a member of the church. The contractor agreed to the preacher’s secret plan, but in return, the preacher had to promise to stay out of the building until he finished, and let him do the rest of the construction the way he wanted.

This was hard, but the pastor agreed to stay away until opening day.

The first Sunday arrived to open the new building to worshipers. When the first people arrived and entered the sanctuary, they were surprised to see a blank floor where normally there were pews, and only one pew against the back wall. They sat in the back pew.

When more people came in, they joined the others on the back pew, and filled it up. When the pew was full, something went "click" and the pew slid forward and locked in place at the front, and a new pew popped up in the back. When that pew was filled, it also slid to the front and another pew popped up in the back. This continued until the congregation was crowded close together into the front pews.

When the preacher got up to the pulpit to preach, he could hardly contain himself with excitement. All of the people were packed together up front. It looked great! He preached and preached his heart out. But when 12 noon came, something else went "click," a trap door opened behind the pulpit, and the preacher disappeared!

This tall tale has a short lesson: that all of us have something we wish was better in our church. The preacher wishes the people would be more enthusiastic and sit up front, and the people wish the preacher would not preach long sermons. So some people just stay away from church.

Yet the Bible encourages Christians to gather and worship, "not staying away from our meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near" (Hebrews 10;25, HCSB).

So let’s have the attitude of the psalmist who said, "I was glad when they said unto me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord.’" (Psalm 122:1, KJV) Who knows? If you go, you may see a pew move, or better yet, you may see God move among you!

(Copyright 2013 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.)

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


Copyright 2014 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.