Secretly hoping your city’s NFL team stinks so people will come to church.
Dec 28th by JonA few weeks ago, I was standing next to a minister when someone approached him and said, “Sorry the professional football team of your metropolitan area is doing so poorly this year.” (OK, that’s not a direct quote, but occasionally to protect the identity of the people I write about I have to cloak them in fancy talk and change “Tennessee Titans” to “professional football team of your metropolitan area” and “sucks” to “doing so poorly.” It’s a filter I have on my computer called “fancy talk.” Control F.)
Without missing a beat, upon being reminded of how lousy the pro football team in his town was, the pastor laughed and said, “To tell you the truth, church is great when they have a horrible year. More people come and are more engaged. So it’s actually a good thing for the church.”
I had never considered that before. Since I’m not a pastor, I never realized that maybe all those years my dad was praying for the New England Patriots to stink. And that when he left Massachusetts and moved to North Carolina, and they won their first Super Bowl under Tom Brady, there was perhaps a direct correlation.
The implications are pretty staggering and I started to wonder what other things pastors might secretly be praying for …
3 Things Pastors Secretly Pray For:
1. Mall floods. Movie failures. Mongoose infestations at local parks.
In addition to the NFL team blowing it, I could see how three other possible Sunday distractions might allow more people to visit church and experience worship. If the mall was flooded, no one would be shopping. If Weekend at Bernie’s 3 was the only thing rocking the multiplex on the weekend, no one would be at a Sunday matinee. And if a gang of mongoose inexplicably, but also quite ferociously, infested the local parks, no one would be picnicking on Sundays.
2. That grumpy members will visit and fall in love with other churches.
I don’t know that pastors ever actively recommend other churches to members who are vocally and visibly unhappy with every fiber of their current church but they have to be praying that on some level.
3. That parents with screaming kids will take them to Sunday School.
Hot topic, hot topic, but pastors of the world, I got your back. Imagine if you were at work, in a cubicle and someone came over and said, “Hey, I’m going to sit my screaming 2 year old right here on your filing cabinet. He’s going to scream and throw whatever objects are within his grasp for the next 30 minutes while you work.” That would be weird right? Well that’s what pastors go through some mornings when they go to do the work of God and kids go nuts during service. I once heard my favorite minister say from the pulpit after some parents got upset with the subject matter of a sermon series that was not appropriate for kids, “We have great environments for kids, this is not one of them.” Now clearly, the wolverine like child I used as my example is an extreme case of how kids can go crazy during sermons, a cubicle is not the exact same thing as a church, if you’re a visitor it’s normal to feel awkward about leaving your kids with some strangers and if you feel like God wants you to bypass Sunday School and have your family worship together that can be a really beautiful thing. But I suspect when kids are screaming during church, pastors are secretly praying that a worship eagle will swoop down and remove them with a swiftness.
Pastors of the world, did I miss anything? Any other secret prayers you’re praying right now?
Non pastors of the world, what do you think? Do you ever suspect that your pastor might be single handedly wrecking your city’s professional sports franchises?
Comments
My pastor while in Seminary, Miles Seaborn at Birchman Baptist Church in Ft. Worth, used to kid about praying for Lake Wind Advisories for nearby Lake Worth. I am not certain that he was really kidding.
I. LOVE. This.
I have a control F function on my computer. But it's not as polite as yours. Apparently my F stands for something else. Totally kidding. Kind of.
By the way, Jon must use a PC because he said Control-F. If he used a Mac, he would've said Command-F.
I don't know why I pick up on these things.
This is a Hot topic, great stuff!
Lets pray for rainy days
hey. HEY. dont be bustin' on my Titans! dont make me come down there! lol.
Kids need to have teaching that's relevant to them if they're going to benefit from the education. Whether that's "regular" learning or religious learning. While I think it's a good idea for kids to have to sit in "big church" OCCASIONALLY so that they understand what happens there, I think it's a disservice to both the children who have to be occupied in church and the adults who have to occupy them when that's the norm. We had five kids with us this Sunday, no Sunday school for any of them, and I had to rewatch the sermon on video this morning because when my husband and I were going over the sermon notes, I couldn't recall much about the sermon…. except the part where the six year old shrieked at the 8 year old, "I did not you butthead!" because he colored his Jesus green and she told him he'd done it wrong.
Our church service in Northern Ireland is scheduled for farmers. The church I went to in the US was scheduled for American Football fans.
My old pastor is also the minister for the local rugby team… so he's in a good position to guesstimate how many people will be attending on a sunday!!
I have secretly prayed that the Lord would greatly enlarge the bladders of the little ones in the congregation so that they do not have to get up 5 times to 'go to the bathroom'. :–) (Our doors to the bathroom are to the left and right of the pulpit, I don't know who though of this one on the design committee)
Apparently Christians in Chicago have had their hopes realized. The Bears stink this year!
I just root for my team to suck so that I can have something to complain about and get a good draft pick
Im sure somebody mentioned this, (haven't read all the comments) but it's got to be mongeese.
Control F is not working for me. Ha. Maybe there's an app for it …
–Terrace Crawford
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[...] 2009 gjware Leave a comment Go to comments I enjoyed a post on Stuff Christians Like entitled “Secretly hoping your city’s NFL team stinks so people will come to church.” This pertains to the reply which a church pastor gave when someone offered him sympathy over the [...]
For the local "Six Flags Over Jesus" church to fail miserably and all of their 30,000 members to need to find another awesome place to worship in town??