SCL

I ran into a friend a few months ago. We hadn’t seen each other in a while so we did the mandatory “life summary” catch up conversation. In the midst of that, she all too casually mentioned, “My husband and I have decided to become foster parents.”

What? That’s a big deal, that’s no small thing. And when I asked her about how they came to that decision, she was quick to give me a two word answer:

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You probably shouldn’t have a list of “favorite pastors,” but I do, and Pete Wilson is on it.

He’s one of the pastors of Cross Point Church in Nashville and is perhaps the nicest person I have ever met. In addition, he’s also one of the funniest and recently told me a story I wanted to share with you.

One Sunday night, Pete was headed back to church to preach the 6:00 service. On his way there he stopped at Blockbuster to rent a movie. As he walked through the door, the guy behind the counter recognized him and told him how much he loved Cross Point. They chatted for a minute and then Pete walked down an aisle. Twenty feet into the store and another shopper stopped him to talk about church. Turns out that guy went to Cross Point as well. It seemed as if everyone in that Blockbuster attended Pete’s church.

After a few minutes of conversation, Pete made it to the wall of New Releases. Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder, and heard a woman say, “Excuse me.” Believing that this was perhaps another member of Cross Point church, Pete turned, gave the woman a warm side hug and said, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Looking a little startled, the woman, paused, raised the movie in her hand, and said, “I wanted to ask if you had seen this movie.”

She didn’t know Pete. She didn’t attend his church. She wanted a movie recommendation. What she got was a side hug.

I love that story, but I think it highlights a question we all have deep down:

What do we do when we see our pastors out in the wild?

How are we supposed to react? It’s kind of like the first time you see your second grade teacher at Applebee’s and you want to run up and ask, “Why aren’t you at school right now Miss Grondin? Isn’t that where you live? You’re going to put a rip in the fabric of time unless you get back to Cox Street Elementary School immediately.”

And since those pastors in the wild moments can be so awkward I came up with 4 things you can do when you see your pastor outside of church ….

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I don’t want to lie, if I was a pastor I would have used the balloon boy incident in my sermon yesterday. (If you missed it, a few days ago folks were gripped for hours by watching a homemade weather balloon float 7,000 feet in the air because we all thought there was a 6-year old boy named Falcon accidentally inside. Turns out he was at home in the attic the whole time and never in danger.) Given the pressure of coming up with a new sermon weekend after weekend after weekend, I would have totally ridden that kid’s helium coattails to fantastical sermon illustration awesomeness.

And I don’t think I’m the only one who sees national news events as potential sermon fodder. From the sermon success of Michael Phelps during the Olympics to recent celebrity deaths, it’s tempting to create a sermon illustration that is “ripped from the headlines.” If your pastor does, I hope they will use one of the three following techniques …

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