Second month into ministry, I find myself standing on the stage one Sunday morning in October giving announcements and it happened. I opened my mouth and it just came out and when those things happen there's no taking them back. So let me back up just a little bit to give you some background. October in our town brings two big events. The first one is “Come and Take it!” The whole town comes out for a long weekend of festivities; carnival rides, vendors, concerts, and all kinds of fun things. The second thing is more exclusive to our church. We’re a young church, at this point we're only three years old and from the beginning we have done what we affectionately call “Halloweiner.” This is an event where we go into a neighborhood and we give out hot dogs on Halloween. In our town we have one street that everybody trick-or-treats on and we set up at the end of the street in one of our church member’s front yard. We have our tables set up and our volunteers cooking hot dogs on grills, others putting the hot dogs in buns, more are serving the hot dogs and lemonade, to all the trick-or-treaters and their parents. We typically hand out 1000 free hot dogs in a two hour time span. We also have volunteers who man the carnival type games and hand out candy. Okay, let's go back to that Sunday morning when I was giving announcements. The Worship Pastor and I usually try to have some fun giving the announcements and he asked me that morning what I was going to dress up like for the Halloweiner. That's when I opened my mouth in front of the whole church with the youth right there. I said, “I don't know I'm dressing up as. I think I’ll let the youth create my costume for me. Well over the next couple of weeks the youth did a really good job hiding from me what they were going to do. On October 31st my phone rings and when I answer it one of the youth said they were ready for me and I was to meet them at the church. I drive to the church, very nervous. As I’m walking down the long hallway to the youth room not knowing what I was getting myself into, I get even more nervous. As I get closer the youth room I can see cardboard, paintbrushes, and I see some blue paint. I think to myself, homeless painter who likes the color blue but that was far from the truth. They had me stand on a piece of cardboard while they took paintbrushes and the blue paint and painted me from head to toe. Blue, that's right, in just a few minutes I was painted into an “avatar.” I had so much fun! It took weeks to get all the blue paint out of all nooks and crannies of my feet. Even though I had a ton of fun, honestly, this year I did not let them do my costume.
That is just one example of a funny ha-ha experience. There are other times that all you can do is laugh. Not long after that, just shortly before Thanksgiving, that year that I found a youth conference that I wanted to take our students to in January. It would be an overnight stay in Houston so I scrounged through what was left of the budget that I inherited and I found enough money to pay for a hotel. All I needed was the students to pay for the price of their ticket. I get everything done, flyers made up, sign-up sheets, etc. I'm getting ready to give information to the students and parents for the very first time on my very first event. I have everything worked out. I hand out the first flyers to announce this incredible conference and an overnight stay in Houston. Then two of the moms look at me and they tell me “they didn't know anything about this event”. They proceed to tell me I have to do a better job getting information to them earlier. I just simply smiled and said ladies you're right I'm so sorry. The funny thing about that is that the students of these two women haven't been in my youth group since that event. Another time that is just laughable is the first time I took our junior high youth group out of town for the day. Remember, this is sixth and seventh graders. I posted it on Facebook, sent e-mails, and I text messaged every junior high parent and said we will leave the church at 11:30 to go to Austin for the day. I got a returning text message asking me a.m. or p.m.? Then from another parent I got a phone call asking me a.m. or p.m.? I told them a.m. Okay, I know youth pastors are known for being a little nuts but I will not be leaving the church at 11:30 p.m. to go to the big city of Austin, Texas with your junior high students. This is where I learned that you have to make sure that every “T” is crossed and every “I” is dotted. You can't just make this stuff up sometimes you just have to laugh.
