How to Make Your Whole Church Mad

I joked with The Bridge congregation at Stonebridge UMC this past Sunday that I would blog about how to make the whole church mad at me, after I had rolled off a few purposefully stereotypical assumptions about a few universities and their supporters. I believe I called OU "hillbilly hicks" (which is very intelligent sounding in itself), and UT "liberal, hippy weirdos." Ironically, I hadn't planned that part...it just came natural. I did manage to not bash TCU at all....I wonder why?

But in the joke, I began to wonder what the top ways to make an entire congregation upset with me would be. You might think this is easy, but in all reality there is such a wide variety of people in most churches that one ethnic slur might make some happy and others outraged. One cuss word might make one person more inclined to come and others offended. So here's the list I came up with (in no particular order):

(Blogger note :: Please come into this with a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at ourselves, otherwise, please don't read. I'm making fun of myself more than anyone.)

10) Renounce Jesus Christ. I typically think in a Christian community this is generally a bad move to hold Jesus to no importance or value. When you take the lynch pin out of the whole faith, it's generally hard to keep people. This was the freebie for my mind.

9) Say something about nakedness, nudity or sexual relations. At least in the United States people want to think about, talk about and participate in these three things every place but church. I had to laugh when I was working at one church and was hanging out with chaperones on a youth outing on Saturday night where they were making many, many jokes about beer, sex and other "vices", and when I sat next to them on Sunday morning they were concerned about the use of the word nude when talking about Adam and Eve. My how sanctuaries stifle us.

8) Bring to light all of the Bible passages that are not happy. Tamar, Sodom, even the Noah story or Jesus killing a fig tree. They don't make VeggieTales about these, so they are not in the Bible obviously. I joke about this a little, but it's true, don't make the Bible a book full of humans...it'll only go down-hill.

(Exception :: for those people who really think church is too high and mighty this is actually a great evangelism strategy. Imagine a book full of real people trying to come to life with a real God. Revolutionary.)

7) Misspell the matriarch's name in the church bulletin. Not everyone will be mad at you, but no one will have the guts to defend you. Proof-read.

6) Buy a car that is more expensive than what your church members drive. Not that you need a really expensive car to be a pastor, but people talk in churches. Obviously if you are driving a hybrid BMW with leather seats and optional conversion to F-15 fighter jet...then they are paying you too much and not focusing enough money into missions, curriculum and tapestries. Most people in America get outraged when people are paid too much. Of course, this doesn't include all professional sports or congress.

5) Live a double life. You'd be amazed at how forgiving people can be (see Ted Haggard's church), but this tends to get anyone angry at you. When you tell people to give, pray, love, not judge, etc., etc., and you like to not give, not pray, drink, glutton, take drugs, commit adultery, etc., etc. people don't really enjoy your preaching anymore.

4) Talk bad about orphans and widows. Surely you won't do this if you've read the Bible, they're the two groups that Paul loves the most. Which is why, if you talk bad about orphans and widows, you will not be popular.

3) Change something. Now I will tell you that I'm in a great situation that enjoys new and different, but most churches will snap on you in an instant if "Here I Am" is not the last song played in worship or you don't continue the lock-in the day after Thanksgiving because you dared to take vacation. For some reason the dyanamic movement of Christianity has become immersed in the notion that 11:00 is the absolute time for true worship and the songs that we sing and the decorations on the wall are more important than the people that come in.

(Note :: I will say this is cynical, but probably true. I am fortunate to have a supportive congregation that likes to renew itself, but many churches want to do the same stuff year in and year out. No wonder people get tired of it.)

2) Mention or spell the word money. This isn't a one time and done thing that will ignite everyone, but you can sense the collective groan throughout the congregation when it's stewardship time. Even though it's supposed to be "joyful" giving, sometimes I imagine people would be more willing to sign up for toilet cleaning duty than joyfully give. Others give because they know they need to, but I dare you to talk about money more than once a year.

(Note :: I have talked about money more than once this year and it's not stewardship time, either it's not as bad as I thought or people just don't listen to the sermons...hmmm)

And the number one way to make everyone in the church mad at you....

1) Don't do anything. Seriously. If you change the pews or the worship times...some people will come back. If you line up controversial lesson plans and sermons...some people will be challenged and love it. If you do any of the dangerous things, some people will love them. But there are plenty of churches that die because they don't stand for anything. They are not active in the community, they don't care about world events, they don't really even care about God that much anymore. There are pastors who have more interest in their pension fund and golf score than the depth of worship, and a lot of us may slip in and out. The one way I've found for pastors to make a church die and upset is to literally have no mission, nothing to stand for, and no reason for being.

I suppose all this is to say that no entire church will ever totally love one pastor...but it is the ones that dare to dream big, the ones who choose to ruffle some feathers, and the ones who pay attention to the needs of the congregation and love them...that will be loved the most. Here's prayers to not making your whole church mad...maybe just a part of it.