Chipin Widget

A stupid thing I did once

When I was a youth pastor I did a lot of stupid things. One that really sticks out was in my very early years. I was young, my students didn't have a clue they were guinea pigs. I was on a mission trip in another country (Yes, we flew on a plane to another South American country with 24 students and just 3 adults). What were we thinking. Anyway, the legal drinking age was 15 in this country and they didn't even enforce that well. You can guess where I'm going...

A naive young youth pastor, I didn't think any good Christian kids got drunk. I was wrong. I had one that got totally plastered on tequila. He made a huge public display. The mission org we were working with found out and told me I had to send him home. I already figured that out. So, I called his parents on the mainland, and made plans to send him home. I didn't actually get a hold of his parents. I didn't actually have any way to get him to the airport. So, I left mom a message and put him in a taxi for the airport in a foreign country miles away by himself.

He got to the airport and landed -- NO parents there to pick him up. He got home safe and he is still alive as far as I know it, but mom and dad were surprised when he was in the living room when they got home that day. Needless to say, good communication with parents would be good advice for any young or old youth minister. They didn’t attend that church any more, and later on I got fired (much later and that was a different story for another blog).

Try not to get fired this week and don't do anything stupid.

Is carpet still more important than people?

This one comes complimentary of Mark O at YS. Marko, you are funny man. This was hilarious and really stupid. Check it out ya'all. If you aren't convinced enough to hit the link - it's about a church who has an emergency kit for carpet spills in their newest carpeted room. When asked where the emergengy kit was for a real human emergency, they weren't really sure. S-T-U-P-I-D with a capital D!

Some Really Stupid Stuff

Every once in a while we come across something really stupid! There is a lot of Holy Junk out there. You know you want one for Christmas. Link to this site "Mr. Preacher" and check out some really stupid things actually for sale in the name of God.

Hurricane Relief Gone Bad

This story comes from NBC news - we'll let you decide if this is stupid or not! But you can can guess what we think - it's posted here.


CLEWISTON, FL — Hurricane victims who wanted water had some difficulty finding it at a relief station in Clewiston Friday. The volunteer group running a supply center doesn't like the company that donated the water, so they decided not to give it to those in line for help.

Twenty-two pallets of the canned water, distributed free by beer company Anheuser-Busch, bears the company's label – and members of the Southern Baptist Convention refused to hand it out to those in need.

Resident lined up for miles to receive food and water at the distribution point. But the water was left on the sidelines by the Alabama-based group.

"The pastor didn't want to hand out the Budweiser cans to people and that's his prerogative and I back him 100-percent," said SBC volunteer...

Stupid Choirs

This one courtesy of Monday Morning Insight...

The pastor of a Charlotte Harbor church had 16 church members booted from a service after they allegedly refused to stop singing and let the clergyman preach. Deputies were called at 10 a.m. Saturday by Pastor David Noel of the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Harborview Road. Noel told a deputy he was instructed by regional church superiors to involve law enforcement to remove the rogue choir.

The deputy issued trespass warnings to the group, and all 16 left the church without incident. The sheriff's office got another call from the church shortly before noon when a parishioner wanted to file assault charges against Noel.

Edourd Pierrelus, 57, of Port Charlotte, said Noel got mad at him, hit him in the chest and twisted his earlobe during a church service a week earlier. The man told the deputy the entire congregation of 25 witnessed the attack. Pierrelus said that because of the way the singing dispute was resolved, he now wanted to pursue charges of simple battery.

Deputies say the dispute is rooted in concerns about the handling of church funds. The members of the rogue choir told deputies they'd handle those concerns within the church.

Paying Staff Based On Attendance

Mark Oestericher posted this one...

A pastor said to me that he loves to try new things. and the thing he’s trying right now that he thinks is such a good idea? [drum roll, please — and brace yourself] He’s paying his staff based on how many people, on average, attend the ministries they are in charge of. He grinned as he told me that, for example, one of the pastors has a fairly low monthly salary, because he’s new and his particular ministry is average-sized; but if the ministry reaches x-amount on average, his pay will bump to another level, and at xx-amount, to another level, which is a great salary for their area. He said it’s a great system because it builds self-motivation in automatically.

He waited for my response.

For reasons I won’t go into, it wasn’t the appropriate time for me to begin vomiting on his church carpet, or pummeling him in front of his church-folk. So I grinned an extremely uncomfortable grin and mumbled something like, “Well, i don’t know….”

Welcome to Stupid Pastors

You've heard horror stories of the stupid things pastors and churches have done. Now you have a place to post them. Don't be offended...we've all done stupid things in ministry. We're not here to put people down. It's a fun way to laugh at ourselves and maybe an opportunity to learn from others.

We've all learned from own mistakes...much less painful to learn from other peoples!