PMCC Church Bloopers

Oh, Hahahaha.. Stop It!  Hahaha.. Stop!

“POPPY WILNER”

After a severe northeaster, part of the church foundation was washed away (on the parking lot side of the church). Poppy said he would make the necessary repairs. Forms were made and the foundation was being “poured” with concrete. Poppy was working alone. Later that day, the pastor came along to see how the work was progressing…it was a good thing he did. Somehow, during the late afternoon, Poppy was in the “basement” working and the forms had not been properly braced for the weight of all the concrete and they gave way. There was Poppy, stuck almost to the waist in hardening concrete. Immediately the fire department was called and with the help of several strong men and a lot of sweat and hard work, they finally freed Poppy.

More on “Poppy”

Poppy was about 84 years old and had outlived seven wives. He came to the preacher and said “I want to get married again.” His wife to be was 68 years old. The preacher tried to reason with him, “But Poppy, you are 84 years old and she is 68, you need to consider the mortality rate.” Poppy thought hard for a few moments and finally said, “If she dies, she dies!”

Now they get married at the church and almost immediately they had their first argument…it was over where to go for their honeymoon. She wanted to go to Niagara Falls and he wanted to go to Washington, DC. So they compromised….she went to Niagara Falls and he went to Washington!

ABSENT ORGANIST

Sometimes preachers get stories that they would rather not hear. About 10 minutes before the beginning of an evening service, the organist telephoned him to tell him that she would not be in attendance. She could have just told him that she was ill, but no, she began to explain that for lunch she had baked beans and had “gas.” How do you tactfully answer that as the preacher?

CHILD’S NAME

How about the time he was called to the home of a family whose mother had just delivered child number 13 or 14 (I think they lost count). She was there with the mid-wife and was about to give the child her name. Dad had to convince her that the name she chose was not a good idea….she was illiterate and had seen a word on a medicine bottle and thought it was the spelling of Desire…instead the word was diarrhea. Thankfully she agreed to the proper spelling of the child’s name.

LATE BRIDE AND GROOM:

One Saturday, there was a wedding scheduled for 2PM (that is what their invitations read) but for whatever reason, both the bride and groom thought the wedding was to be at 3:00. At any rate, the organist at the time was Alma Miller. Now, Alma had been the calliope player for the Ringling Brothers circus in her younger years and she was very talented. As the wedding party was late and the church was full of guests, Alma tried to entertain them with as much music as she had with her. Eventually she ran out of music and broke into a medially of “Glow Little Glow Worm”. The real kicker was that no one in the congregation except the preacher and his wife realized what she was playing! Eventually the bride and groom made it to the church. I hate to think what the next song was to be played!

DROPPED RINGS:

In the early years of the church, we had gas fired floor furnaces.

During a wedding, the bridal party wanted a very small child to be the “ring bearer” even though the preacher suggested that it be a symbolic ring and that the best man handle the rings. But they insisted. So at the time of the ceremony when the rings were to be exchanged, the child took the rings off the pillow and promptly dropped them. The rings rolled around the floor and before anyone could react, the ring for the groom made its way into the grate of the floor furnace. The preacher, being resourceful, removed a ring from his right hand and gave it to the bride to put symbolically on the grooms finger, (with the congregation never being any the wiser). After everyone went outside, a mad scramble was made to remove the grate and with a long wire, fished the ring out of the furnace.

THE FIRST BAPTISMAL SERVICE

“They that go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, will doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

There had been much prayer, much preaching and much praising and at last there were 16 converts awaiting baptism by immersion. Some old, some young, but all ready and anxious to bear testimony to the fact that they were among the redeemed of the Lord and they were ready to say so. Nearby creek waters were badly polluted and the bay, only a quarter of a mile away was salt water. But a few hundred yards from the bay was a fresh water swimming pool maintained by the J. Howard Smith Company for its employees. Securing permission to use the pool for a baptismal service, the date was set and the candidates gathered with their relatives and members of the church to share the service.

Because the pastor and his wife had to commute from Perth Amboy to get to the church, it was suggested that the pastor borrow a pair of waders that one of the local fishermen owned. “Then you won’t have to go all the way home for a change of clothing,” said one member. It was agreed and so the service began. About the time the third candidate entered the water, the pastor felt a sudden cooling sensation in his left foot, but the service continued. Then something let go around the right knee and the pastor knew that he was in deep trouble. The service concluded after all 16 were baptized. Then it was time for the preacher to “come up out of the water.” It took the efforts of three deacons to get him out for the waders had filled with water all the way to his chest. Inside were his trousers…soaked through and through. He was hustled to the home of one of his parishioners, there to await the outcome as his trousers got shorter and shorter as they dried. Borrowing a pair of trousers, he returned for the evening service. “Those waders nearly drowned me,” he said.

DEFLATED PRIDE:

Late September always seems to be a time when “the saints go marching in” and this day was no exception to the rule. The little old mission building was packed to the doors, perhaps just as it had been nearly 100 years before. Certain it was that the text was not new for the preacher said, “The summer is ended, the harvest is past and we are not saved.” Somehow it seemed a most appropriate text for this day and the folks were not only present, they were listening! As the message of the hour continued the pastor noted that people were actually sitting on the edge of their seats and as he moved about the platform, they seemed to move with him. “Ah, at last I have reached my stride,” he thought. “People are hanging on my every word.”

The service ended and the preacher went to the door to great his parishioners. “A most enjoyable service,” said one. The preacher was pleased. Then came a dear sister, recently from the Church of England, she was tall, sedate and well poised. “Pastor, you are wonderful,” she said. “I marvel how you kept your text and delivered it in a flawless manner, in spite of the fact that just behind you was a little church mouse running to and fro, picking up a seed or crumb from somewhere in his storehouse and returning with it to sit on his haunches and nibble away and then, off again, for another morsel. I sure did enjoy the service today,” she said. With that she went down the steps. The pastor was too busy looking for a very small knot hole in the floor to be bothered with accepting the plaudits of anyone else. “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

PIANO MOVERS:

At one time, the church boasted of having two player pianos. One was in terrible shape and could not be repaired in a cost effective manner. It was decided to get it out of the church and replace it with a more modern instrument. So one evening, the men of the church got together to move the piano. As it happens with any group working on a project, there were several conflicting ideas of how to get it out. At the time, the church still had the dual steps on the front…one going toward Main Street, the other reaching toward the church parking area. The men got the piano out the double doors and there it sat on the “porch” with the men now having a friendly discussion for quite some time as to how to get this heavy thing down the steps. Finally, after listening to the bickering for over a half hour, the preacher’s wife joined in the fray. “I am tired of listening to how it should be done, just do it.” With that she got behind the piano and gave it a tremendous shove down the steps. When it hit the ground, it broke into a “zillion pieces.” The noise probably could have been heard all over Port Monmouth…but it was out of the church. The little pieces were a lot easier to load into the truck anyway!

SURPRISE!

It was late in the day of a mid-summer’s Saturday and the pastor and his wife had spent several hours cleaning the church in preparation for Sunday services. All was in readiness in the sanctuary, but the pastor’s wife insisted that the outside privy must be as clean as the church. The kids and the folks visiting the beach had done little to maintain that position in the week past. In fact, just the opposite, for they seemed obsessed with the idea that a privy was meant to be filthy. But “cleanliness is next to Godliness and so the job was done once more (for what seemed like the millionth time that summer). “I think I’ll make sure it stays clean this time,” said the preacher’s wife. “Do we have a small padlock we could put on the door?” “Too late for that,” replied the preacher. “It is past 9 o’clock and no hardware store is open.” But with a little ingenuity the preacher’s wife produced a long, bent, rusty nail and with a lot of pounding, managed to secure the door for the night. “We’ll get a lock, hang the key in the vestibule and keep this clean from now on,” she said.

Sunday morn dawned bright and beautiful and the folks gathered to pay their respects to the Lord. The sermon was well underway when a little old lady, a saint with high button shoes, a long black dress and gray hair, rose from the back seat and left the building. Had the preacher said something to offend her…perhaps she did not agree with his message?? It never occurred to the preacher why, until from the corner of his eye he noticed (from the pulpit) that she approached the outdoor privy to answer nature’s call. In a flash he remembered he had not removed the nail from the privy door. Should he send out a deacon? No, perhaps someone else had already been there and taken care of that detail. He continued with his sermon. The little old lady reached for the door knob. The door did not yield in spite of repeated tugs, so she lifted her skirt, placed her foot against the door jamb and tugged once more with all her might. The door knob came off in her hand and she did a somersault into the tall grass. The preacher caught his breath momentarily and then continued as she picked herself up, brushed the dirt off her skirt and disappeared out of sight into the tall brush further away. Moments later she quietly reappeared in the sanctuary and resumed her place with the rest of the worshippers. Nothing was said about the incident by either the saint or the preacher, but the next day, the door was repaired and the key hung in the vestibule.

BINGO:

The offering was taken. At the end of the service, the donations were gathered to be deposited in the bank the next day. But in the collection was a handful of “bingo chips.” Everyone chuckled. But then the telephone rang at the preacher’s home. Evidently one of the members had reached into her handbag and instead of her loose change, she had deposited into the offering her stash of bingo markers, “could she please get them back.” The funny part was that the previous week this little old lady had been very outspoken against the evils of bingo as a form of gambling. Her chips were returned and no mention of her “convictions” about bingo was ever made. “Be sure your sins will find you out!”

SURPRISE KITCHEN:

When the addition was originally conceived, the room off the pulpit was to be the pastor’s study and a sliding door was placed between that room and the pulpit area. It was also conceived to build a baptism tank under the removable floor of the pulpit area. But somewhere along the line, this idea was abandoned for several reasons…I digress. Back to the room:

Very seldom did our family ever go away for anything longer than a couple of days. During one of our short trips, without anyone’s prior knowledge, a dear saint took it upon herself to make some changes to the building. She decided that the church needed a kitchen. She was in the process of remolding her own kitchen so she hired the workmen to move her old cabinets and stove and install them in the side room.

That first Sunday back from vacation, she approached dad and said, “I have a surprise for you.” With that she led him back to the room to proudly display her donation to the church. I don’t think dad knew what to do…be thankful or take a fit. He chose to be gracious and be thankful…but in his heart, he was very disappointed to lose his study, after all, she did mean well.

CANCEL THE MARRIAGE:

A local family came to dad and asked him to perform a private civil wedding ceremony. It seems that the bride was “with child” and her parents insisted that the man “do the right thing by their daughter.” The wedding was uneventful and quietly performed.

But it did not end there…the reception was being held in the bride’s parents back yard. And there was an abundance of alcohol available…a bad mixture.

Later that evening, my dad received a telephone call and asked him to “tear up the license.” It seems as though with all the alcohol, the bride and groom got into a physical altercation which resulted in her having a miscarriage at the reception. From the hospital, the mother of the bride, called and said, “tear up the license, she had a miscarriage and does not need to be married anymore.” Dad politely informed her that it was illegal to do it that way and she would have to go through the courts to legally end the marriage. It can only happen here!!!

The Book of Jude:

The preacher had somewhat of a dry sense of humor. During a service he was preaching on the book of Jude. At one point in the message, he asked for a show of hands…”How many of you have read the third chapter of Jude?” Hands went up all over the congregation. That Sunday, he was not the most popular person when he informed them that there was only one chapter in Jude.

WHAT BOTHERS A PREACHER:

Dad used to tell me that it never bothered him if someone fell asleep during his sermons… (other than the fact that he should have made things more interesting), but what really bothered him was when a member of the congregation, near the end of the service, leaned forward and began hitting his watch against the pew in front of him to make sure the watch was still working.

SERVICE INTERRUPTION:

And who could forget the old siren at the first aid station or the very loud and large fog horn at the fire house. Many a Sunday service was interrupted by the wailing of the siren or the blast from that fog horn (which was located just down the street from the church). The horn would sound and some of the men of the church would abruptly leave the service to answer the call. (Thankfully, modern technology has eliminated the use of those two devices.)

THE STORM THAT WASN’T:

Just recently, I made a mistake when I signed up for notifications from the Township of Middletown for emergency warnings about possible storm conditions in the area of the church. I did not check the box that limited the hours of the calls. From Friday afternoon until Sunday evening, when I realized my error on the web site, I was receiving an automated phone calls every hour on my home phone and my cell phone telling me a storm warning was issued. No one in my house got any sleep. Then thank God, the storm never came (for which we are very thankful to God). Next time I sign up for anything, I will take the time to read it all before hitting the submit button!

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