Preacher perks

I wanted to post something about how thankful I am for my children being the beneficiaries of so much generosity. One perk of being a minister (there are many) is that folks within the congregation sometimes give you clothing for your children and even to you. Maybe there's a mixed message of "Hey we think you dress poorly-here put on this pair of slacks instead." But I doubt it.

Maybe it is a more common practice (clothes sharing) than I know. Maybe it happens to anyone who has friends with kids just a bit older than yours. It is sure something for which I am thankful.

The clothes are often second hand, but they always have a good deal of wear in them and at least for now my daughters love it and don't complain. Maybe when they're teens this will change-but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I can count the number of times we've gone to buy clothes other than shoes for our girls on one hand. As I implied a few sentences ago we've been blessed to know some families that have girls just a bit older than ours and they've shared with us. I can't help but think that this practice would not have been as useful had we had two sons. A boy walking around in a pair of jellies and a summer dress would've raised more than a few eyebrows.

Another good thing about clothes sharing is that sometimes you find money hidden in the pockets of the clothes-like this one time we found $10,000 in unmarked bills in a pair of jeans stuffed into the pocket in a neat stack of hundreds. Of course we did the right thing...tithed on it and promptly paid off our car. That never happened-but it COULD right?

Often I take it for granted-and I want to say thank you publicly (if you can call a blog read by on average one person a week public).

There are other perks of being a preacher:

1) Get out of hell free card.

2) People sometimes think you have influence over the weather. Often when we have a sunny day on the day of a church picnic-the people say "Thank you for praying that we would have good weather and thank God for providing it." More often when we have rain or inclement weather they say "Can't you do something about this?" I wish I had power over the weather-I'd make it warmer than -5 outside and it would rain gumdrops and s'mores every third Tuesday.

3)People often feed you-even if you don't want to be fed this can be abused. But people are thoughtful of you in this way and its cool sometimes. Sometimes people send home LOTS of food for you and your family-one just has to be careful not to balloon up too much so you don't float away in the baptismal font.

Of course being a Presbyterian our fonts are about the size of a large salad bowl so if you could float in that you likely have problems bigger than a weight issue-like you've been struck by a nefarious shrink ray or something. Of course that's more rare these days than it used to be-but it certainly happened in a Disney movie from the nineties.

4) People like to tell you how good your sermon was-even if it wasn't they often tell you it was. It's a good self esteem boost to receive compliments even when they're not due. It's too bad my wife hasn't picked up on this trait. (insert rim shot here) My favorite is when you see the person sleep throughout the entire worship service and they brag on you profusely at the door. I can't blame them. Some of the most restful sleep I've ever gotten has been in the library and during church (on days when I was younger and not preaching).

I'm sure there are many more to list-but that's all for now. In short I'm thankful to God and to God's people for demonstrating their love for us in these ways. It's a gift.


Much Grace to you and yours,
Dwight