Pastor Depreciation Day

I'm fairly well attuned to things in my church and am seldom surprised, so I knew something was up last night.

On the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving we always have a church Thanksgiving meal. The last few years I have been serving the Lord's Supper afterward, while we are still sitting around the tables. The music minister and I plan a short service so when he told me that "they" wanted to sing a couple of extra songs...I though I knew what might happen.

Turns out I didn't quite know.

There are four Elaines in my average sized SBC church. I pick at them about making up a quartet, even though only one can sing and the other three are, well, vocally challenged. After our meal and before I presided over the Lord's Supper, the Four Elaines came to the front and did a hilarious funny/serious routine centered on Pastors Depreciation Day (when we called a second staff member six years ago, I told them that whatever the church chose to do about Pastor Appreciation, include him in it, hence the plural 'pastors').

It was a hoot. A sense of humor goes a long way in a church.

You can find recent articles in both religious press and blogs on pastor termination and/or forced resignation, almost always with sad, sometimes disgraceful, stories.

Glad I don't have one of those.

I felt fully 'depreciated' last night.