Pull The Plug!

Two days ago I put up a link and wrote a little bit about The Lord's Supper. So today I thought in keeping with that theme, I'd write about some of the funniest baptism stories I've either witnessed or heard about through the years. I'll give you my top 4.

1. When I sang in the group Hosanna, we traveled to lots of very small churches all over Louisiana. I mean really small. One church in southwest LA had baptism at the beginning of the service. After the pastor had dunked the guy, he brought him up and said, "And all God's people said. . ." Well, in Baptist world, when a pastor leads with that, the congregation is supposed to say, "AMEN!" which is what everyone in Hosanna started to say until the congregation yelled, "PULL THE PLUG!!!" Well, alrighty then. I guess that's their way of welcoming people to the family of God.

2. When I lived in Houston, I attended Second Baptist Church which is a pretty big church with several ministers on staff. (True confession time - I dated one of the ministers on staff so sometimes I got to hear the inside scoop of all that goes on which is why I know the following story). The ministers all had many responsibilities on any given Sunday so they rotated who would do baptisms. Because baptisms were at the beginning of the service and they usually had other responsibilities afterwards like teaching a Sunday School class, the minister would wear hip waders so they didn't have to completely change. He'd take off his suit coat, leave his pants, shirt, belt, shoes and socks on and step into the waders then put the baptism robe on top to cover them up. For any new minister on staff on his first day doing baptisms, they would make sure the waders with a hole in them were the only ones available in the baptism area. Yes, you can imagine the feeling of walking into those waters and slowly feeling those waders fill up with water in front of thousands of people. He couldn't get out because he had a job to do and everything was on a pretty strict time schedule. By the time he was done, it was like trying to walk out of wet concrete once they were filled. If you wanna work at a church, you have to have thick skin or incredibly strong leg muscles!

I think I'll save the other two for Monday. Have a great weekend.