Earlier tonight, the pastoral staff and I went out to celebrate a b-day. This was a special b-day because one of our pastors was turning the big “Three-O” (30). Somehow in the midst of our conversations, we decided that we will not talk about two particular topics that always stir up passion and even dissention amongst the ranks – religion and politics. What do you expect? We are pastors so we have to talk about church, right? But, see that is the challenge. Can a bunch of pastors get together to celebrate a b-day without talking about church? This was the challenge that I brought forth to these pastor guys.
We were doing pretty good… well, for about 5 minutes. We talked about UM football. Then somehow the trajectory of our conversation went towards the church. We had to catch ourselves and change the conversation to another topic. We talked about the media and the various sources in which we get our news. Then somehow we got on the topic of politics and then the church. I, then quickly mentioned that we were drifting toward the danger zone (Kenny Loggins playing in the background… if you have no idea what I am talking about then forget about it). The other pastors just gave me an incredulous look and clearly pointed out that I was the root cause of our failure to stay away from these two topics.
I couldn’t stop chuckling because it brought back memories of the time when Christina and I went out on a date. We decided that we will not talk about two particular topics that night – church and the kids. We crashed and burned within 15 minutes of our conversation.
I don’t know this is a good thing or a bad thing… haha!