Thursday, August 13, 2009

WWF in the pulpit!

At the request of Bro. Adrian, I will share the story of the altercation behind the pulpit!
While pastoring First Baptist in Wells, TX, on a Wednesday evening our preaching service had already begun and three men walked in and sat on the back row of the sanctuary. First Baptist, where Josh Luellen is currently pastoring, is right on Highway 69. We would get a lot of people that would stop from time to time and visit with us and of course some that needed some kind of help or assistance.
Therefore, it was not an unusual thing for these three men to walk in during our service.
While I am introducing the subject matter at hand, one of my men got up to take the men an outline of the study that evening. Our crowd, which was usually about 40-50 on Wednesday evenings was down that night to probably in the 30's. We normally had about a dozen to 15 men, but that night we only had about 5-7 men.
The first thing that happened that gave an indication that this would be an unusual service was when the man next to the aisle shouted out to me, "Tell em bout the Holy Spirit," to which I replied, "The lesson is on Abraham tonight," as I continued with my introduction. Before another 60 seconds passed, he shouted out again, "Tell em bout the Holy Spirit." Now everyone was getting a little nervous, including the pastor! With at least one more shouting interuption, the man stood up and started walking down the aisle and shouting, "Well if you won't tell em bout the Holy Spirit, I will!"
At this time, as I look at Him coming toward me and looking around at the shock on many faces in the audience, I could see the ladies of the church shoving their purses and jewlry under the pews and hiding stuff (they thought we might be getting robbed)! I didn't know what to think!
The man walked up behind the pulpit and beside me and tried to push me out from behind the pulpit, as he said, "you sit down I gonna preach about the Holy Spirit!"
As I shoved him back out of my spot I said, "no your not, your not preaching in this pulpit!" (the spirit he wanted to preach about was the spirit of Jack Daniels, because he had definitly been drinking).
He then grabbed my shirt and tried to shove me harder out of the way while demanding that I give him my pulpit! I realized that this idiot had ruined our service scared our ladies (my men are just sitting there while thinking, "alright Bro. Michael, let's see what you got!) and I had finally had enough!!!
I grabbed him by the shirt and gritted my teeth and yelled with spit and volume that made his hair fly up! "YOU ARE NOT PREACHING AND YOU BETTER GO SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW!"
The man finally cowered down and said, "you mean your not gonna let me preach?" I yelled, "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"
As he went to the back of the church I knew the whole service (which was a total of about 10 minutes) had been shot! I apologized to the people for the disturbance and dismissed in prayer. While walking out and leaving the other two men said they were sorry for the actions of their "drunk friend," they were just along for the ride when he drove by our church and told his buddies that he was going to stop by this church and show them how he "could preach" at this church.
While all of the shoving and shouting was going on, I noticed that one of my men got up and walked out and I'm thinking, "where are you going and THANKS A LOT!"
He later told me that he was going to check on the kids in the back!
I later told ALL THE MEN of my church, "I'm the President, yall are the Secret Service, next time somebody take "the bullet." I think they got the picture!
What turned out to be a humerous story could have been a lot worse if their intentions were different!
I hope to never have a wrestling match in the pulpit again!