Working in the church means that you sometimes encounter some interesting individuals - specifically through the telephone. I've had my share of people whom I've never met before leave me messages on my voice mail, asking for peculiar things, people who are angry at God or something and our church happens to be the receptacle for their wrath, and people who are calling all the churches in the yellow pages because they've finally figured out when the world is going to end and they want to warn everyone. One of the weirdest calls I've ever had was from a guy who was specifically wondering if we had a "punisher" at the church. I repeated his request to make sure I heard him correctly, and he affirmed my understanding. I apologized and told him that we didn't have any punishers at the church. He thanked me and hung up. Weird.
And I've also had a couple calls by from people who are just being weird on purpose, or they're trying to be funny (at least I think they're trying to be funny). I just had a call this past week, which I transcribed for your enjoyment. The following message was left on my voice mail:
"Hi. I’m just calling to tell you that I’m an atheist and no, God f&*$ing doesn’t exist, so you can shove that s#&t up your a#!, ok? You can shove that "God bless you" s#^t up your a#@. I don’t believe in God, but I’m not going to disrespect you – I just don’t believe that God created us. I believe that science has its theories, and stuff. And well, no disrespect to you pastor, but, I have really strong feelings for this. I just want you to know that’s how I feel. I’m sorry if this hurts you. I’m just an atheist, and that’s how I am. Thank you."
The person who left the message was a female, and she sounded young. The reason I think this is a joke is because she immediately handed the phone off to another young girl who then expounded on the virtues of Catholicism.
The tone of the girl's voice, however, changed quite a bit towards the end of the message, which makes me think that she was, at least to some extent, very serious. She started out very angry, and then started to calm down when she was talking about not believing "that God created us" and then she sounded almost apologetic as she told me that she didn't want to offend me. Rest assured, young lady: I stand unoffended. I tried to access the number that called, but it was a private and unlisted number.
A couple observations regarding this message that was on my voicemail:
1) Kids, if this is your idea of a practical joke, you need some more practice. It was neither shocking nor funny. Your voice was cracking, you didn't know what to say, and your grammar was terrible.
2) It seems that kids are getting foul mouths at younger ages.
3) Atheism is a much more significant part of our pop culture today than it ever has been before. The official stat is something like 4% of Americans are atheists. And when you think about kids and their spiritual beliefs, none of them would have ever said they were an atheist when I was that age, but it's a much more prevalent thing in our society today.
4) Darwinian evolution is still the predominant brain washing method for public schools.
5) Kids are able to (and do) think about spiritual things. A lot of people don't put a lot of spiritual effort into kids because they think it's somewhat of a waste of time. But obviously, kids are thinking about these things and they're looking for answers (even if not honestly, or with much decency).
6) People in general are extremely disrespectful. This girl said she didn't want to be disrespectful to me. Uh, did she hear herself when she said, "You can shove that 'God bless you' s&%t up your a#%"? How should I respond, if not to feel disrespected? Should I feel happy? Even in my younger, more rebellious years when I myself had a foul mouth, I don't think I would ever tell anyone I had never met before to shove something up their you know where. I certainly wouldn't cold-call establishments I fundamentally disagreed with and completely curse out everything they believe. I've never ever told an atheist (or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Hindu, Jew, Mormon, etc.) to shove what they believe. I've never even told them something close to that.
Anyway, I just thought I'd post this so you can get a glimpse into the lighter side of ministry. It definitely has its perks!
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