I was in a pastors’ meeting once and one young pastor was complaining bitterly about the people in his church. Backstabbers, hypocrites, gossipers, just plain evil. He wrapped his tirade up by saying, “I wish I could have a church with no people in it!” To which an older pastor said, “With that attitude you’ll have that church in no time!” It got a big laugh, but there was truth, too. You cannot have a ministry without you have people to minister too. Where people are involved you will have some interesting moments. Some will leave memories you would rather not have.

In one church where I served as music/youth/assistant pastor, a drunken lady came to the Sunday evening service. Just as the pastor was about to begin his message she jumped up and announced she had a song to sing. She started toward the pulpit and I stood to head her off, but the pastor signaled me to be seated and he let her come up to sing. All the time she was walking to the front she was rolling the front of her dress up into her belt until, by the time she got to the pulpit, she had a knee length dress on in the back and a mini-dress on in the front. Then she launched into something called "Walk Around My Bedpost, Jesus," which I am not even sure is a real song. There is a song called “Walk Around Me, Jesus” and the chorus contains the words “Walk around my bedside.” This could have been the song, but she was so drunk it was hard to tell. (There is a YouTube video presented by a lady who is not drunk and can sing, if you would like to hear it. Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfnEKEmKDmY Enjoy.) No musical accompaniment at all, just her raspy, slurred voice. When she had finished, she stumbled back to her seat. By that time, I had figured out that it was all a lesson of some type cooked up by the pastor, but he never commented on the song or anything. He just got up and preached as though that had been the special music. I asked him later if there had been a point to all of that, but he refused to talk about it other than to say that if someone had something from the Lord to bring you shouldn’t stop it. I guess my faith is weak because I was never able to see the Lord’s hand that time.

Titus 2:14 in the King James Version reads; Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.  The key word is ‘peculiar.’ It is a word only used the one time in Scripture and means that something belongs to someone and no one else. It is an archaic definition that is rarely used anymore, although it was in literature as late as a hundred years ago. The NIV says Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. This is, of course, easier to understand in our context today, but I prefer the King James, simply because I think we are all a little peculiar.

 I was the interim pastor of a small church in the mountains of Tennessee. A particular Sunday came and we had six visitors. That was kind of a big deal, except that they were a radio ministry group that visited a different church every Sunday. The one fellow, Brother Bob, did the preaching and sang lead in the Gospel singing part. His wife played the piano, two brothers played guitar and two others sang back up and provided the ‘Amens’ to the preaching. They had a half hour every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 PM on the local radio station. They were the stars of the Sunday religious programming in the area. I knew Brother Bob quite well. In that little town he was like a rock star. For whatever reason, he had taken a liking to me and treated me like I was gold.

          This Sunday he wanted me to come and sit in on their live program down at the station. I agreed, figuring it would be part of my education.  

          I got to the station at about ten minutes to two. I was looking forward to this because I had never witnessed a live broadcast before. I went in, shook hands and took a seat next to the wall in the small studio. The announcer proclaimed the name of the show to the listeners and cued Brother Bob. They threw themselves into their opening song, “I’ll Fly Away,” with great gusto. As they ended there were shouts of ‘Amen’ and ‘Glory.’ Brother Bob stepped up to the mic.

          “Brothers and Sisters in Christ, it is a great blessing today that we can gather together around our radios and listen to the Word of God. Right now the Holy Ghost is moving on me, so we are just going to go into prayer as the Spirit leads.” With that, he and everyone else in the group dropped to their knees and began to pray. Fervently. Mightily. Silently. The one thing that radio types hate more than anything else is dead air. All of a sudden, and for the immediate future, the air was dead. To the folks at home it sounded like the station was off the air. Not good for business.

          The engineer/producer/announcer looked up in alarm. He began to frantically tap on the glass window separating his booth with the studio. I looked up and he began pointing wildly to the microphone. Realizing he needed something, I stepped up to the microphone. What should I say?

          “Well, good afternoon folks. My name is Pastor Larry Wade. While Brother Bob and the good folks here are praying, I thought I might invite you to the services at our church....” I went on like this for a couple of minutes. I invited them to our church, I invited them to their own churches, and I invited them to listen to Brother Bob every Sunday at 2:00. It was near the 4th of July, so I invited them to the fireworks show. While I was doing this, I slowed my speech pattern way down. I really wanted Brother Bob to sign off from God and get back to the mic, but to no avail. Finally, with nothing else to invite them to and with no sign that the fervent, mighty and silent prayer was going to let up, I sang every verse of “Amazing Grace” without any musical help whatsoever. Halfway through the last verse they started winding up their prayers. Shouts of ‘Amen’ and ‘Glory’ once again filled the air. They joined me on the last line and then they went on with their program.

          That ended my radio career, despite the fact that Marsha once told me I had a good face for radio. I never even drove by the station again. However, everyone in town thought it was a great show.

          The very essence of ministry is people and people can be peculiar. That makes ministry sometimes very strange. But where else can you get such entertainment for free?