The Top Ways to Annoy Your Pastor

0:00Welcome to the Rainer on Leadership Podcast, your online home for leadership lessons and advice for the local church. We talk about practical solutions for pastors and church leaders. Episodes are hosted by Tom Rainer, Sam Rainer, and Josh King. Hey, what's up? And welcome to this episode of Rainer on Leadership a Podcast for Leadership in General. But specifically that of the local church. Sam, you're annoying me with your faces. I just got to, I had an allergy attack right before rerecording. It was a literal attack. I know, I was fine. It all started sneezing. So now I've got the sniffles. I don't know why. It's cats. Cats are responsible for all sneezes. So every time I sneeze I say cat. Yeah. So anyway, I'm not around a lot of cats. So if that cats, cats may be responsible for every evil thing in the world. Could be people don't like them.

1:00I'm not a big fan of dogs much either. Cats or dogs pets in general. I'm not a big fan of them. So I'll go with blaming the cats for everything. Jackie likes dogs. Oh my gosh, she loves dogs. And last night she was trying to show me a picture of some donkeys that she wants to buy. Donkeys? I'm a hard no on that. Hey, I'm a hard no on all of it, but she still tries. I mean, name a story or a situation where the donkey was like if not, like the donkey is always annoying or the villain. I don't think so. You know, like the biblical story of the talking donkey. She was good. And then Shrek donkeys annoying. No, I think he's funny. No, I like donkey. All right. So yeah, we're going to be talking about all the annoying things that you can do to your past

2:00or a little bit of a tongue and cheek episode. So for those of you who take yourselves too seriously, we don't. Move along. Yeah, just move along. Move along. Because we're going to have fun with this. As I sniffled its knees to this whole thing, oh my goodness. But before we get into it, I certainly want to thank our sponsor, Southern Seminary. They've got a great doctor of ministry program, which is designed to help you address those challenges and ministry head on. No, you've got a pressing issue. You bring that pressing issue into the program and they apply it to all of your studies. It's a great, great program. Go to sbts.edu slash dmin. Josh, you're going to have to talk more. I'm going to like sneeze my way through this. Yeah. It looks like it. Let's get into this. Let's get into this. About this idea of annoying your pastor with some of the top things, you know, the top ways to annoy your pastor. And we're a couple of pastors and we get annoyed from time to time.

3:01So we're going to break some of those down and say, does this ever happen to you? A gotcha theological question. Somebody just walks up and just they're just trying to get you. Yeah, right, particularly right before you're about to preach. Or when you're in some sort of intense moment. Yeah. Now, there are the well-meaning theological questions where I trust my pastor. I encountered this crazy passage in Genesis or Leviticus. And I want to go to my pastor because he's right there in front of me and I've just got to ask him. That's fine. That's not the issue. The nuanced theological question that I never have the answer to and always have to look up anyway. But it's not the issue. I'm glad to answer those questions. If my people are genuinely loving the word of God, that's awesome. What annoys me is the gotcha theological question. We're siding mode of here. The purpose of the question is to call you out on something.

4:05And those are the ones which you like really. And I don't know about you, but I tend to answer when I know it's a gotcha question. And at this point in my church, I'm 11 years in. No one really does this at all. But it does happen outside of the church to me, so I just answer vaguely. I don't even want to entertain the gotcha side of the gotcha question. Yeah. So I get a lot of these questions before or after service. And they have to do, they're not gotcha, but I get a lot of theological questions. Because our sermon series and our small group text are the same. So people are talking about it. They're digging into it. And then something in small group or preparation for small group makes them think of a question. Or let's say they're prepped for small group. And then I preach my sermon and they're like, wait a second. I got a question on this before I walk down the hall and lead a small group. So I actually really, really like those questions.

5:07I think you would as well, Sam. That just shows that people are engaging the text. So those are fun. I do get gotcha questions. Here's where I get them. I get them from a placement for those of you who are on YouTube. For watching on YouTube, Sam's doing an ad while I'm talking. I've got a rug that has upward on it and they smile to another. He's adding to the list of ways to annoy Josh. Anyway, I'll let you finish. Yeah, so the from guest or people who are considering the church, there's regular gotchas sort of questions. They'll come in and it's the very first time you've ever met them. They walk up to the like the guest booth and they're like, hey, so what's your views on Calvinism? And it's like, hey bro. Do you get that question a lot? Do you? Calvinism, not so much. There'll be other kinds of questions that come up. And they're usually carrying like a giant MacArthur study Bible or something like that. And they're just, I don't think it's a gotcha as much as a test.

6:07It's like, let me. Yeah, let me test question, which I would include in gotcha gotcha questions to. It's just, to me, the reason it's annoying is because like I'm a, like I'm a dude, I'm a human. And you don't even want to say hi. You don't want to even get to know each other before you see if I measure up to your arbitrary standard. So that's really very annoying to me when people treat me because I'm a pastor in the seat as like I'm not human. Like none of that matters. I just want to know what you're going to do for me. Or if worse now in our current culture, whether or not you affirm what I already have. And so I'm looking for a church where the pastor completely affirms my views. Okay, well, do you ever play it? Like sometimes I'm really mischievous, probably more than I should be. And I play into it a little bit. And again, for all of the church, my church members will listen to this because they're actually tuning in more and more because they know that I talk about them on the show.

7:09I don't, I don't do this to my own church members because I love them dearly. But when somebody does the whole like, let's use MacArthur, for example, who I respect, by the way, just for the record. Don't agree with everything, but I respect God rest his soul. So somebody comes up to you and you're like, they've got their, yeah, they're big. I guess it'd be a legacy Bible now. You know, the big MacArthur Bible or what have you? Are they're carrying like Wayne Grydom's commentary or what have you? And you know, they want to make sure that you're answering these questions correctly. And you just go, oh, MacArthur. No, he's a lived hard. No, no, no, no, he's too liberal for me. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, too progressive. You just kind of play into it. Like, what are you talking about? No, I try to just, anytime I feel like I'm in a gotcha question, especially with somebody who's never met me. And I think that's the thing. I'm a church member. I feel like that's part of it.

8:09But if you, this is the first time you're ever walking up and you're like, hey, measure up to the standard. I like to just ask with like, what do you mean when you use the word Calvinism? What is it that you mean by that and let them talk? And then where are you getting this idea? And that person I'm thinking in particular, and they were saying, well, you know, MacArthur, blah blah blah. It was two or three questions in and I said, you know what? There's another church across town. I think that they're going to be much more your style. And I just told, and it's true. I mean, it's like a little master's seminary kind of church. They're like, they're very much, John MacArthur. And that's what this person wanted. And I was like, I'm not going to meet that standard. I don't even try to, I don't even know what that standard is. And I'm not trying to meet it. So there's another one where they love that stuff. Like, they'll put it on the front of their church side. So that's kind of how I'm kind of there's a church. Like if someone doesn't like me, there's a church across the river where everyone went that doesn't like me.

9:10I'm sure you'll be just for people who don't like me. All right. Second one. So gotcha theological questions. Again, we're not saying if you've like got some crazy nuance question in your church member and you just love your Bible, we welcome those. Bring those all day long. What we're talking about is like, hey, we're trying to test you here. And we don't even really know you sort of question. The second, which does happen from time to time. And again, if you've ever done this to me, you know who you are. But I care about you. I love you. But it is annoying. It is annoying. So there's a whole like, I have to meet with you. I need counseling. It's urgent. I will die if I don't talk to you. And then you schedule the meeting because you're like, okay, wow, this sounds urgent. Yes, absolutely. I'm there. Like tomorrow morning, whatever. And then they no show. You're like, you call me a text. I'm like, where are you? Oh, yeah, we're good. We're good. We're good. You're like, I rearranged my whole week for you.

10:11And now you're just no showing me without even saying anything. That's annoying. That's actually never happened to me. Really? Yeah, I've never had a person not show. Well, I recently had another pastor not show for a lunch that we scheduled. Did he just forget? I mean, because people can forget. That's understandable. Completely forgot. Yeah, I mean, that happens. I've done that. I've done that before. I just forgot. But I'm just like demanding time. And then just like, just being like, nah, I'm not going to show up. Yeah, no. No, this guy he just forgot. He put it on the wrong calendar. I'm a little bit of an introvert. A lot of bit of an introvert and enjoyed my lunch by myself. Just sitting. If I'm going to add an order and sit there and ate, I didn't hate that. And then the dude ended up by my lunch a couple weeks later. So that's fine. But yeah, I've never had anybody. Now, I've had something similar. And it's maybe one word down from annoying.

11:12It's not so annoying, but it's in that same vein where there is this major. They're trying to get a hold of me. They're calling the office. They're emailing. They need to meet. Like, yeah, I would love to meet with you. Just tell me when. I'll send them a scheduling link. That how they can book a time with me. And then they just don't. And I'll follow up later. It's like, hey, is everything good? Or, you know, oh, yeah, never mind. So it's similar. It's such a big deal. I'm like, okay, let's schedule something. But then they don't. And so it's that like next step. Or I would love for you. And I think a similar thing is when people are demanding of me. Here's what I think you should be doing. And I'm like, great, let's set up a time and talk about that. Or could you email me and give me those details? And then they never do later. I always try to give people a little bit of ownership when they want to schedule something with me or when they want me to do something. And if they won't take that next step, then I don't feel compelled to take that next step with them. But it does kind of get annoying. I've got a good one.

12:12Like this happened today. This happened today. And it's not on the list. Breaking news. Yeah, it's breaking news. Okay. So this came from our front office support staff person. Barb, she's awesome. I love Barb. She filters so much for me. But she wanted me to know about this one. So she says, I'll paraphrase here. I got a weird phone call today. There's a lady from the community who wants to be baptized. So I'm reading this going, oh, cool. She does not want to join the church. She does not want to be baptized on a Sunday morning. She does not want to be baptized at the beach. This is like a doctor's loose rhyme. Yeah. And Barb is saying, I explained that she would have to talk to a pastor to make sure that she understood all the things like what this means. So I ask her to email you to start the discussion. She does not want to email me. Yeah. What does she want? And then the phone number is here. So she wants me to call her.

13:13Do you think I'm calling her? The answer is no. I am not calling her. I've been doing this long enough to know that I don't want to get into that conversation. So anyway, yeah, that was breaking news. Breaking news. All right. Third one. Okay. Post a long and negative diet drive on social media about the church without first addressing your concern with leadership. So it's like paragraphs of complaints. And you're like, didn't even know this was the thing. Actually, I agree with everything you're writing. Don't know where all this came from. Why are you posting this on social media? Come talk to me first. Yeah. Again, I've never seen that particular thing happen. That would be annoying. What I have seen happen is sort of passive aggressive post. You know, like, it's not so much like a long diet drive, but it's like, well, you would think that a pastor should. And then it's some scenario.

14:14And it's like, well, number one, I didn't know you were upset about that. Number two, that's not what I did or didn't do. You know, those kind of things. But you can't get drug into it. Those passive aggressions. No, don't engage if you're a pastor listening to this. Don't engage. I've done it on a rare occasion where somebody was outside the church, was attacking the church. And I wanted to guard the reputation of the church. But if it's you personally, you're just going to look defensive if you try to jump in there with passive aggressive stuff. Yeah, yeah. I've seen some stuff with the church, not this church, previous church. And I just commented on it. Hey, I'm the pastor. I'd love to chat with you if you'd want to set up a meeting. I did the same thing. Yeah, we haven't met yet. My name's Josh. I'm the pastor at that church. And so if you'd like to me. So there is a little bit more of a like trying to be very public with you've never talked to us about this. But I'm happy to talk to you about it.

15:15And it's funny. Not one has anybody ever taken me up on that. People love to, you know, rant about stuff. But I can see how that would be annoying. All right. Fourth one. Yeah. Not approval. Go to all the church bulletin boards or strategic places in the church where they're a signage and promote something that you want to promote other than the church activities. Oh, so you're talking like a physical bulletin board, like an old school, like walk up, staple it. Just putting stuff on the walls. Yeah, just like the church needs to know about this. I'm going to put it on the wall. Yeah, yeah. I have seen that again, previous church. It had something to do with, like, I want to say they were, like, raising money for an animal shelter or something like that. And they put the stuff all over the place. Had another one come in with a voter guide. And we didn't really so much have bulletin boards in either. But they would, like, we had lobby tables and, like, where the coffee was and they went through and set all this stuff up.

16:16Or putting stuff, putting flyers in the windshield wipers of cars while church is going on. That I really, really do not like. The other ones, I just, once I saw them, I just kind of threw them away. Like, I, nope. And so I threw it away. But yeah, I went out to my car one time here at this church. And somebody was running for mayor. And every one of our windshields had the little thing in it that said, you know, vote for me or whatever. And so I messaged them and said, don't you ever do that again. Like, this is not like a sitting duck where you can come in here and stick your stuff on our deals. They didn't. We have parking lot people that will put that into it to an end very, very quickly. Yeah, I don't know how they snuck through. I mean, they were fast. They came through real quick. It's a big parking lot. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you really are eager to do it, you'll find a way to. But just again, very annoying. Very annoying. That's annoying. Yeah. All right. Fifth one. Fifth one.

17:16Just disappear one Sunday. Never return after serving faithfully for a season. You've been serving for a year or two or whatever. And then you just disappear. No one knows where you went. And then people come to you. Like as the lead pastor and they're like, we're so and so. I'm like, what are you talking about? I have no idea. They haven't been here for three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. No one can hold of them. And it's like, well, okay, you can try to get a hold of them. They never call you back. Where did these people go? I've never had anybody that's serving do that. But I have seen people that are like just gone. I've seen people, this one's a weird one for me. They'll visit, join, and then never come back. Like they go through that too. They go through the process. And then, and they seem pretty cool. And you talk to them. And they express their salvation. The reasons they like the church and then all of a sudden, they're just never, they just never come back. And it's like, what happened? So the reason we have this happen in our community is the school right down, the Christian school right down the road from us

18:17is covenantal. And you kind of have to define what that term means. But it means lots of things to them. But one of the things that it means is that you have to be regular and a church. You have to be a member, active faithful member of the church in order to be a part of the school. So we have people all the time that are just like, hey, I'm here. Can you read a recommendation for my kid to go to school? And it's like, okay. And you know, you think they're going to join or whatever and be an active part of your church. And then they get into the school and then they go. Where they go. Now the school is to the school's credit where my kids go, actually, love the school. They're doing some things to prevent that from happening in the future. But there was a season there where people would come in. They'd join. You'd write the recommendation and then you'd never see him again. Yeah. And a couple of these you're hitting on, which really do strikes sort of a annoying chord with me, is when people treat the church as some sort of service

19:17and not as a community and not as a faith family. And so they're just here to get the thing or they want that or they demand that they should be able to use our parking lot for whatever they want or they should be able to advertise to our membership or something. And then they're mad and they somehow think, well, Jesus, Jesus wants you to let me use your, and it's like, Jesus agrees with everything that I want. And why are you so difficult pastor? Yeah. And you feel like this compulsion to protect or to guard, it's strange. You can come any Sunday and you never do. And then all of a sudden you want something from the church, which outside of ministry and broken people, I'm happy to do that. I think you are as well. But this isn't that. It's when it's trying to use the church. So this last one is, it can be a compliment. And if it is, it's not annoying. But I'm going to make you guess something here.

20:18So before I reveal the last point, who do you think I've been compared to the most in terms of well-known pastors? Well, I've heard some of your sermons. So I'm going to say Fertic. I've seen the wardrobe and sermons. I'm going to say Fertic. Yeah. No. I've never been compared to Stephen Fertic. Charles Stanley. Charles Stanley. Yeah, Charles Stanley. I don't know why. I have no idea why. There's worse people to be compared to. No, there is. The people that have told that to me, I mean, they're older people. And I'm like, that is really a high comp. I'm not, Charles Stanley, wouldn't even dream of being that good. But that's the comparison. Now, it can be positive like that,

21:19or it can be negative. Why aren't you like so-and-so? Yeah. And yeah, why aren't you like Stephen Fertic? I'm going to be like, yeah, sorry. I'm not. That's not going to happen. The last one here is comparing your pastor to some sort of YouTube personality, well-known celebrity pastor, in a negative light. Like, why aren't you more like this? Yeah. I've gotten it with previous pastors. Well, my previous pastor. That's a good one. And it's, and normally I take, I almost always hear it as a compliment, but there are sometimes where I, people, once they've told me five or six times, what the church they used to go to 20 years ago did. I'm like, okay, well, it's not 20 years ago, and we're not that church. So I'm sorry it's not 1994 anymore. Sorry. Sorry I disappoint you. But yeah, I can see that being annoying. The only, okay, so guess which preacher I have been,

22:22and I haven't been, not a lot, but the most consistent one that I get compared to. Greg Laurie. Oh, I like him. He's really nice. You're both, you're both bald. Oh, no. Not Greg, but I do like him. And I don't know a lot of people. He's gonna bald, right? You kind of look like him. I can't, I'm not saying all this up. I can see it. We're both Caucasian. So that's that. I just think he's a cool dude. I don't know a lot of this preaching. It's Francis Chan. I think it's because the tone of our voice and the way we do our cadence and stuff like that. So that's the one I've gotten the most. Okay, Francis Chan. Yeah. And what's really strange about this conversation at this point is like we cut out for the last five minutes because of my internet. And we're having to pretend like, you know, we're just jumping back in to the conversation. Yeah. So there wasn't really even any reason to jump back in

23:23if you're just telling everybody to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, it can be annoying. There's a lot of things that can be annoying, I think. Just anytime you're leading people, and I think that's in general, just people work can be annoying. So I would just say if you're a pastor, if you're a leader, some of it can be annoying. Just don't let it annoy you. Just kind of roll with it. It's how people are. And you're annoying too in different ways. And so, you know, we could do a whole episode on the way pastors annoy their people. We could do one on how pastors are annoying to other pastors. Like, we're all annoying folks. All right, for another time, and another day, and another episode, thanks again to our sponsor Southern Seminary. Go check out that Doctor of Ministry at espts.edu slash demon. That's right. We'll catch you next time. Thank you for joining us today here on the Rainer on Leadership Podcast. Be sure to watch on YouTube

24:24or subscribe and listen on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, or in your favorite podcasting app. For additional resources on church leadership and to join the conversation online, visit churchanswers.com where we are growing healthy churches together.