"I told them all the sh__!"

"I told them all the sh__!"

....the famous four letter "S" word just slipped out.

I hadn't planned on it, I am never one to talk (this post notwithstanding...Rev Kev made me do it) ) casually like that.

Especially when (almost) within earshot of Sunday School kids.

In the church parking lot.

Of the church of which I was the senior pastor.

S*!@#

It had been an incredible stressful stretch of time; our church was actually in court over the property; and in conflict with the denomination. The atmosphere was tense and intense; one rumor was the police could show up on any given Sunday to slap a restraining order on me to keep me from preaching.

All that is another story.

But my point today is how/why that word oozed out out of my (supposedly ordained and sanctified) mouth...

I had just finished the final sermon of the final service of the day. The elders and I had agreed that much of the sermon was a laying out of our denominational conflict; even including a few unbelievable but true stories of heresy in high office. That is not my style for Sunday morning; but I went through with it. And in the retelling, it hit me how crazy all the heresy was...and I don't refer primarily to the classic issues like denial of Jesus divinity etc; I mean some bizarre, wacky stuff one couldn't invent...stuff that is so wild and wrong that maybe the only word for it is off-color and four-lettered..

At the end of the morning, our Children's Director--the unstoppably Holy Spirited Jamie-- pulled into the church parking lot; followed by vans full of wonderful scruffy-haired screaming kids returning from camp. She compassionately caught me eye; wanting to know how the
morning had gone.

That's when it slipped out.

"Well, like we agreed; I told them all the..."

That's when I should've said "heresy."

Or "crazy stories."

I wouldn't even had minded if the kids heard their pastor call it "crap."

But somehow my mouth, without consulting me; and my relief at seeing Jamie; said instead the S word.

Once a quick glance assured us the children weren't eavesdropping, she responded appropriately and Christianly:

she laughed.

I did too.

But a few days later, half in confession (not necessarily for saying the word, but for almost letting the kids hear); half in just having to re-tell the story..

I told Pastor John this same parking lot story;joking as to whether my salvation was still secure for letting that word slip.

He looked me square in the eye (A pretty amazing feat, considering our conversation was over the phone,over 2,000 miles(:), and said flat-out:

" I have serious doubts about the salvation of someone who had never said that word."

!

But of course, John is the distinguished reverend who once saltily prophesied "We don't know what the hell we're doing."

As Tony Campolo once told me, "Sometimes our language isn't salty enough."

As I often must add, "Don't hear what I'm not saying":
Replace Sunday School curriculum of the Ten Commandments with the famous "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television," profanity is always prophetic...

Not quite.

I am simply saying...
well, as Tony Campolo once told me,

"Sometimes our language isn't salty enough."

That is no s%$##.

---

P.S. Here's Jamie proving she is a way better children's minister than me...and this camp song includes not one bad word (that I can detect):