Every pastor should have a story like this: Beware church visitors bearing gifts

I still chuckle every time I think about this.

Several years ago, two sisters visited the church where I serve as pastor. After the service they spent twenty minutes telling me how I should have preached the text and pointed out everything they thought was wrong with my sermon. (Mind you, neither of them has, by their own admission, ever preached a sermon, taught a Bible lesson, or received any biblical, theological, or homiletical training at all.)

A few months later, as I was calling people who had visited our church to invite them back, I called one of the sisters, not realizing this was who I was calling. This time she spent fifteen minutes on the phone telling me all the stuff I did wrong that she presumably either hadn’t gotten to when they visited before or simply had thought of since then. I tried to be gracious and I invited them to worship with us again since they still had not found a church home (I can’t help but wonder why).

She and her sister returned a couple of weeks later. Since it was around Christmastime they brought me a “gift.” Their gift was…

(and I am not joking here)

…a book about how to preach.

They have not returned. And that’s okay. I really do hope they found a pastor who was up to their standards.

The book, however, is a good one. But while I didn’t pay any money for it, I wouldn’t exactly say I got it for free.

You really can’t make this stuff up.