Last week I got this email from a girl in our church upset because we didn’t allow dancing at weddings and calling us “baptistic legalist” or something pretty close to that. She was disappointed that she couldn’t get married at her home church because of this policy. I was actually part of the discussion of this policy several years ago so I responded. It’s not just about the dancing, it’s sometimes about the lyrics, there are some songs that I think would dishonor God in a house of worship, call me old fashioned but there is some inappropriate lyrics out there. And then it may be about some of the dancing I’ve seen that may not be the best “witness” in a place of worship. So instead of having to embarrass someone it’s just easier to encourage people to have the reception somewhere else.

This policy cost me personally last fall. My daughter got married and I paid a LOT of money to hold a wedding somewhere other than WRC because of the dancing policy. I even allowed dancing when I was a youth pastor in the dark ages of the 1970’s and 80’s but I controlled the music and the dancing. (square dancing don’t ya know ).

Anyway when you’re writing policy you never know what will happen…this past weekend there was a wedding here at the church. My family was scheduled for a photo shoot in the garden at about the same time. While waiting to have some pictures taken we noticed several groomsmen walking toward the garden. I thought, “oh look, they are coming to have their pictures made.” But NOOOOOO… suddenly they disappeared behind a tree line. The bride and groom come driving around the corner and started blowing the horn. They had been MOONED, 8 full moons. The guys came out from behind the trees and were hitching up their pants when my phone rang.

I answered the phone…”Jim, did you know there was a wedding here today?” the Hispanic Pastor asked. “Well the wedding is over and everything is alright now but several guys just mooned the bride and groom and several of our people happened to see it. The young people laughed and understood but some others were a little upset.” Bottom line…The Hispanic Worship Service got MOONED! Sorry Jeff.

Oh well…someone want to help me write that policy?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 9:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.