#264. When the pastor takes his coat off.

Jon steps in again with more hilarity. Though I just can't see Doug sitting on the step, taking off his watch or jacket (what jacket?) or sitting backwards on a chair...I bet there is something he does....and I'll be watching. Man, that's funny. I think I'll start a new blog called: "Ways to torture your Pastor". How funny would THAT be. Get all pastors reading it and make them totally self consicious about what they do.
What kind of sicko am I anyway? Jon is teaching me that it is OK to be funny. OK to be yourself and OK to love the Lord and not be perfect.

#264. When the pastor takes his coat off. (AKA, "It's relax time.")

A few months ago I spoke at a men's group. A friend of mine that liked me enough to give me some feedback said that I shared too many ideas and said it all too quickly. I forget his exact words but the gist is that the whole thing was like my ideas were a pack of drunken squirrel monkeys running swinging through the jungle listening to the Chemical Brothers on iPods. That's not exactly what he said, but it was close.

He told me that I was not giving people enough time to laugh or chew on what I was saying. So the next time I spoke, he suggested I bring a drink and take sips during the message to force some pauses. Because I am a dork, this is how I started my next message:

"Whenever you see me take a drink from this obscenely large beverage, I've either said something really funny or something profoundly insightful. You should be laughing or scratching your head in concentration."

It worked. I slowed down my message and by the end of the talk, if I said something even a little funny, guys in the audience would start yelling, "drink," which is always a hilarious thing to hear someone yell in church.

But I'm not the only one that uses little tricks while speaking. Pastors use them too, my favorite being the "It's relax time." This is when pastors do little things to make you get comfortable and think to yourself, "wow, this pastor is just like me. This pastor gets me." It's kind of like when Mr. Rogers used to change sweaters at the start of his show.

Here are the three most obvious relax moves:

1. Taking off the coat.
This is probably the most popular move that pastors do when they want to put you at ease. It's the equivalent of doing a lay up in basketball. It's extremely easy and almost everyone on the planet can do it. All they have to do is take off their coat, lay it down on a chair or the really popular table churches are buying these days and they're all set. Nice and easy.

2. Sit on the steps.
If your church has any steps on the stage please expect the pastor to take a seat. Right in the middle of a sentence, he'll just plop down right there as if he always does that. Or if he has a chair on stage, he'll turn it around backwards like he's Zack Morris having a casual chat with his man AC. I'm not sure if there was a text book in seminary called "Sitting with Style" or perhaps, "The Secret Benefit of Knowing how to Sit," but it seems like every pastor knows this move.

3. Close the Bible
I sometimes have to interview people at work that want to be writers. I once read an interview technique that said "place your official sheet of questions down on the table. The candidate will think the interview is over and will start to open up more honestly." That's a little slippery to me, but I don't think there's anything slippery about the close the Bible move although they are similar. When your pastor dramatically closes his Bible what he is trying to say is, "The serious stuff is over. It's time to talk about life, just you and me, hanging out, talking about some life. Doing some life together. Word."

The anti-relax move:
Removing the watch.
If your minister ever removes his watch, take your car key off your key chain, throw the less useful keys in a corner and then while everyone is distracted, crawl away in the opposite direction undetected. The remove the watch trick says to the people in the congregation, "I am about to launch into a sermon where time holds no power. The things I am going to say are going to make waiting until the next season of the television show Lost starts again feel short."

Those are just a few ideas I have about how to get a crowd to relax. I promise that is just the tip of the iceberg.