April Fool's

I meant to write this entry a few weeks ago, so you'll have to forgive my tardiness.

I have been serving as the Pastor of the Cherry Street Bible Church for the past eight years. Early in my ministry at CSBC, April 1st fell on a Sunday. Initially, I thought that would be a great opportunity to play some sort of an April Fool's joke on the congregation, but because I was still in the stage where I was getting to know people, I chickened out. I have regretted that decision ever since.

This year the calendar was kind to me and I was given a second chance. When I realized that April 1st would be a Sunday, I began planning. I thought of all kinds of joke options. One that was high on my list was to convince the church that Andrea and I were expecting another child, but that seemed a bit demented. I finally opted to convince the church that I got a tattoo.

Tattoos are not an uncommon sight at our church, but I am not a fan of "ink." Likewise, I know that there are at least a few people who find tattoos offensive. As I pondered this, I thought to myself, "How funny would it be if the church believed I had a tattoo?" I decided to find out.

On Sunday morning, I had Andrea look online for the Chinese symbol for "family." Then I had her draw it on my arm with black marker. Up close, you could probably tell that it wasn't an actual tattoo, but from a distance, it looked authentic.

As I began my sermon, I said the following, "Have you ever done something that you thought you would never do? Recently, I decided to get a tattoo...." (at this point, I cuffed my shirt sleeve to make it visible), "I wanted to get something that would honor my family, so I got this tattoo that was supposed to say 'family' in Chinese." (you should have seen the jaws dropping all around the church..... most people seemed stunned, others looked visibly upset), "I have since discovered that it doesn't actually say 'family' like I had hoped. In fact, upon further inspection it actually says, ................... APRIL FOOLS!"

I will admit that the joke was a little corny, but it seemed like the church breathed a collective sigh of relief at that point before breaking out in laughter. Several mothers and grandmothers told me later that they had lost all hope of trying to convince their children not to get a tattoo now that the pastor had admitted to getting one.

The only down side to the joke was the fact that I had to scrub the skin off my arm the next morning to remove it.