The most CRINGE thing I did as a pastor...

The Cringiest Moment in a Church Announcement

I said on stage that, you know, you guys can drop off your kids and just spend some intimate time with your spouse. I know, when I drop my kids off, me and my wife are going to be like...

And I go to open the top layer, and it will not open, Chuck. It will not open. Mind you, I'm Samoan, so I typically have like Kool-Aid strength. You remember Kool-Aid? When he would just bust through the walls, you know, oh yeah!

I imagine that when we get to heaven, Jesus is going to say, hey Nate, come here. You and I work together at the church, Life Baptist Church, trained by the same mentor, experiencing things on the ground at the same time.

The Question: What Is the Cringiest Thing You've Done in Church?

What, Chuck, is the cringiest thing that you have ever done in church? Now this might immediately make some folks turn us off and unsubscribe, okay? But that's okay, because we're trying to be real.

Go ahead. Yeah, it's about to get real. Oh man. So the most cringiest thing that I think I've ever done, I was in a position to where I would give like the announcements weekly. And at Life, we would always tell people to, you know, you need to have intimate time with the Lord, spending time in the Word where the focus is on Him, just you and the Lord, your Bible, just having that good intimate time.

So I was given an announcement on a event that we host called Sometime Away, where the parents can drop off their kids and they can just spend time with their spouses. So I said, you know, I said on stage that, you know, you guys can drop off your kids and just spend some intimate time with your spouse.

I know when I drop my kids off, me and my wife are going to spend some real intimate time together. Oh my goodness. There were so many people afterwards that came up to us, it was like, so, I guess we know what you guys do with the kids.

My wife was so embarrassed, so embarrassed, she's like, you can't say that from the stage.

And you, knowing you, you're probably thinking like, you know, we're going to play chess or we're going to, you know, but... Right. Right.

It's good. Yeah. No, that's so good, man. What about you, Nate? What was your most cringiest moment?

The Communion Mishap and the Live-Stream Screenshot

Now, again, we're just trying to be real with y 'all. We're trying to showcase, pull the curtain back, showcase some flaws so we can all have a good laugh, okay? So you're going to know what this is. Back in 2021, I was preaching a sermon and it included communion at the end of the message.

This was, you know where this is going. This was communion now, post-COVID, post-COVID communion. So the materials for communion, I mean, already, arguably, they're strange, they're difficult. Post-COVID, they were even stranger and more difficult, right?

You remember the materials for communion, right? Yeah. It's like this two-layered, you know, sealed shut container where you had this top layer that contained the bread, right? The body of Christ, and then the bottom layer contains the blood of Christ.

And for Baptists, it's juice, okay? Maybe that's, maybe there's another episode for another time, Baptists and communion juice, you know what I'm saying? But anyway, I'm walking through everything, you know, reading the Last Supper with everyone, and then I say this, now, let's take the bread together, and I go to open the top layer, and it will not open, Chuck.

It will not open. It's like, and I'm pulling on this thing, mind you, I'm Samoan, so I typically have like Kool-Aid strength, right? You remember Kool-Aid? When he would just bust through the walls, you know, oh yeah!

Hey, Kool-Aid! Oh yeah! Here it comes. Oh yeah! Right? Freak all the kids out. That's why everyone's in therapy right now, Chuck, is because Kool-Aid. So anyway, I can't get the top layer off, so I have to make a decision.

So I take my two fingers, there's nothing in them, and I put them together, and then I just put my fingers to my mouth, and I pretend to take the bread, okay? And there's no bread in my hand. So I do this, Chuck, it's so bad.

Meanwhile, the only people who can see this are the worship team on stage, because there's a, you know, the audience and the congregation and everything are far away. So the worship leader is standing like behind me to my left, and as I'm motioning, this is probably better if you can see this on video, but as I'm motioning to put something in my mouth that's not there, I look and out of the corner of my eye, I just see him staring at me like, like what?

I look over, he's just staring. So anyway, after the service, so I go on like this, right? Next service, everything's fine, I can open it up, and I actually take communion, which is why I'm not going to hell.

But anyway, I got it, right, the next time. So I'm driving home, and I get a text message from the worship leader. And all he did was he went to the live stream, because this happened on the live stream.

He sends me a screenshot. It's recorded. This is for real. He sends me a screenshot of my two fingers to my mouth with nothing in it, and he just he texts underneath, I know what you did.

Oh, man. Oh, my gosh. Yes, that's definitely cringe. That is definitely.

I imagine that when we get to heaven, Jesus is going to say, hey, Nate, come here. Oh, my goodness. Anyway. Oh, man. If there's a principal office in heaven, I'm going to it. Well, anyway.