Wednesday, October 03, 2007

...please don't

Okay. It has been over a week now since I last posted. That is not the way I like to do business. But hey...life gets busy. I'm sure you are all understanding about that.

The last few days I have lead worship with my friend Taylor for a senior high retreat at a camp about an hour away. Unfortunately, I had meetings both Monday and Tuesday that I could not miss...so I think I pretty much met my yearly quota of traveling the 60 mile stretch of I-40 between Crossville and Knoxville in just two days. Oh well, the drive is easy and the weather was nice, so I'm not complaining.

I do have a funny story, though.

The guy they lined-up to preach for the retreat was a guy named Mitch. Mitch is the chaplain for the University of Tennessee's football team, as well as the Men's and Women's basketball teams. He is a large black man (in his own words he is roughly "three hundred and 'none-of-your-business' pounds"). Mitch also preaches with a very thick and distinct Southern-Gospel cadence. He did a fantastic job, teaching on "not faking the funk" (I'm not sure I actually know what that means, I think it has something to do with walking the walk and taking this whole faith thing seriously...but I'm not sure). He was funny, had everyone's attention..he did a great job.

So, Mitch was ending the first session by telling the kids that they needed to take the rest of the week seriously. "Don't let anything distract you. Don't let your friends distract you. Don't let your boyfriend or your girlfriend distract you." And so on. Nothing out of the ordinary...until he added this:

"No sneaking off and kissing. By the way, you know what I say about kissing? About the real deep, heavy kissing; the swapping-spit kissing; the serious, deep kissing...you know what I say about it? I say: it is an upper persuasion for a lower invasion."

An upper persuasion for a lower invasion (now, you have to say it out loud and with that think Southern-Gospel cadence to get the full effect).

While the kids were laughing (and I'm sure conjuring up some serious mental images) and the adults were shifting in their seats, Mitch said, "Let me say that again..."

I awkwardly pleaded with him in a whispered voice from my seat, "...please don't."

But he did.

4 comments:

jason said...

very funny...especially knowing it came from this big, teddy bear of a guy...you can see mitch here:

http://www.footballspeakers.com/h/index.php?pid=42&name=James-Mitchell

SCOTT said...

thats awesome I once heard a southern minister begin a sermon this way, today we are going to learn about "shadrach,meshach and a bad negro." all I could think is theres a title I will never be able to steal

ragamuffinminister said...

I wonder if his preaching has inspired the butt kicking I am watching right now as ut is putting on an invasion of their own on Georgia.

michaelCODY said...

That is hilarious. I like that! That's like an R&B line that's supposed to be hot but is just stupid. haha.