Perceptions

[sinda]

One of the guys that used to be very involved in the college-age ministry of the church I went to during college is now working on a new church plant with his wife.  Because it can be very hard to make a living as a pastor who's church planting (or, let's be fair, as a pastor period), he's been waiting tables at Chili's to make ends meet.  He's

Comments

[sinda]

I wouldn't actually say he's hiding it at all--he loves to tell people he's a pastor as a way to open up communication. I just think it's interesting how different people act when they know. I think it's too bad that people don't think they can hang out and have a beer with a pastor; the aforementioned Mike actually asked me once if we could get my cousins to donate a keg to a service we were having when he heard they owned a brewery. (I think he was only half kidding. He probably thought it would be a great way to get people to relax.) Not everybody would be comfortable sharing a beer with their spiritual leader, and not all pastors would be comfortable drinking, but if it's something both parties are cool with, why not?

I'm curious about your comment about not being able to share that interest with the guy. Did that affect your relationship with him before you found out what he did for a living? And if it didn't, then why did a topic (that you'd never covered before) suddenly become a stumbling block? Why didn't you just continue to talk about whatever you'd talked about before?