Words of Welcome

Welcome, friend. I am Arthur King, and for thirty-eight years, from 1959 until I retired in 1997, I was a Methodist preacher in the small churches of central and eastern Kentucky. The bishop moved me eight times in those years, and three of those appointments were two-church charges, where you preach at one church at nine-thirty, drive like the dickens, and preach at the other at eleven. So I served eleven churches in all, from the Bluegrass out into the mountains, and I loved every one of them, including the one with the furnace.

My wife Lois has been married to me since 1957, which ought to get her a crown in glory all by itself. She says I never got through a single sermon without a joke. I have tried to think of one and I can't. A joke at the top of a sermon is like opening a window in a warm sanctuary. Folks sit up, they look at you, and for a minute they're all in the same place. Then you can tell them what you came to say.

Our grandson set up this computer for us when he went off to college, and he said, "Papaw, you've got forty years of jokes in your head. Put them somewhere before they leak out." So here they are. Every one of them is my own, and every one is clean enough to tell in front of the women's circle, the youth group and the bishop, all three at once. I've done it.

The stories below are true. I've left out the names. The folks in them are dear to me, and some of them are still sitting in those pews, and I'd like to keep getting Christmas cards.

The Joke for the Pulpit
For Sunday, September 26, 1999. Free for any preacher to use. Tell it your own way.

From Recent Sundays

September 19 · The Potluck
A visitor came to one of my churches on Homecoming Sunday and stayed for dinner on the grounds. He went down the tables, filled two plates, came and sat by me and said, "Preacher, I have been looking for a church home a long time, and I believe I've found it." I said, "Brother, we'd love to have you. What was it in the service that spoke to you?" He thought about it and said, "The green bean casserole." We took him into membership that very spring. He's been a trustee fifteen years now, and he still sits closest to the kitchen.

September 12 · Deacons and Trustees
My Baptist friend down the road had deacons. We Methodists had trustees. He asked me once what the difference was, and I told him the truth as near as I could figure it. When the furnace goes out, a deacon will pray about the furnace. A trustee will pray about the furnace and then get three estimates.

September 5 · Fishing
Lois asked me why I always took the young preachers fishing when the bishop sent one to a church near mine. I told her it's the best seminary there is. You sit a long time with nothing happening. You keep hoping anyway. And when something finally bites, you have to act like you knew it would all along.

August 29 · Choir Practice
Every choir I ever had was a good choir, and every one had the same trouble. The sopranos wanted to know why they had to come to practice, and the basses wanted to know when practice was. One Wednesday night I told our director I'd be praying for her choir. She said, "Pray for the tenors, Brother Arthur. I've only got the one, and he's got a cold."

August 22 · The Long Sermon
I preached long one Sunday, I'll admit it. At the door an old farmer shook my hand and said, "Fine sermon, Preacher. I put in my whole garden during it." I told him I hadn't seen him leave his pew. He said, "Didn't have to. I laid it out row by row, and I believe the beans are going along the fence this year." I have told that one on myself for thirty years. It's the most honest review I ever got.

True Church Stories
Every word true. Lois was there for all of them and has corrected the details.

The Baptism in the Creek
We Methodists will sprinkle, pour or immerse, whichever you ask for, and most folks ask for sprinkling. But in one of my mountain churches a young man who'd come to faith at revival wanted to go all the way under, the way his granddaddy had. So we set it for the first Sunday in May, at a wide place in the creek below a member's barn. The member assured me that by May the water would be "warm as dishwater." I want it on the record that I believed him.

I waded out in a pair of borrowed hip boots, and the cold came through them like they were made of newspaper. The young man waded out in his good white shirt, and his eyes got bigger with every step. I said the words, I put him under, and he came up out of that creek with a holler you could have heard in the next county. The congregation on the bank thought it was the Spirit and shouted amen. He told me afterwards that it was not entirely the Spirit. He's a lay leader now, and every May he asks me if I'd like to go wading.

The Christmas Pageant with the Real Donkey
A farm family in one of my Bluegrass churches offered to lend a real donkey for the Christmas pageant, and the committee, against my advice and Lois's, said yes. At rehearsal that donkey walked down the center aisle as calm as a deacon. On Christmas Eve, with every pew full and the candles lit, he walked as far as the third pew and stopped. He would not go forward. He would not go back. The girl playing Mary got down, patted his neck, and walked the rest of the way to the manger by herself, and that donkey followed her like a puppy. Then he ate the hay out of the manger, all of it, while the shepherds held the baby doll up out of reach. It was the quietest, most reverent pageant I ever saw, because nobody in the building dared to breathe.

The Potluck with Nine Jell-O Salads
It was Homecoming at a little church in the knobs, and when I came down the line there were nine Jell-O salads on that table. Green with pears. Red with bananas. Orange with carrots shredded in it. Lime with cottage cheese. One with tiny marshmallows, one with pretzels on the bottom, and three I still cannot account for. Each one had been brought by a lady who was standing within ten feet of the table, watching the preacher's plate. I took a spoonful of all nine. I ate all nine. I praised all nine. On the way home Lois asked me which one was best, and I told her that's a question a Methodist preacher takes to his grave. I am taking it there still.

The Bat at the Easter Sunrise Service
One of my churches held its sunrise service inside, because the hilltop out back was too steep for the older folks, so we gathered in the dark sanctuary with candles and waited for the light to come through the east windows. When the boy on the bell rope rang the first bell, a bat came out of the belfry and down into the sanctuary. It went around that room seven times; I counted. Nobody screamed. Folks just ducked in order, pew by pew, like a wave at a ball game, and kept on singing "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today." An usher propped open the front doors with a broom, and on the last verse that bat flew straight out into the sunrise. A retired schoolteacher told me at the door that it was the finest object lesson she'd ever seen. I told her I wished I could take credit.

The Sunday Three Came
One winter in the late seventies the snow came Saturday night and didn't stop. I walked to church, since the parsonage was next door, and fired up the furnace, and at eleven o'clock there were three of us: Lois, the organist, who lived across the road, and a man none of us had ever seen, whose car had slid into the ditch out front. I preached the whole sermon. Lois said later I should have cut it short, but I said the Lord sent us a visitor and he was going to get his money's worth. He got it. He stayed for dinner at the parsonage too, since there wasn't a wrecker for thirty miles, and he wrote us a Christmas card every year until he passed.