Ok so I have to tell this story without naming names so it might not be as interesting. Anyways this last Sunday I had Chap Clark come out from Fuller Seminary to do a ParenTeen conference at church. Chap called me on Saturday night to see what he should wear in the main service. I mentioned that jeans probably weren’t ok since the service is a little more formal. Then I mentioned a particular person who was going to be in the service and joked that Chap might want to impress him.
So today I got back from lunch and I had a message from that particular person on my voicemail asking to get a hold of Chap. I called Chap and we both laughed. It turns out he is working on a website and wanted some of the statistics that Chap mentioned for it.
This is probably a good reminder for all youth pastors that we often want to be aware of “who” we are speaking to as we often will have different audiences who have different expectations of us. What works in one setting is likely offensive in another.
