I absolutely love my little small town church…but sometimes we do things that make me crack up. (Catch the “we”.)

Take today, for instance. There is a young man in our ranks, probably middle to late 20’s. He comes like clockwork every week about 20 minutes before the service starts, sits in the same pew as his mother and grandmother (usually the one right behind my family’s), tithes regularly and is just in general a pleasant, quiet person of the type that forms the backbone of all organizations.

Today he was absent and in our church, if someone is absent the reasons are sought out by most members of the congregation. When the question: “Where’s your son?” was politely put before the mother, she replied: “Oh he’s at a wedding.”

“He’s getting married?!”

Every head in the church whipped around, every mouth dropped, every ear strained to hear the mother’s next words.

Much to everybody’s relief, he had done no such thing as get married without informing us first. It was just a friend’s wedding.

I wonder what we would have done if it had been his wedding. Probably had a few funerals.