“He stayed there all Friday. He stayed there all Saturday. But early, I said early Sunday morning, he got up with all power in his hands.” My pastor ends every sermon the same way every Sunday. At this point, I knew that he’d be ending the sermon very soon.

The church seemed pretty empty that day. Everyone was in their normal seating. Pastor made his way from the aisle back to his podium. “The doors of the church are now open. You can come by letter or Christian experience. While the choir sings for us, the doors are open.”

When I was younger I used to wait for the ushers to actually open the doors of the church but we all know that he was not speaking literally. I didn’t see a lot of new faces that day, so I wasn’t betting on anyone joining the church..

The choir was now singing–horribly–but they’re still singing. The audience joins them on the song, which makes up for how badly they sound. Midway through the song, a child that looks as if they could be nine years old started to make their way down the aisle to give their life to Christ. Being a southern black church, the congregation began to clap and stand up to cheer the child on.

Just as the child made their way down, the mom ran after the child and took them back to their seat. The congregations clapping silenced and at that moment, I didn’t know if it was okay to laugh or feel concerned for the family. I understand that we are in church but I had the sudden urge to ask “what the hell?”

The choir finished singing and I thought that the pastor wouldn’t discuss what happened and probably would wait until after church to talk with the family. But lord and behold, he gets up after the choir finishes with the song and began to speak on the situation.

He began to talk about the situation so badly that the woman walked out.

“When a child wants God in their life, they know. Now, no one has the right to keep someone from making a commitment to Christ.” As he continues to speak, I start to thinking about what could have possibly caused the mother of the child to want to do something like that. Even more, what makes the Pastor think that he can just blatantly speak about the situation as if we already don’t know who he’s speaking about?

What he’s saying may be correct, but honestly, I’m ready to go home and eat.