Of course, I agree, even though I don't I guess, but we just don't have the space. I am not going to let him park in the firelane and he's out of luck having just pushed my second button. (I was a pastor for 26 years, so I know how these guys think.) Gathering all my strength and putting on my best most sincere tone for whatever is about to happen, I look him in the eye and say..."I know, it would be nice if we had the room for pastoral parking, but but we simply don't and I guess...I guesss...(Here it comes with all the courage I can muster,) I guess a good pastor just sometimes has to ask 'Just Where Would Jesus Park?'"

We stare at each other. I doubt myself. He glares...and walks away! I won!!!! "Please God, don't let me hear anything from my supervisor!" I never did.

Ministerial Entitlements are something that is in a world of its own creation. It's a steamy world full of coded messages and expecations on the part of the pastor for the public to pick up on the pucky. In this world, once you pick up on the code and the intent, you are left only with the choice to give into some expectation the pastor has of you for a priviledge, discount, credit or service that you have and he wants. I have friends in the grocery business who have pastors come in and ask for free or discounted food because "I have five children." Well, that does not work much anymore and we tend to say now that one should have thought about that before having five children.

Businessmen and service providers know well what it means when just before you clean someone's property, dig a hole, put up a fence for someone who announces to you that "I am a Christian," or "I am a minister," in code, it means one of two things. Either I expect you to take that into consideration and charge me less because we are both, no doubt, brothers in Christ, or "I am sure you won't mind waiting a few weeks to be paid," which often ends in not ever being paid! I actually know of people who did yard work, were asked, AFTER the fact if they were Christians, and when they said "no", were told that the owner only hired Christians, and he would not pay them. You see around here it is not the laborer being worthy of his hire, but rather the Christian laborer that is worthy of his hire. The men went down to the curb, and redistributed all the trash back into the yard where they found it and left. It was hilarious. Many around here will tell you that the surest way not to get paid, or not to get paid what you agreed on for the work, is to do the work for someone who, at the start, goes out of their way to announce to you that they are a Christian. Big flashing red light there! If you want to confuse them when they ask what church you go to, and you MUST go to a church, just tell them you are NON-CONDEMNATIONAL. It calms them, and also confuses them but they won't pursue it.