Sir Please step away from the rubber duck

      At this point in our collective human experience I am flabbergasted. We seem to have reached a zenith of stupidity, better than a zenith a reality shaking paradigm collapse.  We have reached that point because we simply are not thinking. Collectively we kinda shut down. Lance Armstrong decided to tell the truth, and  Manti Te'o decided to catfish the world and kill of his fake girlfriend.  I mean really, we have entered a social intellectual space where we commit violence against women who never existed in the first place?   And if the assassination of fake girlfriends was not enough, (its more than enough for me in a single week), we have preachers taking baths with their granddaughters. 

Please understand, I think that have grandparents are God’s built-in support system for raising children in the village ethic. Grandparents understand the parental value set and have special bonds with their grandchildren.  Grandparents are good for instruction, deliberation, and affirmation. Grandparents have enough skin in the game to care but not so much that they stifle identity. It makes them wonderful places to receive additional love and support. Got the warm and fuzzzies yet ?

With the aforementioned being stated, get the heck out of the bath tub with your granddaughters.  As a minister I am keenly aware of my interactions with the opposite sex, you have to be it’s the time that we live in. when I counsel doors stay opened or another female minister is present in the room for the duration of the counseling. I have mastered the side hug and the shake your hand like a man for women. I do these things because I am aware of how preachers can look even when trying to be open and authentic. When a family comes to church I greet the husband first acknowledging that I recognize his presence and importance in the family system. If the husband does not come to church I ask about him EVERY Sunday. Again to acknowledge the fact that there may be a point of discomfort in the interaction.   My goal is to be approachable, warm and inviting and in that same action subtly establishing boundaries. Usually it works… usually, it was this one time a dude kissed me on the cheek , (he kinda snuck me , I was fire hot , I just don’t like being kissed by dudes) for another time.  

I can imagine what the preacher was thinking as his granddaughter wanted to take a bath with pop pop. “hey this is my little bear and I love her with my whole heart” so yeah jump on in.  NO, this is not ok , it’s not cool.  First think of what your granddaughter is going to say afterward,  “oh I bathe with pop pop” , the teacher exclaims “oh” runs to teachers’ lounge calls DHR and you go to jail do not pass go do not collect a 100 dollars.  I’m not talking , I stole billions of dollars AIG jail (by the way no one has gone to jail for the theft of America) I'm talking OZ adebisi , imma meet you in the shower, did u drop that jail. And you a preacher… bruh, that’s not a good look.

Seemingly harmless actions can have unexpected consequences.  More than that when you fail to think about the impact that your actions might have you are making a plan to fail.  But let’s look at it from another perspective nowhere in your mind are u thinking that this looks pervy , you’re a 60+ bishop taking a bath with your granddaughter . And not one moment do you step back and say “wayment” something aint right here.  You never stop to think, with the churches current struggles with sexual abuse that this is probably not what I need to be doing cause it just looks bad.  The fact that this was overlooked is troubling and shows a lack of godly judgment. This is one of those shun the very appearance of evil things. Kinda like I can do evangelism in the strip club but it’s probably better if I didn't.  

But I don’t just blame the bishop. I blame whoever took the picture and whoever posted it to Facebook. Come on yall help the Bishop out who in his circle says “oh bishop its ok, you cool, post the bath time picture on Facebook” It speaks to the kind of people you have following you when nobody speaks up and will give you sound counsel.  Clearly this is a case of the emperor has no clothes and his people are content to let the man walk down the street butt naked and be embarrassed.

It speaks to the need for ministers in this highly sexual climate to think about how things look. Our intent may not be to create a scandal but we can’t just think of what we do from the warm and cozy Jesus loves everybody room of life.  We live in a world with some sick people and we cannot afford to be numbered as being morally deprived just because we forgot to put on our thinking caps.  So a bit of advice, one stop laying on people cause it’s time for their ordination, you can ordain people with your hands. It is not necessary to belly flop ordain people. Two, get out of the bath tub with your grand-kids it just looks wrong. Three stop taking boys on trips with you (you are not a mentor you’re a pedophile).  Four, If you need that much security you probably need to take a sabbatical.  Five Stop speaking in tongues on twitter it looks like you having a seizure on the keypad. Six, Get rid of two of your yes men and find some people to encourage you who don’t need anything from you and whom you cannot do anything for.   And for Pete sake get out of the darn bathtub who are you B. Slade???

But remember all of the aforementioned might hurt a little.