Pew Potatoes
Alice Cravens Moore
Submitted by Bill & Blanch Fry
San Antonio, TX
9/10/97
Pew Potatoes
Couch potatoes may be the kings and queens of the sofa, but some individuals reign as sovereigns of the pew. Couch potatoes may expend more energy with TV remote controls than pew potatoes do with Bibles or hymnals. The pew potato is a Christian who has become inactive or has retired because of what she perceives to be sufficient years of service.
Sometimes pew potatoes are in the church building, albeit semicomatose, every Sunday. On occasion, pew potatoes are semi-alert. Other pew potatoes are absent for weeks or even months before resuming their positions on the benches.
How does a person know if she is a pew potato? Check these definitions. Although some may be exaggerated, they contain enough truth to make most of us squirm.
• You might be a pew potato if your congregation changed ministers and you did not notice for six months.
• You might be a pew potato if you cannot remember what the sermon was about and the preacher is still talking.
• You might be a pew potato if you cannot find your Bible because it is propping up the broken leg of the couch.
• You might be a pew potato if, when you hear the term
plan of redemption, you think of the grocery store’s double coupon policy.
• You might be a pew potato if you give more to the local cable company each month than you do to the Lord’s church.
• You might be a pew potato if your idea of mission work is singing
Send The Light.
• You might be a pew potato if people introduce themselves to you at church although you have been a member of the congregation for nine years.
• You might be a pew potato if the last time you helped with Vacation Bible School was before air conditioning.
• You might be a pew potato if you do not attend Sunday nights because
Masterpiece Theater is more important than the Master’s peace.
• You might be a pew potato if you think visiting the sick means taking your husband an aspirin.
• You might be a pew potato if the only Peter, Paul and Mary you are familiar with once sang a song called
Puff, The Magic Dragon, or if you think
Jude is half of the title of a Beatles’ hit.
• You might be a pew potato if you interpret
Shall We Gather At The River as an invitation to a picnic.
A pew is a fixed bench with a back. A potato is a tuber that is a fleshly, rounded growth of an underground stem. Let’s make up our minds not to become little round mounds rooted to the seats in our respective auditoriums.
If we are going to be compared to any kind of plant, let it be kudzu. Then we can take over the world for the Lord.
—
Alice Cravens Moore
Submitted by Bill & Blanch Fry
San Antonio, TX
