Wish I'd known that as a kid

There is a story in family lore that my grandfather especially loved. When I was younger and more inclined to listen to the length of a sermon rather than the words, I asked my grandpa one Sunday before he was to preach why he didn't just begin the sermon with "You are dismissed?" Made perfect sense to me since those were obviously the only words anyone really paid attention to and, as the pastor, he controlled when they were said. I don't remember what that sermon was about, but I do know it ended with those three words. I also am willing to guess that the sermon was not under 15 minutes: if a person can preach for less than 15 minutes he obviously would not find his vocation in the clergy. I have never heard of an expository message lasting that short until last night.

The normal chaplain is out of town, but the stand in is really not bad. He's Southern Baptist and the other times he's preached he's filled alllll of his alloted time. Yesterday he began the service with, "One of our intel NCO's has told me that we are expecting seven rockets to be fired at such and such a time," which conveniently was exactly 15 minutes after church was supposed to end. Interesting. We got through the whole order of worship, including communion, and I was back in my room before the end of the hour.

Now before you try this at home, you do have to know your pastor. The normal chaplain has preached right through mortar blasts before, just pausing to remark that we were free to go to the bunker if we liked. I'm pretty sure that my grandpa would have been inspired to go through an extra chapter by the boom. I'm also pretty sure that Schuppe would not be deterred. But it might be worth trying once. By the way, we never did get rocketed.