Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Stop Shaving in February


I hate it when I make major typo type mistakes – even after I have checked, proofed and reproofed again. When I was a youth pastor I almost made a major one of these types of mistakes. We were getting ready to send out a large mailing to hundreds of homes to promote Vacation Bible School. The flyer was suppose to say,

“COME AND WIN!”

Instead, it boldly read,

“COME AND SIN!”

When I pastored in Indiana, I was amazed at the number of spelling mistakes and typos that were in information going out from the office of the Christian School that we ran as a church. It is one thing for a church to make spelling mistakes but it seems even worse when it is an educational institution doing it. It’s like saying,

Hey, come let us learn your kids how to read and write.”

So I placed a mandate before the School Administrator that a “proofing” system had to be put into place. He sent out a memo to all the staff. Instead of saying, “Proofing Procedures” it said: “Froofing Procedures.”

But this past Sunday I did it again. We passed out the gold medals that we are using for our February Prayer Challenge. On one side is a Scripture passage and prayer that we are asking everyone in our church to read and pray every morning in February, and on the other side is a different Scripture passage and prayer that we are asking our church family to read and pray every evening in February. The verses are correct but the references are wrong on both sides.

For the morning passage, it says that it is Deuteronomy 4:4-5. It is actually Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Again, the words are right – “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our god, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your might.”

On the evening side of the coin, again, the words to the verse is right – “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbors as yourself. I am the Lord.” However, that verse is not Leviticus 19:27 as the coin says. The reference is actually Leviticus 19:18.

Now here is what I found very humorous about my blunder. I put the reference as Leviticus 19:27 when it is really Leviticus 19:18. But here is what Leviticus 19:27 says, “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.”

So just to be safe, men, let’s put our razors away for the month of February!

2 comments:

Rod Spade said...

There were also at least two errors in the scripture references in the sermon notes - not that anyone's keeping score or anything. ;-)

Pastor Scott said...

Rod, I'm just tickled to death to see that there is at least someone out there looking those things up!!