First the story, then a few observations.

A Methodist minister goes to the door and finds a stranger standing there. “Sir,” the man said, “I’m new in town and need a preacher for a funeral.” The Methodist minister invites him in, and the man continues, “The funeral is for my little dog that died yesterday.”

The minister said, “Well, you know we don’t really do funerals for animals. Why don’t you just bury him and say a few words yourself?” The man said, “This dog was like a member of our family. We’re heartbroken over its death, and well, we just wanted to give him a good send-off.”

“I’m not going to be able to help you,” the minister said, “but the Baptist pastor lives three doors down the street. You might ask him.” The man thanked him and as he was turning away, he said, “Oh, by the way, Reverend, what would be an appropriate amount to give the minister for the funeral? I was thinking of five thousand dollars.”

“Come back in the house,” the minister said. “Why didn’t you tell me that dog was a Methodist?”

One of our pastors told that story last Wednesday at our weekly pastors’ gathering. It went over big, leading me to believe that it was new to many. Either that, or they were just enjoying an old friend again.

Over the years, inflation has messed with that story. The first time I heard it, the amount was fifty dollars. It takes more to catch our fancy than it used to, I suppose. If there are forensic humorists out there, someone could probably track the origins of that joke down and discover that originally the amount was five dollars or something.

Some stories take on lives of their own and seem to live forever. And with the internet, no doubt my great-grandchildren will some day hear that joke–by then, the figure will be five million!–and pass it on to their friends.

What you wonder is why Readers Digest keeps printing new jokes. Since each new generation has not heard the stories of the previous one, they could recycle every story every decade or two and get by with it.

A good story is like a good song: it bears repetition and each performer gives it his own rendering.

You’ve heard people say, “Stop me if you’ve heard this.” Well, I won’t stop you. I love to hear an old story being recycled. It’s never quite the same as all the other times I’ve heard it, and besides, if it’s a good story or joke, it will bear the repetition.

And don’t stop me if you’ve heard my joke or my story. I’ll enjoy telling it and you might find yourself taking pleasure from it yourself.

“I have a hard time remembering a joke,” a friend said. I replied, “All you have to remember is the punch line. If you have that down solid, you can work your way back in the story and rebuild it. So long as you get the clincher right, it will still work.”

Apparently, that’s why so many versions of the same jokes and stories are out there; someone remembered the last line but not the details leading up to it, and manufactured some of his own.

The best stories, however, are not jokes you have heard. They are your own stories.

I tell our young pastors that everyone has his story and every family has a hundred. Their job is to mine them, to delve into their own and their family’s history and unearth the tales that define this family. Most are unique and no one else is out there telling them, but most are so like the tales of other families that your audience will enjoy hearing them.

When I do banquets, I don’t tell jokes. I tell stories from churches I’ve pastored and people I’ve met along the way. That way, I know no one else is out there duplicating what I’m doing. As the saying goes, you are an authority on your own story.

Here is one of mine. At the end, I’ll tell you what happened with that story and the caution I pass on to other pastors.

My first pastorate was in a small town north of Birmingham, Alabama. I’d finished college and we’d gotten married and I was working for a couple of years to pay off some bills and accumulate some savings before we headed to seminary. I had no experience at all as a pastor and am forever indebted to that little church for the opportunity. They ran about 30 on Sunday mornings when I came and 30 when I left, 14 months later. I didn’t hurt them, but they gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn how to preach and lead a worship service.

One Sunday morning I was driving to services and about a mile from the church came upon a little woman walking on the side of the road. She didn’t look elderly, but was dressed like something from another century. My first impulse was to give her a ride, but then I remembered I was now a pastor and preachers didn’t go around picking up strange women! So I drove on.

In the middle of the Sunday School assembly, the front door opened and she walked in. It turned out that everyone in the church knew her. She was–how to say this?–a little slow mentally. She lived with her elderly parents and was probably wearing her mother’s clothing. She sat in the Sunday School class I taught and stayed for church. When the service ended, everyone was leaving. I locked the door and turned around and she was standing there. I said, “Do you need a ride home?” and she said, “Yessir. I’d appreciate it.”

We were headed back down U.S. 31 and talking. After a bit, I said, “Now, you’ll have to tell me where to turn off for your house.” She said, “We passed that about a half a mile back.” So, I turned around and went back.

She told me she was a member at Bethel Baptist Church. “But every Sunday, I just go to a different church. One Sunday I’m at Mount Pisgy, one Sunday I go to Enon, I go to Unity and First Baptist. Every Sunday, I’m in a different church.”

Now, I’m 23 years old and called by God to stamp out heresy anywhere I find it, so I decided to straighten her out. I said, “Well, don’t you think you ought to get in one church and stay there? How would it be if the pastor visited somewhere different every Sunday? There wouldn’t be anyone to preach. And if the choir visited somewhere different every Sunday, there wouldn’t be anyone to lead the worship.” And I went on like that about the deacons and the ushers and the teachers and the nursery workers. I knew I had her. My reasoning was logical and flawless.

When I finished, she was quiet for a moment and then said, “Yessir, that’s right. But have you ever thought that if no one visited, there wouldn’t be no visitors.”

I said, “You’re exactly right. I honestly had not thought of that.”

Now, here’s what happened.

Twenty-five years after that incident, that association invited me back from North Carolina where I was serving, to preach at their annual meeting. They met in a different part of the county in a large church. And I told that story.

At the end of the service, a man came up and said, “Preacher, that woman you talked about in the story was in the congregation tonight.” I said, “Holy cow! Are you serious?”

He said, “Yes, and you described her exactly right. She didn’t have a clue you were talking about her.”

I said, “Thank you, Lord.”

I tell pastors to be careful what they say in their stories. You never know who’s in the audience, so make sure you’re okay for anyone to hear it.

After he retired from the pastorate of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, the inimitable Bruce McIver published a book of his stories under the title, “Stories I Couldn’t Tell While I Was a Pastor.” They were hilarious, and knowing Bruce, he probably told every one of those stories while he was a pastor. But he knows a good book title when he sees one.

On the other hand, every pastor has some of those stories, incidents that happened to him and are so embarrassing, so humiliating, or so revealing of someone else, that he cannot tell them, not in good conscience.

Write them down. Keep them. You never know. If nothing else, keep them for yourself. Go back occasionally and read them and laugh again.

A good story bears repeating. Like the story of the Methodist minister who goes to the door and sees a stranger standing there. Heard that one? Well, don’t stop me.