So what do you do for a living?

So what do you do for a living? December 5, 2011

Ugh, the dreaded question

“So what do you do for a living?”

You see as a pastor, when people you meet for the first time ask you this question 8 times out of 10, this is a conversation killer.

For some reason or another people don’t know how to respond to hearing this. You can almost see the walls and barriers shoot right up once they find out you’re a pastor…

Most of you might be thinking, who are not pastors, “No way! This is a conversational piece!” Well if you are thinking that, you’d be wrong 8 times out of 10 it’s not, it’s a conversational killer.

For some reason or another, people are turned away by this. Maybe they automatically think of a bad experience they’ve had in church, or they begin to think through if they’ve insulted you in some way or another in the last 5 min of chatting, or with this new knowledge what they can or can’t say in the conversation from here on out, or all the priests that have been arrested… I don’t know.

Pastors, non-pastors, what are your thoughts?

Would you be turned away by people who are pastors, would this be a conversational piece or a conversational killer? If you are a pastor have you experienced the same reactions or different reactions?


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