The pastor shocked the congregation when he announced that he was resigning from the church and moving to a drier climate. After the service a very distraught lady came to the pastor with tears in her eyes, "Oh, Pastor Bob, we are going to miss you so much. We don't want you to leave!" The kindhearted pastor patted her hand and said "Now, now, Carolyn, don't carry on. The pastor who takes my place might be even better than me." "Yeah," she said - "That's what the last one told us too!!!" ===== A preacher went to his church office on Monday morning and discovered a dead mule in the church yard. He called the police. Since there did not appear to be any foul play, the police referred the preacher to the health department. They said since there was no health threat that he should call the sanitation department. The sanitation manager said he could not pick up the mule without authorization from the mayor. Now the preacher knew the mayor and was not too eager to call him. The mayor had a bad temper and was generally hard to deal with, but the preacher called him anyway. The mayor did not disappoint. He immediately began to rant and rave at the pastor and finally said, "Why did you call me anyway? Isn’t it your job to bury the dead?" The preacher paused for a brief moment and then replied: "Yes Mayor, but I always like to notify the next of kin first!" ===== The preacher was having a heart-to-heart talk with a backslider of his flock, whose drinking of moonshine invariably led to quarreling with his neighbors, and occasional shotgun blasts at some of them. "Can’t you see, Ben," intoned the parson, "that not one good thing comes out of this drinking?" "Well, I sort of disagree there," replied the backslider. "It makes me miss the folks I shoot at." =====