It’s been a while since I’ve seen bare breasts in church. Oh, there was that time when the voluptuous singer did the special music—right before the sermon—with her blouse unbuttoned below the nipple line. We were all too stunned to say anything about it. I think everybody thought she’d surely hitch ’em up a bit, but apparently she believed in celebrating all of God’s gifts and on that day she put them on display.

I hadn’t seen any uncovered breasts in church since then, until a few nights ago in a Nicaraguan village. I was midstream in a passionate sermon about sin, righteousness, and the love of God when a young lady I’m guessing to be less than 20 years old lifted her shirt, fully exposing both breasts to whomever, and beckoned her toddler to come and nurse.

It caught me a little by surprise. No big deal. Exposing breasts to feed a baby is a culture-by-culture thing; we American’s need to “get over it.” Yet it did catch me off-guard. It just wasn’t very American-evangelical-normal. I mean, we have nursing mother’s rooms with the service video fed into the room so Momma can feed the baby discretely and still be at church with the rest of the family.  But in Nicaragua, sitting on row two, you just whip ’em out all the while nodding, smiling, and amening the preacher even as you switch breasts half-way through just so things stay in balance.

So there I am, fervently working my audience, all the while there’s this whole other narrative running in my chuckling brain. “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

So when you are in church next Sunday—particularly if you are a pastor facing the congregation—beware, you just never know what the lady on the second row is going to do.

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Update: Christianity Today had a blog article on this topic that you might find interesting.