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February 25th, 2007

How to survive while listening to a sermon

sermon

I found this cartoon of mine on the following rather splendid page:

How to survive while listening to a sermon

These notes are set down in sympathetic recognition of the fact that most congregations suffer through the Sunday sermons with heroic fortitude. There must be a great number of Christians with extraordinary faith or else preachers would long ago have emptied the churches permanently! I say this as one who both preaches in pulpits and listens in pews. I can testify that it is much more fun to preach than to listen.

I quite enjoyed:

Strategy #3.
Let your mind wander. The art of mind-wandering is sadly neglected in these busy times. If the preacher announces a subject and clearly has nothing to say about it except plantitudes, let your imagination create the sermon that is eluding the preacher.

(Link to larger version of my sermon cartoon)

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5 Responses to “How to survive while listening to a sermon”


  1. Philip of Samaria says:

    ‘..plantitudes..’ how lovely for my vegetable soul..

    On the Fulcrum website you can read a lot of intelligent sounding guff commenting Tom Wright about ‘God being a linguistic concept’. I’m rather happier with ‘In the beginning was the word and the word was God’. I used to speak but stopped – ‘if any man speak let him speak as an oracle of God’.

    A sermon is a serious thing – have something to say (of course you have!) and make as sure as you can they are listening – even better get them to listen to what they are thinking for themselves… possibly hearing God’s voice.

    February 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am
  2. Karin says:

    I hope no one’s mind wandered when our vicar spoke this morning. He doesn’t do long-winded sermons anyway. He gives a talk. Copies are usually available afterwards and they fit on an A4 sheet of paper folded into a booklet.

    This morning he spoke about slavery and trafficking. I wish there had been copies of his talk left, but the uptake was larger than usual. I can’t remember what he spoke about directly before he came to the bit about the cockle pickers. It was something he’d read in a newspaper today. I think it might have been that which upset him so much he couldn’t carry on. His wife had to finish reading the talk for him.

    I’d be very surprised if anyone slept through that. I’d already felt like crying before I got to church this morning, and I wasn’t the only one besides the vicar who cried this morning.

    If sermons are sending people to sleep it just shows how far the church is from the radical life Jesus modeled for his disciples. If anyone is preaching the Gospel it should make people run away terrified or get down on their knees asking for forgiveness: that’s what should be happening in our churches however unBritish that may be. The Gospel also offers people a welcome and an offer of acceptance, especially to the battered and the bruised, but people need to know about the challenges it offers, too.

    There is no need for raised, overdramatised or emotional voices either. Our vicar manages to hold our attention quite well speaking in a pretty normal voice.

    February 25th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
  3. Dave says:

    Karin – good points. I think if you regularly hear sermons that grab attention in that sort of way you are one of the lucky few. No offense to people reading whose sermons I listen to…

    February 25th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
  4. Philip of Samaria says:

    ..so we had a great sermon today, really straightforward and challenging on ‘you’re going to reap what you sow’

    February 25th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
  5. Targuman » Blog Archive » Illustrated Guide to Surviving a Sermon says:

    [...] Read, enjoy, follow the links, read, enjoy, rinse, repeat. How to survive while listening to a sermon [...]

    February 26th, 2007 at 6:05 am