When Sermons Go Bad
A collection of the worst-ever preaching fails
Preaching ain’t no easy gig.
Take it from me!
Back when I worked for the Church, I preached 200 of my own sermons. As a preacher, you feel so much pressure to get up, say something of value, teach something important, and do it in a way that keeps people entertained enough to not fall asleep during your 30–40 minute oration.
It’s tough.
Sometimes, I would preach something and then quietly think to myself, “Man! That was brilliant! Is someone writing this down!?” only to look up and see several people snoring away in their pews.
Yes, God had a way of keeping me humble.
A couple of times, I got heckled by people in the congregation. I remember one occasion when I asked people to turn to a particular passage of scripture. I thought I would try to be funny, and so with what I considered sarcastic wit, I said, “If you’ve got your Bible with you, please follow along with me. And if you don’t have your Bible with you, just find a Christian, and they will have one.”
One man, who also happened to be an elder of the church (and who didn’t have his Bible with him), was so offended that he stood up and started yelling at me from the pew. It was quite a takedown that…
