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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Christmas Sermons
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Does anybody remember Christmas sermons? Everybody knows why they are at church on Christmas. Same with Easter. What can you really say different year after year? This year, I'll need two Christmas sermons. For the Easter Vigil, I've started reading the Chrysostom Easter Sermon. I'm thinking this year I'll read the Betjeman Christmas poem and call it good.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Good idea!
There's a sense in which the Christmas liturgies tell the story by themselves, IYSWIM, and render any other words superfluous (same goes for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Day, IMHO).
Our beloved Father F***wit will no doubt drag a mention of his Courtship Of, And Marriage To, His Lovely Second Wife* into at least one of his Christmas sermons.... ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
(* despite the fact that most of his rapidly-diminishing congregation are widowed, divorced, Living In Sin, asexual, bisexual, or celibate by choice.)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Does anybody remember Christmas sermons?
Unfortunately, yes. Some of the most memorable sermons I've heard have been on Christmas Eve -- because they have been the worst sermons I have ever heard. Four of them (in three different churches -- none of them my current one) spring to mind. I won't describe them for anonymity's sake.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
I actually tune out on most sermons unless they is given by significant preachers. I tend to think that most sermons are redundant when there are several Bible readings, prayers, hymns, psalms and Communion liturgy.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Christmas sermons are tricky. But, knowing that folk come to church who don't come at other times of the year, I there is a place for a short and pithy sermon which strips back some of the sentimentality surrounding the season and relates the Incarnation to "real life".
In passing, I think that there is a danger in churches that Christmas is the best-attended and least theologically-explained event of the year.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I have heard few really successful Christmas sermons. Mostly people seem to end up talking about Easter on the basis that this is the one time of the year when the unsaved come through the doors of the establishment and they need to hear the Gospel™.
My Dad pointed out a while back that the reason preachers all end up talking about Easter at Christmas is that they don’t know how to talk about the incarnation. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
My most memorable Christmas Sermon was for what was said about it afterwards in the pub.
"Can't believe it, go in for just a few nice carols 'n stuff, and the bleedin' vicar starts goin on an on about Jesus. Ya don' want that when you've got everyone comin in for a bit of Christmas cheer"
"Course e's fuckin talkin about Jesus, it's fuckin Christmas init."
Couldn't write it.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Well, for a start a sermon at a Carol Service isn't on: if you can't get the message of Christmas from the nine lessons then forget it.
As for Midnight Mass: no one has time for anything lengthy; best PP I ever knew used the same formula every year:
At the end of the Prayer and before the Peace he stood on the chancel step and (a) gave out notice about mulled wine/coffee & mince pies after service; (b) announced which charity would get the retiring collection (usually disaster relief), and (c) "May I wish you all a very happy, joyous and blessed Christmas, and may the Peace that Christ came to bring be with you and those you love. The Peace ..."
It worked.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Well done, that PP!
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Christmas sermons are always memorable, because nomatter which church you are in, you always hear the same one; albeit with minor variations for congregational context and personal style.
It always revolves around Jesus being the greatest gift ever given and is usually aided by half the year's budget for visual aids. Because it's one of the few times people come to church who don't normally do so, it's invariably evangelistic, but at the same time it's intended to be non-confrontational and inoffensive, so ends up as a bit of a muddle that nobody really likes but doesn't piss off too many.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Well, for a start a sermon at a Carol Service isn't on: if you can't get the message of Christmas from the nine lessons then forget it.
But I don't think people actually listen to the lessons - they're simply a kind of aural scenery (especially if beautifully read from the KJV).
Or else they do listen but fail to understand. It may be true that St. John "St John reveals the mystery of the incarnation" but, IMO, most people don't find it revealing at all.
[ 16. December 2016, 14:30: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Our rector is a very talented preacher, so I'm sure I'm not doing her justice with the following comment, but we pretty much get the same sermon on Easter and Christmas, delivered for the benefit of folks who drop in once or twice a year.
The basic theme: people want to know if this story is true. All I can tell you for sure is that if you let it be true, it has the power to change your life.
It's actually a pretty solid sermon.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
But I don't think people actually listen to the lessons - they're simply a kind of aural scenery (especially if beautifully read from the KJV).
Or else they do listen but fail to understand. It may be true that St. John "St John reveals the mystery of the incarnation" but, IMO, most people don't find it revealing at all.
I regret I think that's true. Personally, the more I read the In Principe the more profound it becomes, but I think the sequence of none lessons only speaks to those who already know the message they have been selected to get across. Most people don't know enough to pick up the Christian message by implication.
People do need a simple, direct and basic message, in simple, direct and basic language.
Having said that, I've also doubt how much any of us are capable of taking in anything, however exciting or new, at sometime approaching midnight. At that hour of the night, it's more what is happening in the heart that either speaks or doesn't.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
... the sequence of none lessons ...
Is that a subtle (or even subconscious) suggestion that the Lessons & Carols service has run its course? After all, it was an innovative "fresh expression" when invented back in 1880!
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
My most memorable Christmas Sermon was for what was said about it afterwards in the pub.
"Can't believe it, go in for just a few nice carols 'n stuff, and the bleedin' vicar starts goin on an on about Jesus. Ya don' want that when you've got everyone comin in for a bit of Christmas cheer"
"Course e's fuckin talkin about Jesus, it's fuckin Christmas init."
Couldn't write it.
In the same sort of vein, a friend's nephew accidentally spoke the best Good Friday sermon you could ask for. He was not raised in the church, but loved looking through art books, and one day stumbled on a renaissance depiction of the crucifixion.
Nephew: "Whose the person getting killed here?"
Aunt: "That's Jesus."
Nephew, with a look of distress: "You mean the baby from Christmas!?!?!"
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I overheard two children discussing optimal birthdays. One opined that it was a disaster to have your birthday on Christmas - it would be ignored by everyone. The other responded "yeah, that's what happened to Jesus".
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Christmas sermons are tricky. But, knowing that folk come to church who don't come at other times of the year, I there is a place for a short and pithy sermon which strips back some of the sentimentality surrounding the season and relates the Incarnation to "real life".
In passing, I think that there is a danger in churches that Christmas is the best-attended and least theologically-explained event of the year.
I agree with that, because people will hear in the familiar carols, readings, and other parts of the liturgy, what they were taught to hear as a child. We're preparing for Lessons & Carols tomorrow, which has me thinking in particular about the rather literal Adam & Eve story you might walk away with, which in my church, is probably taken literally by next to no one. It might not be a bad idea to talk at Christmas about the amazing fact that God became human - not as a "plan B" resulting from human sin, but because God always wanted to be with us that closely.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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sonata3
Shipmate
# 13653
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Posted
I've MW'ed maybe 40+ churches over the last eight years, plus spent decades as a church organist/pianist. I've heard a lot of sermons, and I can still recall some of the best, on the Gospel of the Prodigal Son, on Lazarus and the rich man, the woman who persists in seeking justice from a judge, on the Transfiguration (these were Lutheran, Lutheran, Catholic, and Presbytrerian, respectively). But I cannot recall a single Christmas sermon, and only one on Easter - the priest simply read a sermon of St. John Chrysostom (this was at the Easter Vigil).
[ 16. December 2016, 22:10: Message edited by: sonata3 ]
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"I prefer neurotic people; I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface." Stephen Sondheim
Posts: 386 | From: Between two big lakes | Registered: Apr 2008
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
I have long worked on the principle of Christmas being a wonderful time to surprise the guests by not having a sermon. Unfortunately in my erstwhile life as a dean the bishop, who rightly claimed the Christmas and easter season as his gig, insisted on preaching dreadful dull sermons, even singing a song at one of them.
It was ordinary. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
OTOH perhaps I'm not unjaundiced.
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
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Baker
Shipmate
# 18458
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Posted
Both the dean the dean's assistant, at the Episcopal cathedral where I worship, are simply fantastic preachers. They always manage to take familiar texts(whatever the season) and put a different spin on them. But Christmas doesn't get me excited because the bishop usually takes that sermon. He's earnest but a tad dull.
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Ad astra per aspera
Posts: 108 | From: Tottering-on-the-Brink | Registered: Aug 2015
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
Unfortunately in my erstwhile life as a dean the bishop, who rightly claimed the Christmas and easter season as his gig, insisted on preaching dreadful dull sermons, even singing a song at one of them.
OK, I'm glad we aren't the only diocese that has had to suffer through a singing bishop. (I have noticed that judges have an inflated view of how funny they are, mostly because as soon as you are sworn in to the bench, the entire bar forces itself to laugh at all of your lame attempts at jokes. Perhaps bishops suffer similarly inflated views of their singing voices.)
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
I've never heard our Bishop sing, but he usually brings his puppet with him, and he is NOT a talented ventriloquist.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I've never heard our Bishop sing, but he usually brings his puppet with him, and he is NOT a talented ventriloquist.
Is that a literal puppet, in the Archie Andrews sense? Or are you making a comment about his chaplain or some other member of his diocesan staff?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Christmas sermons are always memorable, because nomatter which church you are in, you always hear the same one; albeit with minor variations for congregational context and personal style.
True. I can't remember specific Christmas sermons as they all merge into one another. A combination of "remember the homeless, those who are sleeping in shop doorways, as Mary and Joseph had to take the only shelter available", "remember the refugees, as the holy family forced to flee to Egypt". But, I don't tend to go to churches which get a lot of non-regulars on Christmas Day so we're not looking at giving people the one chance of the year to give the Christian gospel.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I've never heard our Bishop sing, but he usually brings his puppet with him, and he is NOT a talented ventriloquist.
Is that a literal puppet, in the Archie Andrews sense? Or are you making a comment about his chaplain or some other member of his diocesan staff?
Literally -- I give you Bishop Smith and Dexter.
(Dexter -- he sits on the Bishop's right hand, as opposed to Sinister.)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Baptist Trainfan, I thought the Nine Lessons and Carols thing came in at the end of World War One ...
I'll have to Google it now ...
Not a Fresh Expression as such. It didn't involve balloons.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Baptist Trainfan, I thought the Nine Lessons and Carols thing came in at the end of World War One ...
No and yes: it was invented by Bishop Benson of Truro in 1880, adapted by King's in 1918 and first broadcast from there in 1928.
[ 17. December 2016, 15:16: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
My most memorable Christmas Sermon was for what was said about it afterwards in the pub.
"Can't believe it, go in for just a few nice carols 'n stuff, and the bleedin' vicar starts goin on an on about Jesus. Ya don' want that when you've got everyone comin in for a bit of Christmas cheer"
"Course e's fuckin talkin about Jesus, it's fuckin Christmas init."
Couldn't write it.
In the same sort of vein, a friend's nephew accidentally spoke the best Good Friday sermon you could ask for. He was not raised in the church, but loved looking through art books, and one day stumbled on a renaissance depiction of the crucifixion.
Nephew: "Whose the person getting killed here?"
Aunt: "That's Jesus."
Nephew, with a look of distress: "You mean the baby from Christmas!?!?!"
Not just a Good Friday sermon, that one. It would work very well on Christmas for a minister who wanted to shake up the sheep a bit. I passed it on to my own minister to see what happens.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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JeffTL
Apprentice
# 16722
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Posted
The one I remember the best was by a Franciscan friar, who managed to keep it to the Incarnation. He emphasized that our savior was laid in a food trough in a barn, though we try to make the whole situation seem more genteel. I also remember a Presbyterian minister who delivered point-of-view short stories of the nativity from the perspective of various bit players (a shepherd, a wise man, an angel, St. Joseph, I don't remember if he ever did Mary).
For Easter, especially the vigil, St. John Chrysostom's homily is the smart move - the scriptures say what needs to be said, for the most part. I recall an Easter Vigil where the Bishop of Chicago somewhat dramatically read it from the font, with the organ returning from its Lenten hiatus right at the climax of the sermon.
Posts: 49 | From: Chicago | Registered: Oct 2011
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JeffTL:
with the organ returning from its Lenten hiatus right at the climax of the sermon.
What? Not at the Gloria? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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MaryLouise
Shipmate
# 18697
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Posted
Last year Fr P gave an off-the-cuff sermon on horse-racing and how to place winning bets as a seasoned race-goer. I wondered how he would tie this in with the Incarnation but he didn't get there, just glanced at his Smartphone (checking the time, presumably) and wished all of us compliments of the season.
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“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”
-- Ivy Compton-Burnett
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
First 'Christmas' sermon at this eve's Carol Service.
Fr. F. exhorted us to spend the next few days reading and meditating on the words of popular carols, in order to fully understand the wonderful Christmas Gospel.
At least it was brief.
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stercus Tauri:
quote:
a friend's nephew accidentally spoke the best Good Friday sermon you could ask for. He was not raised in the church, but loved looking through art books, and one day stumbled on a renaissance depiction of the crucifixion.
Nephew: "Whose the person getting killed here?"
Aunt: "That's Jesus."
Nephew, with a look of distress: "You mean the baby from Christmas!?!?!"
Not just a Good Friday sermon, that one. It would work very well on Christmas for a minister who wanted to shake up the sheep a bit. I passed it on to my own minister to see what happens.
A salient reminder (not lest to earnest bishops) that we are very much in a post-Christendom era ... my recent battles with, er, ecclesiastical authorities and gate-keepers, was not least because they were maintaining a belief that every one still knows the bible, 39 Articles, and every hymn of Old and Miserable, in Latin, and will willingly rock up every time the church opens its foreboding doors, and quake every time a bishop farts.
But I digress.
Carry on.
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Post-Christendom indeed. Quite why Fr. F. imagines that we all possess copies of hymnbooks (or even The Bethlehem Carol Sheet ), carols for the perusing of and meditating upon, I know not.
Mind you, almost the entire (sparse) congregation was made up of 'regulars', most of whom had skipped Mass this morning, so maybe he reckoned that they knew the most familiar carols anyway. Visitors/unchurched were notable for their absence.
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
One of my former parishes had the tradition for the Christmas Day sermon of using the Sermon from Eliot's 'Murder in the Cathedral.' It shook me up a bit the first year, but I grew to look forward to it, and drew more from it each year.
Not to every taste, surely, but worth trying if the priest can read it effectively.
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
So, hypothetically, if one were writing a Christmas sermon for the first time and had, say, four days left, how might one approach it what pitfalls might one seek to avoid. Y'know, hypothetically.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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keibat
Shipmate
# 5287
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Posted
Georgiaboy wrote: quote:
One of my former parishes had the tradition for the Christmas Day sermon of using the Sermon from Eliot's 'Murder in the Cathedral.' It shook me up a bit the first year, but I grew to look forward to it, and drew more from it each year.
And cf: the several references to reading St John Chrysostom's sermon at the Easter Vigil. This latter is a tradition that I am familiar with, since it has been borrowed in Finland by the local Anglicans [of whom I am one, now in exile back in Brexiting England] from the Orthodox [nb: the O, not the RC, are the prominent trad-cath church in Finnish predominantly secularized-protestant culture].
So when I took the earliest Christmas-themed service in our eleven-church parish cluster deep in rural England, viz: on 2 Advent, I read them John Chrysostom's sermon for Christmas morning – edited down to about 2/3 of its original length and toning down the mock-Tudor translation I found online (reflecting the English Orthodox line that Cranmer (or perhaps Lancelot Andrewes] established the style of language that present-day Orthodox should emulate in order to convey the dignity of the liturgy). Whether the congregation will remember this, I cannot say. But I myself found it satisfying.
Here is the online reference if anyone is interested:
http://malankaraorthodox.tv/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/St.-John-Chrysostom-on-Christmas.pdf
I rather like the idea of the Murder in the Cathedral solution – will have to take a look at it.
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keibat from the finnish north and the lincs east rim
Posts: 93 | From: Alford, Lincs + Turku, Finland | Registered: Dec 2003
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Kermit, offspring of the Devil? Hardly!
And I think there is a place for (occasional, well-done) puppetry at family services.
But at this time of years it surely reinforces the idea that Christmas is primarily a festival for the children, rather than the time for some serious reflection on the Incarnation and the challenge to believe.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
So, hypothetically, if one were writing a Christmas sermon for the first time and had, say, four days left, how might one approach it what pitfalls might one seek to avoid. Y'know, hypothetically.
Hypothetically, start by assessing who is likely to be there. Is it the regular congregation, most of whom have sat through countless Christmas sermons including the sermons during Advent just gone? Or is it a church which gets a lot of once or twice a year visitors? Will you have children present? If so, do you want a childrens address getting the "Jesus is Gods gift" theme out of the way, with time for a meatier sermon on the incarnational themes. Are people expecting a half hour service then dash off to whatever else they're doing, or are they expecting a longer service (part of that will depend on the time as well).
Basically, like any other sermon, it has to be prepared for the particular congregation you're preaching too. Which is one reason why I would be hesitant about just reading a sermon someone else delivered to a different congregation (or, the modern option of videos of sermons ad nauseum on the internet).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
So, hypothetically, if one were writing a Christmas sermon for the first time and had, say, four days left, how might one approach it what pitfalls might one seek to avoid. Y'know, hypothetically.
Further to what Alan has wisely said, would this hypothetical person be flying solo or answerable to an Observing Superior™ ? Flying solo allows so much more room for gospel creativity. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
For the sake of argument, lets specify that the hypothetical preacher is subject only to that most omniscient of observing superiors.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
1. Kermit, offspring of the Devil? Hardly!
2. And I think there is a place for (occasional, well-done) puppetry at family services.
1. Definitel!
2. In the bin? Or, at a push, kept in the bin bag in which they were brought here
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
For the sake of argument, lets specify that the hypothetical preacher is subject only to that most omniscient of observing superiors.
If only there was a way of getting feedback.
My recommendation, like Alan's, would be to tailor it. I prefer to listen to a sermon targeted at someone other than me but where I can see who that group is than a general scatter-gun with something for everyone. As a regular church goer if I sit through a sermon for visitors I'm quite content. (Provided there are visitors of course).
Pick a group, pick a theme, stick to the one theme and don't digress, and then be done.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
If one is going to preach to a church full of only very occasional worshippers, you could do worse than tackle the saccharine "Christmas is really all about children" garbage.
Heard this done a few years ago: preacher agreed with the sentiment, pointing out that in the massacre of the Holy Innocents and the forced exile of the new-born Christ-child, it was indeed all about the children.
Cue complaints all round
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Cathscats
Shipmate
# 17827
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Posted
You want to avoid one I heard about last year, where the preacher compared the incarnation (God showing us himself) to the preacher himself as a boy wondering what a naked woman looked like and peering through a crack in the bedroom door at his mother... ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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"...damp hands and theological doubts - the two always seem to go together..." (O. Douglas, "The Setons")
Posts: 176 | From: Central Highlands | Registered: Sep 2013
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