Can there be anything more sleep-inducing than an hour and a half sermon by a COG minister who has to have 25+ points to get his point across as he makes you turn to 5,000 scriptures? As your eyes start to flutter trying to stay awake because of the boring drivel you slowly start to realize that you are hearing the same canned sermon from two years ago.
cartoon submitted by TLA
8 comments:
I was quite surprised to find a book containing pre-fab sermons in the pastoral book section of a Christian bookstore about 6 or 7 years ago. Apparently these outlines are fairly common. There are also books containing the great sermons of different evangelists from the most recent centuries. Apparently the proverb that there is nothing under the sun also applies to sermons. It is up to the individual pastor to inject freshness into these things, and somehow WCG + ministers mostly fell short of that threshhold.
BB
That book of pre-fab sermons won't be of much use in the ACOGs, as most Protestant sermons these days are in the 30-minute range, while UCG/COGWA sermons are double that and LCG sermons nearly triple!
Ministers have a ongoing responsibility to expand that knowledge on human behavior, which most default on. All large Christian churches could hire full time ghost writers to write their sermons, but choose not to. It happens occasionally with a tele evangelist sermon, but it's the exception. The only conclusion possible is that they want their audience kept ignorant and controllable.
I always found myself snoozing during services. Use to do it all the time. Probably i needed those crazy bob speil hand gestures to keep things amuzing and comical, and to keep me awake.
Tarzan
I once heard the same boring sermon giving twice by different ministers at Tabernacles in WCG.
I used to write down all the scriptures given and they were not only identical but also in the identical order.
The afternoon sermon, following a morning sermon and lunch, was the real problem for staying awake. A friend and fellow sermon-snoozer told me that when he first started attending services he was appalled seeing people dozing during services.
More recently when I had trouble getting to sleep, I'd start listening to a Dave Pack sermon which did the trick as long as he didn't raise his voice too often. Then I switched to Bob Thiel - audio only...
Some UCG ministers now actually are admitting they're preaching sermons they gave several years ago.
Perhaps that's what happens when people with 40-hour regular jobs are expected to give sermons on Sabbath as well.
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