Getting the Message

A church vacancy committee undertook a long and diligent search for a new minister – and at last settled on one.

On the first Sunday the new minister went into the pulpit and delivered an amazing sermon. Everyone was deeply moved – they laughed, they cried, they were filled with awe. On the way out at the end of the service they thanked the minister profusely for his wonderful sermon, and congratulated each other on the brilliant choice they had made when they selected the new minister.

On the second Sunday, the new minister went up into the pulpit and delivered exactly the same sermon has he had the week before. Again people were deeply moved – but some scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. But, they gave the new minister the benefit of the doubt – perhaps he had just picked up the wrong notes on the way to church that morning – and they didn’t say too much.

On the third Sunday, the minister again gave exactly the same sermon as he had on the first and second Sundays. This time there was widespread consternation. The elders immediately called a meeting with the minister and asked him what was going on.

They said, “The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon – and we all are deeply impressed by your ability – but you’ve delivered it three times now. Don’t you know any other sermons?’

“Oh, yes!, replied the new minister, “I have loads of them – and they are all just as good as the one you just heard.”

“Well then,” replied the elders, “Why don’t you preach one of them next week.”

 “I’m not going to do that”, the minister replied, “until all of you have started following the message of the first one.” 

Pulpit Supply 2

The Meenister’s Log

I remember hearing a guest preacher at University Chapel – a well known Church of Scotland minister of some seniority.  His sermon was exceptional – he interwove stories about St.Andrews (where the University is) taking us on a guided tour down through history and along the cobbled streets of the Town in our imagination.

Some years later, hearing that he was guest preacher in Perth one Sunday, I decided to have a Sunday off from my then congregation which was a dozen or so miles away…and he substituted references to Perth in the same sermon!

And he once came to an anniversary service of some kind at St.Michael’s Inveresk where I was minister at the time and….. yep, but this time The Honest Toun (Musselburgh) was the focus of his attention in the same message.

Have to say, though, that it was excellent and I only wish I could remember the details!

 

–ooOOoo–

A student was taking a service one Sunday, having “borrowed” large chunks of a sermon from a book of homilies and addresses written by a retired minister.  To his horror, the author was sitting in the congregation.

 

–ooOOoo–

A visiting Scottish minister was on a preaching tour many years ago in the USA.  Can’t remember the exact details, but let’s say he started in Chicago before going on to the Twin Cities and then to a couple of places westward of there.

After the third preaching engagement, after the service, a guy came up to him during coffee time and said “That sermon just keeps on getting better every time you preach it”

It transpired that he was a travelling salesman and whenever he was in a City where our minister friend was preaching, he’d go along to the service.

It was, of course, the same sermon every time and in every place.