September 19, 2023
“The Preacher Said What?”
When a preacher talks as much as they must there are bound to be things that they say that are not right or at least people don’t hear them right. Sometimes it is the preacher’s fault. One time in my first church (Rowland Chapel Church of the Nazarene) as a sermon illustration I was trying to say that when people saw our church people sitting together at the local football game they would say, “There’s that Rowland Chapel crowd.” What came out of my mouth was, “There is that Rowland Crapel crowd.” Ouch! Many apologies from this pastor.
Sometimes people hear what they want to hear from the preacher’s sermon. I finished a sermon one time about when after the crucifixion of Jesus one of his disciples Simon Peter said, “Í am going fishing.” I talked about how he was going back to his old life before Jesus and how Jesus came and found him and restored him to the Kingdom’s work.
At the end of the sermon when everyone was leaving, I was standing at the door to greet the people. This woman came up to me and said, “I thank you so much for the word from the Lord today. I am going to follow your advice and go and quit my job tomorrow” I was shocked so much that I went back and listened to the tape of the sermon 3 times. NOWHERE in the entire sermon had I said go and quit your job tomorrow. That is what the woman wanted to hear. But she didn’t hear it from me (Or the Lord).
The latest funny incident occurred when I was preaching a message on Grandparents’ Day. I said that we could be awesome grandparents because we had more wisdom, knowledge, and experience than we did when we were raising our children. Two precious ladies in our congregation were discussing the message the next day in a cell phone conversation. One lady was commenting about how her husband was showing more patience and love with the grandchildren than he had for the children.
The other lady said something like, “Well that’s what Pastor Gary said in his sermon yesterday that we could be better grandparents because we are older and wiser” Cell phones being what they are with skips and dead spots, the other lady heard a different message.
When the first lady said that I had said that grandparents were “older and wiser,” the second lady was silent for a long time. When the first lady asked the second lady if she was still there, she replied. “Yes. I was just trying to remember when Pastor Gary said that we were old fertilizer.” LOL
So preachers be careful what you say but also listeners be careful what you hear.
In love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs