Funny sermon illustrations have given ministers a fresh lease on their preaching. Gone are the traditional days where sermons meant hearing quotes from the Bible or listening to the ministers telling us what we did was wrong. Now we actually enjoy the sermons without our mind wandering in between.
This practice has helped people achieve two very important things. First they help the listeners understand the topic and what is being said about it so that when they walk out of the church the message stays with them. The second thing is that it does not let them lose interest in the sermon. They feel that they are hearing something out of their own life and not some difficult theological concept.
The listeners also find it difficult to concentrate for long on the speaker. They sit there hoping to find solutions to their problems, to ease their conscience or to just find some peace, but when they stop listening, all the efforts that you have put in choosing the topic and preparing the sermon who come to a null.
So to avoid losses to both the sides, it is a good idea to start out with something light or to include something like this in the middle. It will grab the attention of the people in the audience and keep them hooked to what is being said. Once that happens you can be sure that your sermon was heard by the people.
Using such humorous stories has another advantage. The topics that are normally taken up for sermons are those which we face in our daily lives. They tell us what our attitude should be when we face problems in different spheres of our lives. When we make light of such problems, relating to them and understanding what the correct way of dealing with such situations is, becomes easy.
Suppose you have a fight with your husband and you decide to take up marriage counseling. If you are repeatedly told about different researches done in the field of psychology or some new study on behavior analysis, then you might feel enlightened but your problem will remain unresolved. Instead if you are asked to talk openly and the counselor shares a similar incident that had a funny outcome, the problem would vanish.
But instead if your mom told you something funny that she did when she had a fight with her best friend and then how she made up, you would realize your mistake far easily or see her point. In the same manner, and on the same lines, sermons also include something funny and interesting.
Try not target anyone and not to violate their privacy. The real purpose of having funny sermon illustrations would be served when people go home feeling light and with the confidence that they have a solution to their problems or at least they know where they went wrong.
This practice has helped people achieve two very important things. First they help the listeners understand the topic and what is being said about it so that when they walk out of the church the message stays with them. The second thing is that it does not let them lose interest in the sermon. They feel that they are hearing something out of their own life and not some difficult theological concept.
The listeners also find it difficult to concentrate for long on the speaker. They sit there hoping to find solutions to their problems, to ease their conscience or to just find some peace, but when they stop listening, all the efforts that you have put in choosing the topic and preparing the sermon who come to a null.
So to avoid losses to both the sides, it is a good idea to start out with something light or to include something like this in the middle. It will grab the attention of the people in the audience and keep them hooked to what is being said. Once that happens you can be sure that your sermon was heard by the people.
Using such humorous stories has another advantage. The topics that are normally taken up for sermons are those which we face in our daily lives. They tell us what our attitude should be when we face problems in different spheres of our lives. When we make light of such problems, relating to them and understanding what the correct way of dealing with such situations is, becomes easy.
Suppose you have a fight with your husband and you decide to take up marriage counseling. If you are repeatedly told about different researches done in the field of psychology or some new study on behavior analysis, then you might feel enlightened but your problem will remain unresolved. Instead if you are asked to talk openly and the counselor shares a similar incident that had a funny outcome, the problem would vanish.
But instead if your mom told you something funny that she did when she had a fight with her best friend and then how she made up, you would realize your mistake far easily or see her point. In the same manner, and on the same lines, sermons also include something funny and interesting.
Try not target anyone and not to violate their privacy. The real purpose of having funny sermon illustrations would be served when people go home feeling light and with the confidence that they have a solution to their problems or at least they know where they went wrong.
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