Everyone who is sitting in a given church and listening to a sermon knows that it would be rude to get up and walk out in the middle of a preaching, and so they keep sitting till it ends. But it is common knowledge that their mind is wandering outside and probably is on the other side of the earth. And maybe that is why we see that the use of funny sermon illustrations is increasing.
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.
I guess this observation brought about the change and introduced the concept of including jokes and funny stories in their speeches. Someone somewhere must have realized that nobody is really listening and they are just sitting there out of respect. So, to keep people listening, sermon givers started including humorous anecdotes. And it proved to be a hit.
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.
Maybe you had a fight with your best friend and you stomped off angrily without hearing what she had to say. If you go to your mother and tell her about this you know you will have to hear a long lecture about how your attitude is wrong and you fight all the time and other such things.
A common mistake is including a funny story simply to say something comic. This should not be done because the main purpose of a preaching is to impart knowledge and not make people laugh. So one should only comic stories related to the topic or illustrations that would help listeners understand where they went wrong.
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.
I guess this observation brought about the change and introduced the concept of including jokes and funny stories in their speeches. Someone somewhere must have realized that nobody is really listening and they are just sitting there out of respect. So, to keep people listening, sermon givers started including humorous anecdotes. And it proved to be a hit.
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.
Maybe you had a fight with your best friend and you stomped off angrily without hearing what she had to say. If you go to your mother and tell her about this you know you will have to hear a long lecture about how your attitude is wrong and you fight all the time and other such things.
A common mistake is including a funny story simply to say something comic. This should not be done because the main purpose of a preaching is to impart knowledge and not make people laugh. So one should only comic stories related to the topic or illustrations that would help listeners understand where they went wrong.
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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