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PASTOR BLOOPERS

TOUGH SEARCH COMMITTEE
The chairman of our pastor search committee informed the congregation: "Next Sunday our visiting preacher will be the Rev. Bill Oaks. If you would like to see the other preacher candidates, you will find them hanging in the vestibule."

AND WITH YOU....
In our Anglican Church, each service begins with a greeting. The officiating clergyman says, "The Lord be with you." The congregation used to respond by saying, "And with thy spirit." But, with the modernizing of the liturgy, the minister now says, "The Lord be with you." and everyone responds with, "And also with you." One Sunday a visiting bishop went to a church where the sound system was known to be old and unreliable. As he approached the microphone, he tapped it several times and finally said, "There's something wrong with this!" Without hesitation the whole congregation answered faithfully, "And also with you."

POMP AND WHAT?
A few years ago our choir did a Christmas Cantata at our church. On the evening of our first performance we were all lined up outside the Sanctuary waiting to march in to the opening strains of the overture. Our Pastor wanted us to march in time with the music so his final instructions were as follows: " Everybody march in like you did at your high school graduation. You know, Pomp and Circumcision." We all broke out in a fit of laughter and it took several minutes to regain enough composure to march in. (Lee)

ON LEADERSHIP
On pastor appreciation day one of our deacons was speaking for a few minutes about how he appreciated the pastor. He related that it was a tough job being a leader and explained that it was like a flock of migrating geese. The lead goose forming the point of the flying V formation works the hardest because he was "Breaking Wind" for all the other geese! And all this time I thought the geese were just honking as they flew overhead! A few of us caught the blooper and chuckled, the rest looked bewildered or attempted to not show they caught the funny!

DINNER DEATH
Our church would have a chicken dinner to raise money a couple of times a year. One Sunday there were beautiful flowers at the front of the church. I mentioned that they were given "in memory of Frank Wilson who came to our chicken dinner last week and went home and died." I did not mean to infer that he died from eating the chicken, but that's the way it came out. (Wayne)

CRAZY MINISTER
A local pastor asked his sexton to post the title of his sermon on the signboard outside the church to read "Are Ministers Crazy?"
Not hearing this as a question, the sexton posted, "Our Minister's Crazy" much to the amusement of the community. (Ron)

WEIGHT LOSS HYMN
We had just had a "Weighdown Workshop" and many people in our church lost weight. During announcement time we congratulated the participants and made a big deal out of their weight loss. It was about that time we all realized there had been a typo in the bulletin item just below it. Instead of listing "I Am Thine O Lord" the bulletin listed the next song as, "I Am Thin O Lord." (Angie)

NEW APOSTLE'S CREED
Our pastor (Rev. Marjorie Doriani) is a strong personality, but even she has her moments...One Sunday during the worship service, following a number of additions and corrections to our announcements, we finally got to the Apostle's Creed. Everything was fine until we reached the part about how Jesus was..."confused by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary..." Poor Rev. Doriani was aghast! Afterwards, she whispered (into her microphone) "What did I say? I didn't say what I think I just said, did I?"

WIFE OF THE MONTH
At our church, the "deacons of the month" stand next to the pastor at the front door and greet people as they leave. One Sunday my husband, the associate pastor, was filling in for the pastor. At the close of the service he announced, "Will the deacons and my wife of the month please join me at the front door." Everyone laughed and wondered who would be his "wife of the month" the following month!

PRAY FOR THE SICK
I was listening to my Associate Pastor at our last church pray and I realized the phrase didn't come out quite right. He said, "...and Lord, we pray for those who are sick of this church." I'm sure that's not what he meant!!!

ANGELS ON HIGH
One Sunday our music director very clearly announced, "Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High." He did get the page number correct in spite of the laughter rolling through the congregation.

BUT WHAT?
A guest speaker was discussing the "buts" in the Word of God and the fact that a "but" placed in the middle of a sentence negates what was said previously. He skillfully made his point that we must be those who do not negate the word of God by using the word "but" after God has spoken. Then he exclaimed "We MUST kill our Buts" - the whole congregation broke into laughter! (Lynn)

NEW STYLE OF PRAYER
The pastor was preparing to lead his congregation in prayer. He stated very forcefully, "Let's bow our eyes and close our heads."

BACKWARDS EASTER
My friend David was on his vicarage...he was scheduled to preach his first Easter sermon...being a little nervous he flubbed up at the end of the sermon by shouting out at a particularly dramatic moment..."Yes...Jesus rose...and then He died again. Hallelujah!"

YOUTHFUL LESSON
A few weeks ago, our district was going to have the *Sectional* Youth Rally at our church. The pastor got up and made this announcement "We will be hosting the sexual youth rally this Friday evening at 7:00. Everyone is welcome to attend. It should be an enjoyable evening for all and we can probably learn a lot from these kids"

TOMBSTONE DIGNITARY
At a gathering of a "Jubilee Celebration" the First Baptist Church was filled to capacity with attendees and dignitaries. The Church Council President was at the podium making the introduction of the illustrious featured speaker of the hour... "Dr. So-and-so is a graduate of South Western Cemetery". She heard her error and quickly tried to correct it.. but the 'damage' was done and the audience was lost in laughter. (Bill)

SICK OF PREACHING
I had a pastor friend who went into the pulpit one Sunday morning wearing a pair of new bifocals. The reading portion of the glasses improved his vision considerably, but the top portion of the glasses didn't work so well. In fact he was experiencing dizziness every time he looked through them. He explained to the congregation that the new glasses were causing problems, then said, " I hope you will excuse my continually removing my glasses. You see when I look down I can see fine, but when I look at you, it makes me sick."  (George)

Pulpit Bloopers is copyright 2002 by Sermon Fodder Ministries (www.sermonfodder.com) and was compiled from contributing
members of the Sermon Fodder List.  

From Mikey's Funnies readers:

~ Two of our male pastoral staff members were out calling on people who had visited our church the previous week. When the people answered the door, the first pastor, being a little nervous and accustomed to introducing his wife, said, "Hi, I'm Mike and this is my wife, Steve." The couple they were visiting DID come back to church. (Jeff)

~ My Granddad once shared some information about missions during a Sunday morning service. He had arranged that a short film be shown at the end of his talk. When he was ready, he announced, "And now we are going to show the strip-film." (Meaning "film-strip" of course). There were sounds of choking laughter throughout all the congregation. (Christy)

~ A pastor friend of mine tells the true story of performing a memorial service for a guy (I'll call him Pat) that he didn't really know. The man's wife (I'll call her Chris) was at the service. The pastor performed his duties flawlessly, or so he thought, until someone slipped him a note informing him that Pat was actually alive and sitting in service and that it was Chris who was in the casket! He had obviously mixed up names that were easily interchangeable as male or female names. (Mark)

~ One Sunday our pastor was preaching and made a statement that he wanted to specify a condition for. His exact words were: "However, there's a but. Listen carefully to my but..." The musicians were all sitting in the front row, and all dissolved in howels of laughter, followed by a surprised expression from the pastor. Kind of reminiscent of Isaiah 26:18 (KJV) "we have as it were brought forth wind" (Tim)

~ In the 1970s it was politically correct to have only two children, a trend that the pastor of the church we attended deplored. Because he often said so publicly, he once commented, "I think that when there are many children in a family, everyone must think it's my fault!" I don't believe he ever realized how it sounded. (Rosemarie)

~ We once had a pastor who had served in the military and was fond of using powerful "combat" sermon illustrations. He failed to make the impression he wished, though, the morning that several of us giggled at his referencing soldiers wounded in Iraq by "exploding IUDs." (Elizabeth)

~ There are many times when I wish I had better communications with the people picking the music for the service. One Sunday my sermon was entitled "The Way to Hell" - immediately following was the song "Won't You Come Along With Me?" (Gordon)

~ A few years ago, the church I was serving had a time in the Sunday morning service for members of the congregation to share prayer requests, and then someone would pray for them. It was my Sunday, and I took several requests, jotting them down. One lady asked for prayer for her daughter, who was scheduled to have a biopsy. I made my notes, finished taking requests and began to pray. As I prayed for her daughter, I prayed that she would come through her AUTOPSY just fine, with positive results. Most of the people in the crowd managed to hold their laughter, but there were several snickers and chuckles. After I concluded the prayer with "Amen," the entire congregation burst out laughing. I had no idea what was going on until someone told me what I had said. I was embarrassed, to say the least. Needless to say, the daughter came through the "autopsy" just fine. (Jeff)

~ We knew the Deacon who was giving the Offering Prayer was anticipating a fried chicken dinner when he mistakenly said: "Lord, bless these gifts and their gizzards!" (Judy)

~ I was asked to preach at a small country church in Missouri while home visiting my family. I was sharing a sermon from the book of Isaiah, chapter 6. I was reading through my scripture when I got to verse 6, "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar." That is how it should have read! I, however, had a Freudian slip, and the seraphim took the coal with a "thong". Of course the older people in the congregation either missed the connection or thought I was talking about a flip-flop or sandal. The younger people in the congregation of course busted out laughing. I was so embarrassed. After the service, one of the younger members of the church came up to me and shook my hand and said, "That's not much to hold on to a hot coal with," and turned and left me there six different shades of red. I make sure to read a lot slower now and to use correct pronunciation. (Chris)

~ We have an after-school program called FUTURE, but we cancel it when school is not in session. Invariably, the church calendar reads, "Thursday: No FUTURE" or even "FUTURE canceled." It has become such a joke among our church community that we've chosen to keep the wording! (Wes)

~ Our church participated in an annual Pregnancy Resource Center fundraiser--where we filled baby bottles with our loose change. At that time, I, as church secretary, met the pastor at a prearranged spot to hand him the church bulletin, which he would then take to the printer. It was a drizzly day and my pastor offered to buy me a cup of cocoa at the gas station convenience store. When he got to the register with our purchases, he was frustrated to find he had no coins whatsoever. He blurted out, "I can't wait till this pregnancy thing is over. My wife keeps taking my change!" I looked at the perplexed cashier and attempted to explain... and then just cracked up and let it go. Shortly thereafter, I had an opportunity to "share" this with the congregation while giving an unrelated announcement. Now my pastor isn't so sure about letting me stand up front anymore. I wonder why. (Julie)

~ My pastor in college preached an entire sermon on Jonah in the "whelly of the bale". He said it several times, and would not believe he had actually done it until we replayed the tape of the service.

During a revival, the visiting evangelist arrived without his allergy medicine. Our pastor put him in touch with a doctor in our church for an emergency prescription to get him through the week. The evangelist was so appreciative of the doctor that during the last service, he recommended the doctor to the entire crowd. The ensuing laughter was a mystery to him until after the service. That was when the host pastor informed him that he had just recommended the local OB-GYN. (Lynn)

~ In reading the bulletin bloopers, I remembered a great one from years ago. The words to all of the Christmas hymns were listed in our Christmas Eve bulletin. One hymn was "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Here are some of the words (blooper in red).

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay;
remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day,
to save us all from Santa's power when we were gone astray...

And verse 3:

"Fear not, then," said the angel, "Let nothing you affright;
this day is born a Savior of a pure virgin bright,
to free all those who trust in him from Santa's power and might."....

We thought this must be a Freudian slip. Evidently no one mentioned the mistake to the secretary, because the same words appeared in the next year's bulletin! (Becky )

~ This happened one night right before the evening service was about to start. It was a casual time and the pastor motioned to the minister of music that it was time to start. The elderly music minister stood up and said, "Well the pastor just gave me the finger so I guess it is time to start". The congregation erupted with laughter while the music minister had no idea what he had said that was so funny. When he was told later, he didn't know what that meant. (John)

~ I am in charge of making the powerpoint for our worship service. The sermon was based on holding fast to to the Lord. The invitation was "I Surrender All", and mistakenly the ending phrase was "All to my previous Savior, I surrender all". (Kimberly)

~ One Sunday morning our interim pastor was giving the announcements. He said that there was a car in the parking lot with the lights on. He gave the make and color of the car, plus the license plate number. After the congregational singing, he walked back up to the pulpit and asked that an usher come up to the pulpit. The ushers looked a little confused, but one of them walked up to the pulpit. The pastor handed him his keys out of his pocket! (Ellen)

~ I thought I should tell you about a recent blopper I heard 3 Sundays ago in my church. The pastor called upon to lead the congregational hymn proudly announced, "All hail the power of Jesus' name; let angels prostate fall" oops (Yinka)