"A preacher was on program at a district convention to preach for twenty minutes. The other preachers from the district were sitting behind him in the choir section, giving him moral support and throwing in an occassional "Amen" to help the preacher along. The preacher preached his twenty minutes and continued on despite alloted time. He preached for 30 minutes, then forty minutes and then for an hour. He even continued for an hour and ten minutes. Finally, a brother sitting on the front row took a song book and threw it at the preacher that was still going strong in his message. The preacher saw the song book as it was hurled his way and he ducked. The song book hit one of the preachers sitting in the choir section. As the man in the choir section was going down, you could hear him say, "Hit me again, I can still hear him preaching!"
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
How long is too long for a sermon?
I found this online at a sermon humor website: http://www.javacasa.com/humor/sermon.htm
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4 comments:
I think the length varies for every setting, audience, message topic, and leading of the Holy Spirit. I would say that 25-30 minutes is the MAX.
sounds like a good plan especially when it leaves room for God to do the unexpected. Audience and setting are also very important.
Corben...I always tried to limit my message to 12-15 minutes because I thought people had such short attention spans. But if I were preaching now I would try to preach 25-30 minutes so proper exegesis of the scripture could be done. I fear that I often short changed this in order to tell a story or hook my listeners with illustrative material.
I have edited a LOT of sermons for TV broadcast and have had a LOT of feedback on the sermon length from many folks outside of the church that have listened. I truly believe that it depends on the sermon, who is delivering it, and how it's delivered. The sermon has to be a topic that touches the far majority of those in the pews; the person delivering it has to be filled with passion about his topic; and the delivery is probably the most critical... meaning that feeling and passion must be very apparent in the delivery. I have edited sermons that were unbelieveable in all areas and then I've edited sermons from the same person that were lifeless and boring in all areas. So, it's really not the length that matters... it's the content, passion and delivery. Just two cents from a behind the scenes geek.
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