# Funniest Slip Up From Pulpit?



## thistle93

Hi! Last Sunday as I was preaching, I said the Solomon's temple was built on Mt. Moroni instead of Mt. Moriah. Thankfully I caught myself after saying it. I think I have been watching too much news converge on Mitt Romany and Mormonism and had a Freudian slip. While I take preaching very serious, I do think at times we need to be able to laugh at ourselves on occasion. 
What is your funniest slip up in the pulpit? Or one that you have heard? Thank you!



For His Glory-
Matthew


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## N. Eshelman

Chuck Colson (I know) once relayed a time when a seminarian was preaching at his church and said "diary farts of the devil" instead of "fiery darts of the devil."

I also heard from a Canadian URC pastor who told of a seminarian that dropped his notes from the pulpit and as he leaned over, watching them scatter all around beneath him, he "whispered" into the mic, "Oh! _Expletive_!" He reassured me that although it is not a good pulpit word, that the Canadian brethren do not think it so crass as their neighbors to the south.


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian

As I child, I once heard a preacher say that "Samson was a fine Christian man who took his eyes off Jesus." Yep....


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## davenporter

Thank you for the laughs, guys. These are great!


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## sastark

I once heard a preacher (who shall remain nameless!) refer to "the suffering on the crotch" instead of "on the cross." 

It was hard to pay attention to the rest of the sermon after that one!


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

About a year ago I spent a decent amount of a Sermon talking about Romans 9, where you know God loved Esau and hated Jacob.


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## Marrow Man

In a recent sermon, I commented that Abraham was told to sacrifice _Elijah_. When I preached my senior sermon in seminary (on Luke 4), I said that the people in Nazareth were asking, "Is this not _Jesus'_ son?" Yikes!


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## thbslawson

Mine is related to another language. Walk referencing the story of the Tower of Babel I confused the Russian word for tower, _bashnya_ with the word for swimming pool, _basain_. I spent several minutes talking about the people who were trying to build a swimming pool to heaven before realizing my mistake.


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## MarieP

thistle93 said:


> Thankfully I caught myself after saying it



Do you remember what you said after the slip up? Sometimes that's funnier than the slip-up itself!


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## MarieP

GulfCoast Presbyterian said:


> As I child, I once heard a preacher say that "Samson was a fine Christian man who took his eyes off Jesus." Yep....



What's so wrong about that? ;-) Ok, it's a little different than the author of Hebrews saying that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (wish the author had taken the time to tell us more about Samson!) Or Peter saying that Christ preached through Noah. But, the preacher might have been saying it for effect- reminding us that our Old Covenant counterparts were not saved apart from us.


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## MarieP

In a sermon on why the Lord's Day is a special day, my pastor was referencing the morning of Christ's resurrection. He said, "The women went to the tomb because someone special to them was buried there. And who was in the tomb?" A few people said Jesus. He paused, and then said, "No, He wasn't! No, He wasn't!!! No one was in the tomb!!!! You don't say that anyone else, do you? No one was there, because He's risen!!!" I have to admit, I nearly said Jesus too, and then I'm like, oh wait! No, you don't say that about anybody else!!!

One time, it was said that Judas was betrayed by Jesus. It took a few times before it was noticed. The next time it was said, it was said correctly, very slowly, and deliberately!

I also heard on an older audio sermon that "we believe in the immaculate conception." He meant the virgin birth. At least, I hope he did....


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## AlexanderHenderson1647

Our former pastor was trying to quote a passage from Daniel but started by partially saying the name of Jacob (the subject of the sermon.) It came out "Jac..Daniel"- so it ended up sounding like he was endorsing the Tennessee bourbon.


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## fralo4truth

Ever put anybody other than Jonah in the fish's belly?

I have never done that. Nope...never.


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## AThornquist

This isn't so much a slip up in the pulpit, but it is related. One pastor was talking about Him who has the mighty power to save. He asked, "Who has such power?!" And then, in reference to Jesus, he said, "THAT MAN!" Immediately, a boy yelled to his dad, "DAD HE SAID BATMAN!!!!" And the pastor said back, "No--no I didn't!" And then the pastor proceeded to explain how _Jesus_, rather than Batman, has the power to to save.


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## MarieP

AThornquist said:


> This isn't so much a slip up in the pulpit, but it is related. One pastor was talking about Him who has the mighty power to save. He asked, "Who has such power?!" And then, in reference to Jesus, he said, "THAT MAN!" Immediately, a boy yelled to his dad, "DAD HE SAID BATMAN!!!!" And the pastor said back, "No--no I didn't!" And then the pastor proceeded to explain how Jesus, rather than Batman, has the power to to save.



If it's the pastor of yours I'm thinking of, at least the boy didn't say, "Christman!"


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## NB3K

Well it's good to know you can laugh at your blunders. I also admire that you take preaching seriously.


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## MississippiBaptist

In my first sermon I preached on Exodus 3. I had built up, dramatically in my own mind, to the point where God declares Himself Holy. What should have been, Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Came out of my mouth as, Do not come near, take off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground!!!!!" People reminded me of that for years :->

And yes, I lost the moment.


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## MarieP

MississippiBaptist said:


> Do not come near, take off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground!!!!!"



Better to enter life without feet than to be cast into eternal fire with them...


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## Jake

My pastor told of one time he was preaching in I Timothy when it came to the section about the role of women in the church. He was trying to emphasize that he did not hate women, and said something to the effect of, "Some people will say that I hate women for expositing what this text says, but really, I love women!"

Apparently that wasn't the wisest choice of words.


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## kelvin

i had a youth pastor once mention in a sermon how aaron and miriam held up moses' arms during battle. i asked him later to tell me again who it was who did that. he still said aaron and miriam. i asked him to show me the text. he did and and he said, 'see. it says aaron and hur. who else would the 'her' be but miriam?' 

and to tell one on myself, i once sang the doxology as 'praise God from whom all dressings flow'....

kelvin
wcf, pca


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## Pergamum

I know a dear pastor who always refers to Deuteronomy as Deuterominy (like hominy).....I couldn't help but snicker one time....


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## AThornquist

Pergamum said:


> I know a dear pastor who always refers to Deuteronomy as Deuterominy (like hominy).....I couldn't help but snicker one time....



Man, you've got to share the one you said when you were teaching about loving one's wife. I still laugh about it somewhat regularly.


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## kappazei

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> About a year ago I spent a decent amount of a Sermon talking about Romans 9, where you know God loved Esau and hated Jacob.


Would have gotten some hearty Amins if some Muslims would have heard that!


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## JOwen

In my inaugural sermon a couple years ago here in Pompton Plains New Jersey (I'm Canadian), I inadvertently said in my introduction, "Your President, Osama bin Laden". I felt like crawling under the pulpit in the fetal position. I corrected it as soon as I said it, but the damage was done. The sound man told me after, "Don't worry pastor, I took care of the recording as soon as it happened. The Sermon Audio edition has you saying Barack Obama". Amazingly, this kind congregation let me keep on preaching!


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## MarieP

Pergamum said:


> I know a dear pastor who always refers to Deuteronomy as Deuterominy (like hominy).....I couldn't help but snicker one time....



There's a pastor who refers to Deuteronomy 

I wonder if he'll call it Deuteromney now...

A co-worker was leading a prayer meeting at his church, and he said, "Father, we pray for our President, Osama Bin Laden" Since they were about through, they ended the meeting there and then...


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## MarieP

JOwen said:


> In my inaugural sermon a couple years ago here in Pompton Plains New Jersey (I'm Canadian), I inadvertently said in my introduction, "Your President, Osama bin Laden". I felt like crawling under the pulpit in the fetal position. I corrected it as soon as I said it, but the damage was done. The sound man told me after, "Don't worry pastor, I took care of the recording as soon as it happened. The Sermon Audio edition has you saying Barack Obama". Amazingly, this kind congregation let me keep on preaching!



I didn't read that before posting...at least you aren't alone!

This isn't from the pulpit, but the day they killed Osama, my dad announced, "hey, did you hear they got Obama?!" And then, "sorry to disappoint, but I meant Osama!"


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## TylerRay

I love listening to Joe Morecraft's history sermons, but he cracks me up when he mixes up names. I'll never forget learning that not only did _Martin Luther_ post the 95 theses on the door at Wittenberg Chapel--so did Martin Bucer! And even John Knox!


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## ZackF

Sorry I have to throw our pastor under the bus but several months ago he made an attempt at a sports analogy. For several minutes he was saying "Michael Jackson" when clearly from the context he should have been saying "Michael Jordan." He must have been corrected by a dozen people after the service. Poor guy.


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## CharlieJ

I visited a church in which the pastor, a fiery Northern Irishman, had a knack for climactic moments. He was preaching in Romans and was talking about the necessity of faith. "Tryin' to get tuh heaven withoot fayeth in Jesus Christ is like tryin' to sail a ship with a hole in the bottom!" "And I want you all tuh know," he said, screwing himself up to the height of his dramatic capacity, "THAR'S NO HOLE IN MY BOTTOM!" 

Pandemonium ensued.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## CuriousNdenver

A church I visited in 2007 just before the Superbowl where Da Bears met the Colts, the pastor intended to reference the professed faith of both Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, but instead referred to Lovie and Smith: over and over again. It made this die-hard Bears fan cringe, but I didn't have the heart to say anything.


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## CalvinandHodges

hI:

in talking about resisting evil I once said, "if someone walks up to you and sticks a gun in your ribs and says, 'your money or your wife'..." 

Blessings,

Rob


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## CalvinandHodges

hI:

in talking about resisting evil I once said, "if someone walks up to you and sticks a gun in your ribs and says, 'your money or your wife'..." 

Blessings,

Rob


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## Galatians220

Years ago, I listened to a sermon in which the minister spoke of wandering sheep in his native Scotland, intending a metaphor... He said that sheep would wander onto crofts, or outlooks, over the sea. They would hear their master's voice, but, being stupid, they could not reach them. Eventually, the sheep would be marooned on the outlooks, grow thin for lack of food and eventually a wind would blow them off the cliffs, like woolly kites. They'd sail around for awhile and then drop right into the sea... "Picture it," he said. I did, and I lost it. So did the 82-year-old lady sitting next to me. By the time the sermon was over, we were both biting our cheeks hard and had tears rolling down our cheeks from squelching laughter.

Another time, in the last year or two, my husband and I were attending a 6 p.m. Lord's Day church service in Grand Rapids (not Heritage). We were tired; it had been a very long day. My eyes were sore and so I closed them for a minute. All of a sudden, I realized that the minister sounded _a whole lot_ like the late comedian Foster Brooks and I started to chuckle to myself. In order to "sober" myself up, I wrote a note on my bulletin to Richard sitting next to me, "This guy sounds like Foster Brooks." I expected him to do as he ordinarily does, scold me with a look and stop my chuckling in its tracks. Instead, I looked over at him and his shoulders were shaking. Oh, no! He was laughing, too; when I looked at his face, he was clearly trying to keep a lid on it. The minister "hiccuped" on for another 20 minutes and R. and I just got worse. He wrote on my bulletin, "How do we get out of here? Drop to the floor and do a low-crawl to the door?" And that's just about what we did. I'm sure the people around us weren't amused.

Sometimes I wish I had a less vivid imagination.


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## arapahoepark

I don't know if it's exactly funny but when John MacArthur was doing one of his sermons on killing sin he referenced MTV a couple times by saying MPV.


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## AThornquist

One of my dear pastors was preaching on work and laziness from Proverbs when he warned us not to be a "potato couch." Many of us snickered, though our pastor was apparently unaware of what he said. After the sermon, my girlfriend, who unbeknownst to me was watching the sermon online in FL, asked to be sure I wasn't being a potato couch. What a love, right? So anyway, the next Sunday my dear pastor stood up to preach and, in his typical sense of humor, explained to us that he _meant_ to say potato couch, which of course is what is created by a couch potato: a couch covered in potato chip crumbs and smears. The ridiculousness of his faux-explanation and his reanactment of how a "potato couch" is created had us all laughing pretty hard, especially since we all knew that he did _not_ mean to say "potato couch."


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## DMcFadden

I like the the sermon where the pastor asked how many animals of each species Moses took on the ark with him.

One of my young associates once did a welcome and informed people: "Thank you for coming to worship us this morning."

Another fellow thought he was being clever and colloquial until his extemporaneity got him caught up in this disaster: "If Jesus knew about X, Y, and Z, it would cause him to turn over in his grave."


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## reaganmarsh

In my preaching class at SBTS, I once prayed before beginning the sermon, "Lord, let this be concise." I have no idea what was going through my mind to say that...


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## MarieP

reaganmarsh said:


> In my preaching class at SBTS, I once prayed before beginning the sermon, "Lord, let this be concise." I have no idea what was going through my mind to say that...



Concise is good, as well as precise! You all don't get a long time to preach, from what I've heard!


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## reaganmarsh

MarieP said:


> Concise is good, as well as precise! You all don't get a long time to preach, from what I've heard!



That's true! One of my favorite things about being a pastor is that I get to preach as long as I want to...or at least until people start quietly getting up and slipping out the back door... J/K


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## MarieP

Pergamum said:


> I know a dear pastor who always refers to Deuteronomy as Deuterominy (like hominy).....I couldn't help but snicker one time....



After reading this yesterday, I thought, my pastor needs to preach through Deuteronomy sometime! It really is a quite "evangelical" book, if you know what I mean!

Then, this morning in Sunday School, he said, "I've been reading through Deuteronomy in my daily devotions, and I keep thinking, I really want to preach on this! So, I'm thinking that I may do just that when we get through Job."

I was talking to rbcbob afterwards, and I told him about that, but the funny thing is...I suddenly couldn't pronounce Deuteronomy!!!!


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## JonathanHunt

I have a friend who was visiting to preach at the church we were members of at the time. He chose to read Psalm 51. The conclusion of the Psalm is 'Then shall I offer bullocks on thine altar' (AV). He said 'bullocks' wrong. An 'o' instead of a 'u'. In english slang (not sure about American english) that is a crude expression for male genitals.

It was funny. But we did not laugh until we got home.


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## Kim G

JonathanHunt said:


> He said 'bullocks' wrong. An 'o' instead of a 'u'.


 I think that an "o" or "u" would make very little difference in most Americans' pronunciation of that word. But I can see how that mistake would be humorous in a sermon.


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## jogri17

In public prayer I was praying through the titles of God and when I got to judge I said ''Great God judge judy'' by mistake.


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## Andres

This was my own slip-up but it wasn't from the pulpit. Pentecostals often times will "preach" with the preacher. This is when they say things like, "Amen!", "All right!" "Talk to me!", etc. while the minister is preaching. I now see how distracting and unnecessary this practice is, but as a young Pentecostal, I would often do it with great enthusiasm. One time during a sermon on Romans 6:23, the pastor proclaimed, "Ahh, yes, the wages of sin is death...BUT..." He paused to emphasize the conjunction letting us know there was more to the verse. At that point, I was into the sermon so I blurted out loud, "Oh, I love but!" Several people laughed, including the pastor and I just turned red.


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## deleteduser99

It's not from a sermon, but this past March our bulletins said to adjust our clocks back an hour. Our pastor drew attention to it, smiled and said, "Bad idea."


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## Beoga

This isn't me nor my pastor, but I couldn't help but think of this:

Pitch His Tent - YouTube


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## Gforce9

Andres said:


> This was my own slip-up but it wasn't from the pulpit. Pentecostals often times will "preach" with the preacher. This is when they say things like, "Amen!", "All right!" "Talk to me!", etc. while the minister is preaching. I now see how distracting and unnecessary this practice is, but as a young Pentecostal, I would often do it with great enthusiasm. One time during a sermon on Romans 6:23, the pastor proclaimed, "Ahh, yes, the wages of sin is death...BUT..." He paused to emphasize the conjunction letting us know there was more to the verse. At that point, I was into the sermon so I blurted out loud, "Oh, I love but!" Several people laughed, including the pastor and I just turned red.



I could see the color going to deep red.........


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