Church Mishaps

I'm not sure why, but it appears that church can often be a very funny place. Sometimes it can be something unintentional but hilarious. Something like leaving your radio mic on while you visit the bathroom. On other occasions, it might be truly horrifying, if a glass jug of wine is knocked over and smashes on the floor. For whatever reason, church can be a tense place.

Perhaps I'm slightly twisted (ok, I know I am...), but I tried to exploit that to make the point of my sermon on Christmas morning sound out very clearly. I had two 'presents' wrapped up, to show the two things that Jesus gives us in John chapter 1. The two big sides of a Cornflakes box had one word each on them, all nicely wrapped up.

The first volunteer opened the present, and revealed the word 'grace'. All was going well, so I explained about grace.

Then I called up my second volunteer, who unwrapped the second present, having hyped up the fact that the first present was grace and what would the second one be?

Yes, it was grace again.

I looked down at the congregation as we spotted that word grace again - and there were some horrified, embarrassed, shocked looks on their faces. Oh no, they were thinking, he's made a mistake. What's he going to do with that? He's written the same word twice!

This will go into that unwritten book of funny church memories, when the Curate made a muck up of his Christmas morning sermon!

I might even have milked the tension for a moment or two, before revealing that it was intentional, to illustrate John 1:16 'And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.'

It's one way to ensure that the congregation doesn't sleep, especially if they've been up very early to see if Santa has been!

What are your favourite church mishaps?