18 Signs that You May Not be Called

While digitizing some old files from my archives, I came across the following email from a man some years ago. He was a faithful expositor of the Word, and had a sense of humor. So, one day he penned the following tongue-in-cheek thoughts on the thought of…

18 Signs that You’re a Preacher That Might Need to Study More for Your Sermons…

1. You consider studying for sermons something that lib’rals do instead of soul-winning.

2. You prepare your sermons on the way to church, which explains why you recently preached against tan lines, energy drinks, and men wearing short sleeve shirts.

3. You actually make fun of preachers who use Greek and Hebrew in their sermons.

4. You consider volume a fine substitute for substance.

5. To you, “exegete the Greek” is a funny rhyme.

6. You decide on what sins to preach against based on who’s in the congregation.

7. You consider a pulpit more of a punching bag rather than a place to rest your Bible.

8. You have 35 sermon outlines prepared and ready to preach – as soon as you find text verses for them.

9. In a 117 minute sermon, you spent 53 minutes telling stories from your childhood, 47 minutes telling stories from your early ministerial days, 15 minutes denigrating men who wear pleated pants, and 2 minutes explaining your text verse.

10. You have actually spent an entire sermon preaching against the evils of Barney the purple dinosaur.

11. Your favorite illustrations are Darwin’s deathbed conversion, the “microphone in hell” bit, and Spurgeon giving up his cigars.

12. You quote John Gill as supporting your position against Calvinism.

13. You think people who know what “supralapsarianism” means need to get saved.

14. You think it’s okay to preach a verse out of context, as long as you tell your people that you’re doing it on purpose.

15. You love to apply Messianic prophecies to yourself.

16. When you preach, you can’t help but say “evangelical” effeminately.

17. You think “expositional” is someone who doesn’t take a position on anything.

18. You’re not sure what TULIP stands for, but you know you’re against it.

While we can laugh at some, there is some sad truth contained in this. Too many preachers take the responsibility too casually. I once heard a very well-known and in-demand preacher. He spent the first 20 minutes telling one joke after another. That was the last time I went to hear him.

May we who preach, but holy men of God who understand the sacred task that has been given us and take it seriously.