Top Ten Signs Your Sermon Isn't Going Well

From the folks at Preaching Magazine comes this week's Top Ten list (the first sign is apparently the fact that your top ten list has thirteen items in it). Here are the Top Ten Signs Your Sermon Isn't Going Well:

13. Your associate pastor is warming up in the bullpen.

12. The praise band begins playing you off the stage.

11. The congregation is filling in the blanks of your outline before you get there.

10. You think the lyrics to a bluegrass song are really connecting with your audience.

9. When you pause for dramatic effect, several people giggle.

8. Your cell phone starts ringing, and you answer it.

7. The person signing for the deaf just pulled on mittens.

6. When the children are dismissed to junior church, most of their parents go, too.

5. Your sermon took shape over a glass of wine and volume three of Left Behind.

4. Your interpreter just rolled his eyes and put your last statement in quotation marks.

3. Desperate mothers are pinching their babies.

2. The ushers are handing out refunds.

1. You began your sermon with “Top 10 signs your sermon isn’t going well.”