'The Worst Sermon I've Ever Heard'
Beliefnet members share tales of terror from the pulpit.
"My pet peeve in the sermon world is children's sermons. ...My most memorable rotten sermon was a Christmas eve sermonette. ...The minister brandished a carefully wrapped package - urging the children to guess the contents of her Christmas present. ...After an endless, coy buildup, we finally reached the payoff: 'I'll tell you what's in the box, boys & girls. It's Jesus Christ!'
The horrified looks on the faces of the youngest children made it painfully clear the metaphor had missed its mark." --sadmom

"The pastor began to go on and on about the dangers of giving in to idolatry... What I didn't expect was that he would begin to scream at the women in the congregation who were wearing jewelry (including me)! He called us all idolators and proceeded to have the ushers pass around collection plates and demanded that we all take off our jewelry and put it in the collection plate." --ToyaS

"When I was in the 6th grade, I attended a large charismatic church in Indiana. One time a fellow came and gave some talks about rock 'n roll music. Of course, he was arguing that ALL forms of rock music were Satanic. He pointed to the tragic deaths some rock stars have faced (granted, some who took their own lives, but also others who just died from accidents such as plane crashes) and would say, 'See! When the devil gets through with you, he kills you!'" --lindenmeadow

"Part of this church's doctrine was a belief that December 25 was NOT to be celebrated as Jesus' birthday, because it was not specifically mentioned in the Bible. The minister used to preach pretty much the same sermon every year the Sunday before Christmas telling everybody why it was not scriptural to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus. One year when I was still young, he decided to go one better, and told all the children in the audience that there also was no Santa Claus! You can imagine the scene...how he kept his job is beyond me." --byrdman

"I watched a young popular pastor on television... His sermon was, I'll assume, supposed to be about stewardship and blessings. The majority of it was taken up with his chastisement of lower-income members who put his church's bumper sticker on their 'ratty out-of-date heaps'! You read it right! He said that if they were good stewards G-d would be blessing them and they would be driving better cars. And as such, it reflected poorly on his church to project that image into the community." --vcell
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