Things we would not have known without Sunday School
With your eyes closed for prayer, anything can happen in a room full of pre-schoolers.
- Squash and song motions do not mix.
- When dropped, offering money always rolls to the other side of the room.
- Children’s prayer requests reveal a lot about their parents.
Bishop
A little girl told her mother, “We went to a confirmation service at the cathedral and I saw the bishop. Now I know what a crook looks like!”
Definitions from church life
AMEN: The only part of a prayer that everyone knows.
PEWSHEET: Your receipt for attending Morning Service
HYMN: A song of praise usually sung in a key two octaves higher than that of the congregation’s range.
RECESSIONAL HYMN: The last song at Sunday morning worship, often sung a little more quietly, since most of the people have already left.
JONAH: The original ‘Jaws’ story
PEW: A medieval torture device still found in some churches.
PROCESSION: The ceremonial formation at the beginning of a formal Sung Eucharist, consisting of altar servers, the celebrant, and late parishioners looking for seats.
SIDESMEN: The only people in the parish who don’t know the seating capacity of a pew
From a parish newsletter:
‘Children are normally collected during the Offertory Hymn’
Bend
I got a package in the mail the other day that had written on the front, ‘Photographs: Do Not Bend.
Underneath the postman had written: “Oh yes they do.”
Cats and dogs
Behind every cat that crosses the street, there is a dog saying, “Go ahead, you can make it.”
Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God.
The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
Little old lady seeks handsome young man
An advert appeared in a student newspaper of a university: “Sweet little old lady wishes to correspond with good-looking university student – especially a six-footer with brown eyes, answering to initials J.A.D.” It was signed: “his mother.”
Paradise lost?
A young mother stood in her kitchen and watched her baby screaming, her sons fighting, her daughter crying, the washing machine leaking, and the dog being sick. She sighed and said to her friend: “I sometimes wish I’d loved and lost.”
Peace
After a very long and boring sermon, the parishioners glumly filed out of the church past the minister. Towards the end of the queue was a thoughtful person who always commented on the sermons. “Vicar, today your sermon reminded me of the peace and love of God.”
The vicar was thrilled. “Nobody has ever said anything like that about my preaching before. Tell me why.”
“Because it endured forever.”
Knock knock
A conscientious minister decided to get acquainted with a new family in his church and so he visited them one Spring evening. After his knock on the door, a lilting voice from within called out, “Is that you, Angel?”
“No,” replied the minister. “But I’m from the same department.”
Dressed up
An evangelical vicar was asked to celebrate Holy Communion for his Anglo-Catholic neighbour who was ill. Unfamiliar with some of the vestments, he did the best he could. Breakfasting at the vicarage afterwards he said to the vicar’s wife that he hoped he had got all the vestments on properly. “Oh yes,” she said, “you were quite all right – except that my husband does not usually wear the book-markers!”
Give me a sense of humour, Lord, give me the grace to see a joke,
To get some humour out of life, and pass it on to other folk
Q. What do you give a man who has everything?
A. Antibiotics.
Switched on
A housewife was helping her aged mother get up the stairs on their brand-new stair lift when the minister telephoned her. He was horrified to hear her say: “I’m so sorry, but I’ll have to ring you back. I can’t talk right now because I’ve finally got Mother in the electric chair and I’m eager to press the switch and see if it works!
On offer
A bishop, invited to dinner at a large country house, was surprised not to be offered anything but water to drink, and eventually appealed to his very beautiful hostess: “Do you think I might have a drop of wine?”
The lady threw up her hands in horror and replied; “Bishop, I am so sorry! I thought you were Chair of the Church of England Temperance Society.”
“Not at all,” said the bishop, adding “but I am Chair of the Anti-Porn campaign.”
“Oh!” came the reply. “I knew there was something I could not offer you.”
Headline in a Local Paper
Cadbury’s lorry collides with Lego truck on the motorway. Police said that the road is “choc-a-block”