I like the story about a pastor who was preaching one Sunday morning. He was ten minutes into his sermon. He noticed his young son up in the balcony with a pea-shooter. The kid was leaning over the balcony, aiming and popping people in the head.
The pastor was getting ready to publicly fuss at his kid, but then the seven-year-old hollered, “You keep on preaching dad, and I’ll keep them awake.”
The book of Acts tells the story of a young man named Eutychus. As the Apostle Paul was preaching one evening (apparently too long), Eutychus fell asleep and fell down from the third loft. He was thought to be dead, but Paul revived him.
Amazingly, Paul was not done yet. He continued his sermon. The scripture says, he “talked a long while, even till break of day.” (Acts 20:10-11)
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was preaching one day in church. As he was preaching, a man on the second row was sleeping. John Wesley was irritated at this, so he stopped his sermon and cried out “Fire, fire!” The man jumped up and said, “Fire? Where?” John Wesley said, “In hell, for those who sleep under the gospel.”
Bob Dylan is an American icon. My all-time favorite Bob Dylan album, “Slow Train Coming,” came out in 1979, his 19th studio album. Every song on the album has a Christian emphasis. He had a really good song on the album with the title, “When You Gonna Wake Up?”
Maybe that is a good question for us, not just in church, but in all that we do.