The Preaching Olympics

As Pastor Patty stood in the pulpit yesterday morning, she scanned the rows of winter faces for retired pastor Randall Nathan. He is hard to spot. He sits in a different place each Sunday so that those around him will think he is new and thus ignore him. She didn't really expect to see him, and she was right. She knew he would be home watching the Preaching Olympics, since he is a past medal winner. It is best not to ask about the color of the medal, though.

Randall Nathan never scored well in the mandatory exercises: gesturing; shouting loudly to cover up a weak point; comparing people and causes he disagreed with to Hitler; the subtle and thus deniable insult to other religions, known as the Halfgripe; vocal histrionics; theological obfuscation; feigning ignorance in order to show off esoteric and irrelevant knowledge; using illustrations that sound good but make the opposite point of the sermon; telling lame and irrelevant jokes; telling people they should be better but not telling them how; including "The Bible says" at least once each minute; general haranguing; choosing hymns with contradictory theologies for the same service; retelling biblical stories in ways that make them boring; claiming that politicians or issues you disagree with are non-Christian; [This is only for the Winter Preaching olympics. During the Summer Preaching Olympics, when clergy of Muslim countries compete, they are required to claim that politicians and issues with which they disagree ARE Christian.]

He did better in the voluntary exercises: speaking truth to power; quoting the Bible in context instead of using the "pick and point" method.

He got his highest scores in the Free Form, where he preached Christ as the central figure of Christianity insead of the Bible, and also spoke truth to power, as did his namesake, the prophet Nathan. Primarily, he told stories and made the judges figure out the meaning for themselves.

He also got his lowest scores in Free Form. A few judges loved his Free Form program; some, though, hated it.

Just before she started her sermon, Pastor Patty saw Pastor Nathan, [Retard], sneak into the cry room at the back of the sanctuary. She knew it was mostly just because he likes to be around babies, but she also felt honored. It's not often that a former Preaching Olympics medal winner chooses to listen to an amateur. "Maybe I'll be an Olympian some day myself," she thought, as she launched into her Free Form.