Church Jokes

"Tremendous crowd up at our church last night."

"New minister?"

"No, it was burned down."

"Are you a pillar of the church?"

"No, I'm a flying buttress—I support it from the outside."

"Let me see," said the minister, who was filling out the marriage certificate and had forgotten the date, "this is the fifth, is it not?"

"No, sir!" said the bride, with some indignation, "this is only my third!"

Hix: "I understand your church has sent the minister to Michigan for a month."

Dix: "Yes, that's right."

Hix: "For a vacation, I suppose?"

Dix: "Yes; the congregation decided that we were entitled to one."

"Did the minister say anything comforting?" asked the neighbor of the widow recently bereaved.

"Indeed, he didn't," was the quick reply. "He said my husband was better off."

A stranger entered the church in the middle of the sermon and seated himself in the back pew. After a while he began to fidget. Leaning over to the white-haired man at his side, evidently an old member of the congregation, he whispered:

"How long has he been preaching?"

"Thirty or forty years, I think," the old man answered.

"I'll stay then," decided the stranger. "He must be nearly done."

"I understand," said a young woman to another, "that at your church you are having such small congregations. Is that so?"

"Yes," answered the other girl, "so small that every time our rector says 'Dearly Beloved' you feel as if you had received a proposal!"

Just before the service the clergyman was called into the vestibule by a young couple, who asked that he should marry them. He answered he had not time then, but that if they would wait until after the sermon he would be glad to do so. Accordingly, just before the end of the service, he announced:

"Will those who wish to be married today please come forward?"

Thirteen women and one man quickly stepped up.

He had been around from church to church trying to find a congenial congregation, and finally he stopped in a little church just as the congregation read with the minister:

"We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."

The man dropped into a pew with a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness," he said, "I've found my crowd at last."

"My sermon on thrift made a tremendous impression on the congregation."

"How do you know?"

"I could tell when I counted the collection."

A Sunday school teacher was quizzing her class of boys on the strength of their desire for righteousness.

"All those who wish to go to heaven," she said, "please stand."

All got to their feet but one small boy.

"Why, Johnny," exclaimed the shocked teacher, "do you mean to say that you don't want to go to heaven?"

"No, ma'am," replied Johnny promptly. "Not if that bunch is going."

A stern old preacher had issued to his people a command against dancing, believing it to be a device of the devil.

A few of the young people disobeyed and attended a dance given at a neighboring town. Finally it reached the ears of the preacher, and, meeting one of the culprits on the street one morning, he said in a stern voice:

"Good morning, child of the devil!"

"Good morning, father!" smilingly answered the pretty miss.

Small Jimmie discussed with his chief crony the minister's sermon which had dealt with the sheep and the goats.

"Me," he concluded, "I don't know which I am. Mother calls me her lamb, and father calls me kid."

An old man who had led a sinful life was dying, and his wife sent for a nearby preacher to pray with him.

The preacher spent some time praying and talking, and finally the old man said: "What do you want me to do, Parson?"

"Renounce the Devil, renounce the Devil," replied the preacher.

"Well, but, Parson," protested the dying man, "I ain't in position to make any enemies."

A church in Kansas was raising funds for a new church and the minister was calling on members for subscriptions. One of the pillars of the church rose and said: "I subscribe five dollars." Just at that instant a piece of plaster fell on his head. Half stunned, he mumbled, "F-f-five hundred dollars," and the minister prayed, "Oh Lord, hit him again."

One of the prominent deacons in an Ohio church was seriously ill. As he was very popular among the congregation, a bulletin board was posted in front of the church to inform of his condition. It read:

"One o'clock. Deacon Jones very ill."

"Two o'clock. Deacon Jones is worse and sinking rapidly."

"Three o'clock. Deacon Jones dead."

A traveling man passing by that evening read the bulletin and, seeing no one in sight, added at the bottom:

"Seven o'clock. Great excitement in Heaven. Deacon Jones has not arrived. The worst is feared."

A clergyman was once sent for in the middle of the night by one of his woman parishioners.

"Well, my good woman," said he, "so you are ill and require the consolations of religion? What can I do for you?"

"No," replied the old lady, "I am only nervous and can't sleep!"

"But how can I help that?" said the parson.

"Oh, sir, you always put me to sleep so nicely when I go to church that I thought if you would only preach a little for me!"

A noted eastern Judge when visiting in the west went to church on Sunday; which isn't so remarkable as the fact that he knew beforehand that the preacher was exceedingly tedious and long-winded to the last degree. After the service the preacher met the Judge in the vestibule and said: "Well, your Honor, how did you like the sermon?"

"Oh, most wonderfully," replied the Judge. "It was like the peace of God; for it passed all understanding, and, like His mercy, I thought it would have endured forever."

Edith was light-hearted and merry over everything. Nothing appealed to her seriously. So, one day, her mother decided to invite a very serious young parson to dinner, and he was placed next the light-hearted girl. Everything went well until she asked him:

"You speak of everybody having a mission. What is yours?"

"My mission," said the parson, "is to save young men."

"Good," replied the girl, "I'm glad to meet you. I wish you'd save one for me."

The young members of the family had been taught to be punctilious in contributing to the collection at church. One Sunday morning, when the boxes were being passed, James, aged six, ran his eye over those in the pew, and noticed that a guest of his sister had no coin in her hand. "Where is your money?" he whispered. She answered that she hadn't any. But James was equal to the emergency:

"Here, take mine," he directed. "That'll pay for you. I'll get under the seat."

Which he did.

Bess: "Somebody passed a counterfeit dime on Bob a year ago, and he hasn't been able to get rid of it since."

Maiden aunt (horrified): "What! Does that young man never go to church, then?"

I went to church last Sunday and lost my umbrella. I got up in the congregation and said if I didn't get my umbrella I would come here next Sunday and mention the party's name that had it. Next morning when I woke up, my back yard was full of umbrellas.

The applicant for the job of office boy presented his credentials in a manner that bespoke his entire confidence that the position would be his. The sour-looking old gentleman at the head of the establishment read the paper carefully and then surveyed the boy searchingly.

"It is certainly a very nice thing for you to have these recommendations from the minister of your church and your Sunday school teacher," said he, "and I must admit that you look honest. All the same, I'd like to have a few words from someone that knows you on weekdays."

Jimmie and Bobbie: "Mother, I don't mind going to Sunday school any other day, but it just spoils Sunday."

"Tommy," said the Sunday-school teacher, who had been giving a lesson on the baptismal covenant, "can you tell me the two things necessary to baptism?"

"Yes'm," said Tommy, "water and a baby."

A clergyman famous for his begging abilities was once catechizing a Sunday school. When comparing himself as pastor of the church to a shepherd, and his congregation to the sheep, he put the following question to the children: "What does the shepherd do for the sheep?"

To the confusion of the minister a small boy in the front row piped out: "Shears them!"

"Now," said the clergyman to the Sunday school class, "can any of you tell me what are sins of omission?"

"Yes, sir," said the small boy. "They are the sins we ought to have done and haven't."

"Now, boys," said the teacher in the juvenile Sunday school class, "our lesson today teaches us that if we are good while here on earth, when we die we will go to a place of everlasting bliss. But suppose we are bad, then what will become of us?"

"We'll go to a place of everlasting blister," promptly answered the small boy at the pedal extremity of the class.

Sunday school teacher: "Now, Jimmy, I want you to memorize today's motto, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Jimmy: "Yes'm, but I know it now. My father says he has always used that as his motto in his business."

Teacher: "Oh, how noble of him! And what is his business?"

Jimmy: "He's a prizefighter, ma'am."

Young Harold was late for Sunday school and the minister inquired the cause. "I was going fishing, but father wouldn't let me," announced the lad.

"That's the right kind of a father to have," replied the reverend gentleman. "Did he explain the reason why he would not let you go?"

"Yes, sir. He said there wasn't bait enough for two."

"How about the sermon?"

"The minister preached on the sinfulness of cheating at bridge."

"You don't say! Did he mention any names?"

Professor: "Now, Mr. Jones, assuming you were called to attend a patient who had swallowed a coin, what would be your method of procedure?"

Young medico: "I'd send for a preacher, sir. They'll get money out of anyone."

In a Kansas town where two brothers are engaged in the retail coal business a revival was recently held and the elder of the brothers was converted. For weeks he tried to persuade his brother to join the church. One day he asked:

"Why can't you join the church like I did?"

"It's a fine thing for you to belong to the church," replied the younger brother. "If I join the church, who'll weigh the coal?"

There were introductions all around. The big man stared in a puzzled way at the club guest. "You look like a man I've seen somewhere, Mr. Blinker," he said. "Your face seems familiar. I fancy you have a double. And a funny thing about it is that I remember I formed a strong prejudice against the man who looks like you—although, I'm quite sure, we never met."

The little guest softly laughed. "I'm the man," he answered, "and I know why you formed the prejudice. I passed the contribution plate for two years in the church you attended."

"I advertised that the poor were made welcome in this church," said the vicar to his congregation, "and as the offertory amounts to ninety-five cents, I see that they have come."

A little boy was asked if he prayed when he attended church, and he answered that he always did. On being questioned as to the nature of his prayer, he explained that he always repeated it when the others in the congregation made their silent prayer just before the sermon, and he added further:

"I just say the little prayer mother taught me—'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"

The new clergyman was coming to call, and the mother gave Emma some instructions:

"If he asks your name, say Emma Jane; if he asks how old you are, say you are eight years old; if he asks who made you, say God made me."

It is a fact that the clergyman did ask just those three questions in that order, to the first two of which Emma replied correctly. But it is also a fact that when the minister propounded the third query, as to her origin, the child hesitated, and then said:

"Mama did tell me the man's name, but I've gone and forgotten it."

A man, who is the father of a year-old youngster, met his pastor on Sunday afternoon.

"Why weren't you at church this morning?" was the first question of the spiritual adviser.

"I couldn't come," was the answer. "I had to stop at home and mind the baby; our nurse is ill."

"That's no excuse," said the pastor.

"It isn't? Well, next Sunday I'll bring him to church with me and see how you like it."

The clergyman, absorbed in thinking out a sermon, rounded a turn in the path and bumped into a cow. He swept off his hat with a flourish, exclaiming:

"I beg your pardon, madam."

Then he observed his error, and was greatly chagrined. Soon, however, again engaged with thoughts of the sermon, he collided with a lady at another bend of the path.

"Get out of the way, you brute!" he said.

A little girl who had visited an Episcopalian church for the first time described the service as follows:

"When we went in they were standing up, singing, but pretty soon they sat down and played hide-and-seek."

"Did what?" asked her mother.

"Well, of course no one went and hid, but they all covered up their faces and counted to themselves."

"Then you don't think I practice what I preach, eh?" queried the minister in talking with one of the deacons at a meeting.

"No, sir, I don't," replied the deacon. "You've been preaching on the subject of resignation for two years and you haven't resigned yet."

A visiting clergyman was occupying a pulpit in St. Louis one Sunday when it was the turn of the bass to sing a solo, which he did very badly, to the annoyance of the preacher, a lover of music. When the singer fell back in his seat, red of face and exhausted, the clergyman arose, placed his hands on the unopened Bible, deliberately surveyed the faces of the congregation, and announced the text:

"And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."

It wasn't the text he had chosen, but it fitted his sermon as well as the occasion.

Once in a while the choirs do get back at the minister, as, for example, in a Connecticut church the other Sunday morning. The minister announced, just after the choir had sung its anthem, as his text, "Now when the uproar had ceased." But the singers bided their time patiently, and when the sermon was over, rose and rendered in most melodious fashion another anthem beginning, "Now it is high time to awake after sleep."

"You don't know me, do you, Bobby?" asked a lady who had recently been baptized.

"Sure I do," piped the youth. "You're the lady that went in swimming with the preacher last Sunday."

A rector in South London was visiting one of his poorer parishioners, an old woman, afflicted with deafness. She expressed her great regret at not being able to hear his sermons. Desiring to be sympathetic and to say something consoling, he replied, with unnecessary self-depreciation, "You don't miss much."

"So they tell me," was the disconcerting reply.

The morning milk delivered at the parsonage was certainly weak, and the head of the household considered it necessary to remonstrate. "Are you aware," he remarked to the milkman, "that we require this milk for the hitherto recognized purposes?"

"I hope so, sir," replied the tradesman.

"That's all right, then," returned the parson gently; "I merely mentioned it in case you may have thought we wanted it for the font."

A very nice and gentle minister accepted a call to a new church in a town where many of the members bred horses and sometimes raced them. A few weeks later he was asked to invite the prayers of the congregation for Lucy Grey. Willingly and gladly he did so for three Sundays. On the fourth one of the deacons told the minister he need not do it anymore.

"Why," asked the good man, with an anxious look, "is she dead?"

"Oh, no," said the deacon; "she's won the steeplechase."

I once asked a minister how he had got through a certain service. He answered grimly:

"Well, bishop, the service was soothing, moving and satisfactory."

"Yes," I said, a little puzzled.

"Yes, exactly," said he. "It was soothing because over half the congregation went to sleep. It was moving because half of the other half left before I was through. And it must have been satisfactory, inasmuch as I wasn't asked to come again."

It was hot last Sunday night when the preacher started his Sunday sermon. He observed that his sermon would be brief; that to be immortal, it is not necessary to be eternal.

Why shouldn't you go to church if you have a cough?

Because you will be sure to disturb the rest of the congregation.

Why is a chicken served to a minister like a theological student?

Because it is about to enter the ministry.

Who is the most popular preacher?

Jack in the pulpit. Why? Because he is silent.

At what age should a man marry?

At the parsonage.

What is the difference between a church deacon and a little ragamuffin?

One passes the saucer and the other sasses the passer.

Why is asparagus like most sermons?

Because it is the end of it that people enjoy most.

"Father," said the minister's son, "my teacher says that 'collect' and 'congregate' mean the same thing. Do they?"

"Perhaps they do, my son," said the venerable clergyman; "but you may tell your teacher that there is a vast difference between a congregation and a collection."

The teacher had asked, "Why did David say he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord?"

"Because," answered a boy, "he could then walk outside while the sermon was being preached."

"Ma, do cows and bees go to heaven?"

"Mercy, child, what a question! Why?"

"'Cause if they don't, the milk and honey the preacher said was up there must be all canned stuff."