Let me ask you a tough question this morning: how many of you have been accused of being a poor listener? Or should I call it “selective listener”? We hear what we want to hear. Most of us have been guilty of this at one time or another. Maybe we’re easily distracted.

Publisher Thom Rainer has collected stories over the years from his pastor friends of some of the strangest distractions they’ve dealt with while preaching. For example, one pastor had a bat fly into the sanctuary during his sermon. In another church, a small child accidentally kicked off his tennis shoe, which landed right beside the pastor while he was preaching. Probably the strangest distraction Rainer remembers was when a church custodian polished up the wooden pews in the sanctuary, making them too slippery for members…