SCL

my favorite wake up phrases are “can I get an Amen?”, “can you hear me?”, “I wish somebody would help me out there”, “did y’all come to praise him?”, and my personal favorite, “y’all don’t want to have church in here today.”. Yes I do! I’m here! I came! Commence with the church! Don’t make me feel bad because I’m not hooting and hollering with you. It’s early! I’m sleepy!

Also, I don’t know how things go in other churches, but I go to a predominately black baptist church, or any black church for that matter, and a thing Christians like is to say, “I won’t hold you long. I just want to talk with you.” This means at least 2 hours. It makes me feel bad that I don’t want to talk about God for 2 hours or more, but at the same time, just tell me it’s coming. Don’t trick me. It doesn’t matter who says it. The preacher, the announcement lady, the woman who babysat you in church when you were four, etc. If they say this, you might as well sit down.

Love this blog by the way, it is so funny and sooooo true!

My cousin and I are the same age and in middle school one day, he looks at all of our friends and says, “I want you guys to call me Phoenix.” He is still getting laughed at 10 years later.

It’d be a well received alternative around here to the worn out “it is what it is.” That’s the key phrase to drop if you want me to leave a conversation.

I thought you meant using quasi- or fake profanity to get people to pay attention.

Like,
“Don’t do it because you should. Do it because you are motivated by God’s love for you. Stop should-ing yourself.”
or
“Get off your blessed assurance and go do it!”

I didn’t know that was Vin Diesel’s real name. That is hilarious.

I couldn’t help but thinking of the Rage Against the Machine song ‘Wake Up’ upon seeing the title.

Now if our pastor dropped a ‘Wake Up’ ala RaTM now that would be funny, or scary, I’m not sure which.

haha, my husband (he’s a pastor) is totally guilty of the “is everyone tracking?”

What about this one…

“now, if you don’t catch anything else I say this morning, just catch this…”

When I was looking for a church after moving to Florida, I visited a church where the whole sermon was about not “driftin’” away from God, or church, or whatever. The very southern pastor looked out at the audience and said, “I can see, some o’ y’all, y’all are driftin’. You there, yer driftin’. Yer driftin’ there.” All this about not driftin’, and right before the conclusion of the sermon he says, “By the way, did y’all see Emeril last night?” And he goes on to describe in detail a blue cheese burger that Emeril had made on his show. My family and I wanted to scream at him, “Yer driftin’!!!” But anyway, this does apply to this post, because “yer driftin’” was his version of “follow me” and the like. And the guy did make his mark. It’s been 5 years since we were there, and we still make fun of him… ;o)

Hmm, my pastor doesn’t do this much that I’ve noticed, but I have seen a TV pastor who says “Listen.” all the time. That really annoys the crap out of me.

Hi Jon,
Great site by the way! Just discovered it thanks to the folks at thepoint.breakpoint.org.

In response to your question, have you ever considered the imperatives in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14? That’s what I think of whenever I hear preachers do this.

Any thoughts on a linky button of some sort, for people to put on their blog sidebars? I’d love to link to you, but was hoping for something eye-catching. Can I get an amen?

“Listen here, this is really important” AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

How about “So what?” Is my parents’ pastor the only one who says this, or are there others?

Ours says, “Follow me for a second” and the one Sarah mentioned. “If you don’t hear anything else, hear this.”

My brother once insisted that everyone call him Rex. He quit answering to his regular name, too. He was two.

At the last line of your hypothetical conversation… yeah, I laughed. Out loud. I’m sitting here by myself in my home office. I don’t laugh by myself. Ever*!

Well done, sir, well done!!

* Unless Will Ferrell is involved, which obviously doesn’t count.

Don’t forget about Sting. The man’s real name is Gordon Sumner. I don’t blame him for going by Sting, but his MOM started calling him Sting. That’s just ridiculous.

“are you with me so far?”

where else would we be??

i can’t stand it when my pastor says “are you tracking with me?” I thnk it sounds weird and out of place.

I also agree with aj that pastors should not request “amens.” and specifically when nobody says it, don’t chastise them for it.

“Well the new concepts were well received. But watch this, one of the men in the room didn’t like the new idea. Follow me, the women in the room responded well, but the guys didn’t. Are you tracking with me?” lmao

I’m with you on Vin Diesel, but “wake up” phrases can actually be a part of effective communication.

The reason “wake up” phrases are used by some is that they are moderately effective teaching tools and verbal cues. It makes sense that teaching pastors use them.

Comparing a sermon to a casual conversation with a friend – that seems more laughable to me, I guess.

ND -
I see your point, but for me, a lot of great pastors teach in such a way that it feels like we’re having a conversation. When I listen to Andy Stanley for instance I don’t feel like he’s “preaching at me,” I feel like he’s “talking with me.” The one conversation I had with him felt like that too. I think great pastors don’t have two distinct styles of communication, one that is full of verbal cues for when they are speaking to a large group and one that is more casual for conversation. I think they speak out of who they are. So I don’t think it’s laughable to compare a sermon to a casual conversation. I guess the point I was trying to make is that verbal cues like that feel like when someone italicizes a word in a sentence so that you get the emphasis. It’s a shortcut to building a sentence (and one that I am guilty of even on this site). If the sentence or the sermon was strong enough, you wouldn’t need to litter it with cues to grab the audience.

You really are hilarious!

Our pastor is great about just saying it “hey, you guys awake?”

(finger snaps)”hello, hello”.

We have some cheese pastors too that use the catch phrases but I dig the straight forward approach.

I know I am late to this post, but, seriously…..Vin Diesel. The things to make fun of are so endless….I didn’t know about his name, though. I am scaring my children I was laughing so hard reading this. I love listening to his voice, though. Too bad that is the best thing I can say about him. Also, my brother just changed the pronunciation of his name while in college…now he won’t answer my parents unless they pronounce it correctly. BTW…he’s almost 40 now

I think I might be on the other side of the aisle from some of you on this one…

I come to church to learn about God, to learn about His Word, to be fed…

Sure, Sunday morning IS early, and I’m pretty sleepy because I’ve got to get up extra early to motivate my family to move toward the car so that we can be at church a full hour before the majority of the members in order to help get things set up…

But I just love it when the Pastor hits the podium in order to emphasize a point he’s trying to make… It’s like watching the “wave” at a football game to see whose nodding off…

Though, the occasional “COME on somebody…” is a little annoying… But that’s more of a personal preference that I’m willing to overlook as long as the sermon is Biblical – and I thank God that it is!

-Benjamin

i’ve been visiting a church lately, and the pastor of this church constantly says “watch this” and because i’m not used to his weird phrases i look up from the bible or my nails or lap or whatever and watch, and then nothing happens and i’m dissapointed that a) there was no payoff for looking up, and b) i fell for it…again.

OMG I must say, this is awesome. I go to a Christian college that mandates attendance at chapel services (twice weekly…haha), and everyone knows, when a certain school official gets up to speak, we will hear any or all of the following wake up phrases.

“Aw, now, yall don’t hear me.”

“Uh-oh!” (Used in place of finishing a sentence, such as “Jesus tells us to love one another, but you’re there in the dorms talking to your neighbor and uh-oh!”)

“Turn to your neighbor and say…” (I really hate being asked to do this!)

“Yall are quiet.” (A desperate plea for an Amen.)

I have a whole series of books on selling and conversational hypnosis that tell you to do exactly what you said in casual conversations to bypass the critical thinking part of the brain. After seeing it work in sales and advertising I got really weirded out when I would hear it in sermons….

I have heard some of these phrases in another context: academia. The kinder professors would drop hints like, “If you don’t write anything else down, write this down.” And this crossover makes sense because a good pastor is a good communicator. Why wouldn’t you use common attention-getters? But use them sparingly or it’ll be like putting too much pepper on something. You’ll reject the entire thing.

Dare I bring Beth Moore into the argument? “Hear this, Beloved…” I even have a friend who attempts to be Beth Moore using the same phrases. Now I can’t listen to either of them without laughing when I hear “beloved” – meant to be a term of endearment.

my favorite from a youth summer camp is “are you picking up what I am dropping?”

yeah, public speaking has different ground rules than normal conversation.
For instance, a speaker can ask questions directly at the audience, and no one expects there to be a response.
Also, I run a radio show, and the way I speak on air isn't the same as normal street talk – just enough to be able to string people along and keep interest happening.

hahahah "max power"

but yes I totally agree. I think those phrases are very useful in church (if not over-used) but in day to day conversation that would be very annoying indeed. but funny. i am tempted to do it here at work.

Yeah, our pastor is a little OCD and does the "Listen, listen listen" or "Look at me now" or "Is everyone awake?" stuff all the time. I tried counting the "listens" once, but I realized I couldn't count that high. But we love him as a pastor (who happens to be bald too) as he is very grounded in the Word.

Jon, you need to do a whole post that just lists the catch phrases that churches like to use. Actually, you may be able to fill an entire book.