Pastor Caught Using Words in Sermon That Even He Did Not Understand

CAREY, OHIO

The Reverend Alex Parish of Beaver Creek Presbyterian Church recently resigned amid a shower of controversy over his frequent use of large and complicated words during his sermons, some of which he himself did not understand.

Members of the congregation noted that for about 2 years Parish's sermons had become increasingly more difficult to follow.

"Every Sunday it got worse and worse." said a church member who wished to remain anonymous. "He would rattle off some long strain of words that no one could pronounce much less comprehend."

A recent transcript of one of Parish's sermons revealed the following example of some of his preaching,

"With perspicuous fecundity the plenipetitiarian here in this passage surreptitiously inculcates our acumen by the acculturation of dexterous kerygma. Therefore we must ruminate the whyfors! We must consummate the senses of our devoir!"

"No one could understand a word he was saying up there." Said a church elder. "Finally the session (elders) confronted him about it during our monthly meeting. I asked him, 'Alex, what does plenipetitiarian mean?' and he couldn't tell me!"

As the meeting progressed it became evident that Parish understood little of what he himself had been saying in his sermons. He then confessed to the elders that, in an attempt to "sound educated and knowledgeable" he had been filling his sermons with complicated words that he was looking up in a thesaurus. At the end of the meeting Parish apologized and resigned as the church's pastor.

"It's sad to see things come to this." Said member Greg Bender. "But I hope we can move on now and learn from this. Perhaps the next guy we get here as our next pastor will not be so worried about impressing us with his knowledge and just preach us the word."