sermon on the mount saint helens

i think the first pastor who started his sermon by saying "if you look up the word XXX in the dictionary, it defines XXX as..." was really genius. merging the secular and religious, objectivity with experience, plainness with the esoteric. but it should have been left alone as an important moment in ecclesiastical oratory. but no, since people love beating things to death...

now, it's a sign of laziness (writer's block) or of vanity ("merriam webster defines XXX as..." is a show of intellectual superiority, "if we look at the cambridge dictionary of american english..." is some sort of implication that the pastor is worldly or believes in heritage. but really it was the first entry that popped up on google).

it has also morphed into starting with definitions of a greek/hebrew derivative word. also cool or at least tolerable the first few times, not amazing after that.

the whole deal starting with an obscure historical figure who actually did something amazing is a little tired too (or conversely, someone super famous who wasted his life away). my dad uses that one a lot. it's cute, he really gets into it, but usually he mispronounces the name. awesome.

another rough start is the spiritual video warmup. dimmed lights, epic music, flashing black and white shots of children in third world countries. wow, that one is hard on me.

some alternatives that i would like to hear:

"what up, porrrtlaaaaand! who's ready for a gooooood time?!"
"today i guess i'm glad to see you but to be honest, i would have rather gone to bedside baptist"
"i would like to welcome our guest speaker, perez hilton"

oh yeah. the worst possible start to a sermon: playing a u2 song.