I know Christian pastors aren’t coming to this site for advice on how to give sermons, but I’ll go ahead and toss this little nugget out there:

Don’t say the word “Nigga” in a sermon.

Especially not when you’re a white pastor trying to sound hip. During a presumably crowded Christmas Eve service. In South Carolina.

Especially not after you just explained to your congregation (at the 28:20 mark) that your wife, who has a black-sounding name, is really white (“I have to say that because we have new people [in the church]”)… because that’s a clarification that you really need to make.

In other words, don’t do what NewSpring Church Pastor Perry Noble did:

Despite the video evidence, the church released a statement saying we all just misheard that thing we all totally heard:

In regards to your question about the ‘N’ word, Perry doesn’t use that word and doesn’t address anyone in his life by such a word. He did not use that word in his message and what you perceived as him doing so was [a] matter of words getting jumbled as can happen with anyone who is speaking.

Sure it was… they just didn’t bother to explain what he intended to say.

By the way, I’m not suggesting Noble is intentionally racist. Stunningly ignorant on this front, perhaps, but not worse. For a guy who speaks to thousands of people every week to drop a word like that so damn casually into a story is astonishing. Using a racial slur as a joke is pretty much Rule Number One of what you’re not supposed to do in a sermon. And given the nature of his storytelling and how easily it rolled off his tongue, I have a hard time believing he’s never said it before.

The smart thing to do would be to apologize, even if it was, as his people claim, a misunderstood stumble.

(via The Museum of Idolatry)



