Search Daily Encouragement

“Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead” (Acts 20:9).

A Sunday School teacher asked her young children, "Why is it important to be quiet in church?” Upon contemplating the question, one little girl replied, “Because people are sleeping.”

Church services and sermons have gotten shorter during our lifetime and far shorter than some of the recorded sermons in the Bible and church history. For example many consider the book of Deuteronomy to be a single sermon! Or consider Ezra’s message in Nehemiah 6. He read “from early morning until midday” and the people were “attentive” (v.3). I believe I speak for preachers everywhere of the blessing they receive when they are preaching to attentive people!

Depending on where we live we're accustomed to various lengths of services in our churches. When we pastored in St. Marys, PA many of our Catholic friends attended the mass that was well known as being the quickest mass. Presently here in the USA church services are generally 60-90 minutes long but we know this varies in our country and in others as well.

These days it seems most people don’t want the preaching to be more than half an hour in much of the western church and the pastor sure better have some bells and whistles to keep the people’s attention; like PowerPoint, props and video supplements. But people still fall asleep in church!

Pilgrims of the 1600’s would sit on backless log benches for the hour long opening prayer, followed by a two hour sermon each Sunday. If a parishioner fell asleep he was quickly awakened by a large bone fastened to a string lowered to the head of the offender by an assigned deacon who kept watch in the back of the congregation. Perhaps we should reinstate this practice by assigning ushers to this exercise!

We have been invited to attend an Amish church service on March 6. The service lasts three hours and is in German. Years ago we attended one and appreciated the cultural experience but since we don't know German could not understand the sermon or the music that was sung. We found ourselves observing attendees more than we should but when you can't understand the language you tend to look around rather than fall asleep.

What I did observe is the tendency for attendees to get sleepy is not limited to English churches (the Amish refer to the non-Amish as English). We saw the bobbing of the heads of a few adults fighting sleep (more men than women), and we also observed a number of young boys (perhaps an entire row) who contorted their bodies in a somewhat twisted fashion to comfortably rest their heads in their laps as they fell into a sound sleep.

Brooksyne has a rather humorous church story regarding her father, a hard-working farmer/ truck-driver who was prone to falling asleep in a church service. Brooksyne shares:

Daddy would fall asleep in most any setting if he wasn’t in conversation or physically laboring. As we grew older my siblings and I would sit a few rows in front of my parents, but we’d know when Daddy fell asleep. There’d be a deep, masculine snore and then it would suddenly stop. Mom kept Dad’s snoring under control by kicking her foot against his ankle. He’d wake up momentarily but fall back to sleep in a short time. One Sunday evening Daddy fell asleep in the front pew of the little country church we attended. Even in the “resting of his eyes” he could often follow the order of the service. But this particular evening in his sleepy stupor he mistakenly thought the pastor said, “Brother Sherrell (Sherrell was my maiden name), would you close our service in prayer?” He suddenly awoke, stood up and began to pray out a dismissal prayer...…..only to be informed by the pastor that he was still in the middle of his sermon! Imagine how mortified my family was at his mistake!

Acts 20 has an interesting “sleeping in church” story. The apostle Paul was traveling and stopped by Troas, where he stayed for seven days. On the last day he was with them they gathered to break bread and Paul spoke to the people. He kept talking till midnight in an upstairs room with many lamps when a most unusual event took place.

“Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on.”  I can imagine that lengthy service as I’ve sat through a few of those, myself, and I’m pretty tired by midnight. Lamps of their time surely would not have provided the type of light conducive to wakefulness. Rather than Eutychus sitting near a lamp he sat in an upstairs window that darkened by the hour; definitely a recipe for disaster as "Paul talked on and on". Luke would have been the chronicler of this service. I wonder how Paul felt when he read this description!

“When he (Eutychus) was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.” Now I’ve experienced some interesting disruptions in church services. I recall, as a boy, someone dropping the offering plate off the balcony with a loud clanging of change spilling out in all directions on the tile floor (thankfully it didn’t hit anybody below.)  Or when a child was playing with a speaking toy and the entire congregation got to hear the space ranger, Buzz Lightyear, call out to Sheriff Woody of Toy Story fame, “To infinity and beyond.”

A common disruption in churches today are cell phones that don’t get turned off.  It’s one thing for parishioners to forget to turn off the ringer; quite another annoyance when they have one of those blasting quirky ring tones and even worse when they feel obligated to take the call right in their pew, which has actually happened when I was preaching!

But Eutychus’ story really takes the cake! If the internet were available in the New Testament period this would have gone viral, been a top news story, hitting every public and cable network and major newspaper. Reporters would have been on the scene with their interpretation of the situation. It would likely lead politicians to introduce legislation to limit the length of a sermon. See below for a link to the entire Scripture text and “the rest of the story!”

Only God knows the full meaning of the story, but clearly this is an account of human weakness and divine intervention. The next time you get sleepy in church perhaps Eutychus’ story will come to mind and it just might prompt you to sit a little taller and lean forward as you listen more intently to what God has to say through His appointed messenger. Discipline yourself and pray that you pay special attention, even if the preacher does seem to be talking "on and on". I am pretty sure Paul was not just rambling (of writing or speech - lengthy and confused or inconsequential). But one practical lesson we will end with: Don’t sit on the window ledge in church, especially if you’re sleepy and particularly if it's in an upstairs building!