Lisa Cressman

December 31, 2018

Happy New Year!

Lisa Cressman

December 31, 2018

Welcome!

This is where we share practical content you can use today to streamline your process and make preaching easier. To get this content delivered to your inbox—plus a free introduction to our 5-day sermon prep process for less stress and more joy—subscribe to BsP's weekly newsletter.

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I participated in the Lectio study today with a complicated and double-speak Gospel (John 17:6-19) and WOW! I received so much great insight and am headed in a direction I feel really good about. Thank you to all my colleagues! If you are wondering if this is worth it, wonder no more. It is. Sign up!

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Blog Archives

Spirituality, Holiday/Special Sermons

lent, lenten preaching, preaching change

Lenten Preaching: Why Change is So Hard

We preachers often wonder whether our words have any effect. The people we preach to and the world around us pretty much look the same week after week. It doesn’t often look like the Good News has caught fire in people’s hearts. It doesn’t look like the reign of God is being built. For all our efforts to preach the Good News, how come it looks like nothing much is changing?

Lenten Sermons: Before You Preach, Mind the Gap

Process, Holiday/Special Sermons

lenten preaching, lenten sermons, theology

Lenten Sermons: Before You Preach, Mind the Gap

Preaching through lent requires significant theological knowledge. What do you know? What don’t you know? How do you know? Using this 4-step process, discover your gaps in knowledge so you can prep more efficiently and effectively for honest sermons that capture the true nature of God.

Lenten Sermon Messages: Three Reminders + a Podcast to Inspire Your Sermons

Holiday/Special Sermons

Lenten preaching, Lentent lectionary texts, scripture recordings Lent

Lenten Sermon Messages: Three Reminders + a Podcast to Inspire Your Sermons

This is the most intensive season of the year for priests and pastors. With Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, multiple services for Easter, plus extra Lenten parish educational activities, there’s a lot to prepare for. Before you feel overwhelmed, though, let’s do a quick review to remind ourselves what will help your sermon prep—and all your preparations—to be holy, from your heart, and as efficient as possible.

lenten preaching, lenten sermon themes, countercultural lent

Five Ways to Preach a Countercultural Lent (A Guest Post)

Let’s be honest: The observation of Lent is often reduced to artificially somber and ritualistic practices of self-denial without an honest, whole-hearted attempt to genuinely experience the flow and meaning of the season. The “practices” undertaken involve simply giving up chocolate or wine. That’s suffering for Jesus, for sure, but what does it accomplish if we’re not focused meaningfully on what we should be? So I’d like to suggest that in our preaching, we shake things up a bit. Let’s preach a countercultural Lent.

Process

new sermon ideas

Find New Sermon Ideas by Thinking Like a Reporter

Preachers and reporters often face the same challenge: to tell the same story in a new way. By thinking like a reporter, we can find dozens of ways to share the Good News from a fresh angle.

Spirituality

joy in preaching

Preach Like an Amateur

To be an amateur means you do what you do for the love of it. Not because you have to. Not because you get paid for it. And not because you have a deadline to meet. You do it because you love it. The “greats” in any craft become great because they’re amateurs first. They pursue their craft with joy, zest, and fascination.

womanist readings, Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, Womanist Midrash, reading from the margins

Learning to Read the Untold Stories of Scripture (A Guest Post)

Scripture—lectio divina, the Daily Office, biblical scholarship, and community study—has been a passion of mine before I knew the words to call it. This part of my life has held a privileged place in my schedule for so long, that I came up surprised and saddened to begin to realize just how much of our scriptures I had been neglecting.

Become a better preacher.