How to Cultivate a New Preaching LIfe
JJ is a Backstory Preaching mentor running one of our current Sermon Camp cohorts. She’s also a second career pastor serving at Living Waters Lutheran Church in Ringoes, New Jersey. Prior to ministry, she worked for almost thirty years at International Flavors and Fragrances. She started as an Analytical Chemist and held positions in operations, customer service, information technology, and global purchasing. She’s also a certified project management professional.
JJ found Backstory Preaching shortly into her first call. She believes the community, support, and ideas you find in this space will fill your well.
I befriended Miss Pat while walking and admiring the landscaping that surrounds her home.
Her yard is a fantastical fantasy of creation.
It’s a pollinator garden. A space just for indigenous plants, native to New Jersey. Throughout the spring and summer seasons, it explodes with new growth, colors, and opportunities. As the seasons seamlessly meld, new species of birds and bugs emerge to feast or pollinate. This cycle of life supports the health of all that grows.
Miss Pat inspired me to rip out the plants and grass in the front of our home to make room for a pollinator garden.
Last fall our journey began.
I laid cardboard and covered it with leaves. The intention was to kill off the grass below and make the earth easier to cultivate in the spring. To create space for something new.
I have to be honest: In the beginning stage the yard wasn’t pretty. I was doubting whether the preparation would work.
But new things take time to cultivate and nurture.
How to Survive the Ugly Stage
The story of my garden seems to resonate with many people who are currently journeying through Sermon Camp.
People have shared that there are old habits being covered up or dug up to make room for something new.
At this stage of the journey toward change, people might feel like giving up and going back to the way things were in their preaching lives.
Doing a new thing is hard and sometimes ugly.
I can remember feeling like this myself when I started on this new preaching journey.
Hold tight! New things take time.
Be patient and set your heart on small things.
Hold onto the hope of the larger vision.
And always remember to prayerfully hold tight to the invitation that the prophet Isaiah offers to the community: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go” (Isaiah 48:17b)
The Fruit of Patience
After waiting out the ugly season, all summer I have enjoyed watching the garden flourish and become a home for birds, bugs, and butterflies.
Now I am in a new stage. A time of collecting the seeds of what bloomed so that I can plant them next year.
In the meantime, I’m dreaming what other space could be called back to its natural beauty. A place for creation to be reclaimed and restored. A place for something new to take root, cast seed and spread.
Just like the good news we preach!
My garden has taught me hard-won lessons about the toil, frustration, sense of overwhelm, and eventual glory of transformation—lessons that apply to me, my Sermon Campers, and any preacher who longs to establish a life-giving preaching life.
Steps to grow a sermon practice
1. Identify What doesn’t belong
What have the proverbial birds planted that are taking up the space you intended?
Ask yourself what is not growing and giving life and enjoyment.
2. Dig up what isn’t working
Remove that which is not life-giving for you.
3. Make a plan
Redesign your work week to give yourself time to nurture a spiritual discipline of sermon preparation.
Sit down with your calendar early to block time for your sermon prep stages.
(If you’re a member of The Collectives, maybe attend Weekly Calendar prep on Monday mornings for guidance on how to do this effectively).
Decide what you’d like to plant in place of what you’ve dug up.
4. Sow your seeds
From new “seeds” of insight that you’ve received or harvested from books or colleagues or Sermon Camp or another course or workshop, plant the new hopes in your heart and practices in your life so they may grow.
5. Trust the waiting
It takes time for new habits to become comfortable and routine.
Even when you can’t see transformation yet, growth is brewing under the surface.
Be patient.
Develop a practice of examen to prayerfully consider the sermon you preached and the practices you followed to bring God’s word to life.
Trust the invisible power at work in the soil of your new creation.
6. Delight in the new life that emerges
As the tentative shoots of new practices, skills, and growth break the surface, celebrate!
Continue to cultivate your new life—water new habits, pull the weeds of distraction, nurture your environment to make it hospitable to continued growth.
Watch those initial shoots blossom, and rejoice that your preaching practice is life-giving.
Consider what you might plant next.
Share the good news.
Your energy just might be enough to inspire someone else to grow in grace.
Join the Community Cultivating a Thriving Preaching Life Together
The Collectives
In The Collectives, growth-minded preachers work alongside each other to:
root out habits that drain
establish life-giving practices
grow in skill and grace
wrestle the texts and find new inspiration
and encourage each other’s faith in the Spirit’s visible and invisible work.
If you’re ready to pull up the habits that no longer serve you and nurture a preaching life you can truly enjoy for the long haul, we invite you to join us.
Enrollment is open through September 30th.