Effects of the Pandemic on Preaching and Worship: Questions to Consider (A Guest Post)
Our guest blogger and Collective+ speaker, the Rev. Andrew Stoebig, suggests the events and traumas of our most recent cycle of memory calls for a deeper kind of reflection on the way we operate individually and within our community systems. Namely, now what? Whether your worship patterns since the pandemic are new or old or in between, does what you say match what you do? That is, does your pattern of and movement during worship support or challenge, confirm or deny, further or suppress your homiletical proclamation?
"Holy Crying": The Healing Power of Lament—Even in Eastertide (A guest post)
What comes next will not be a return to what was. What comes next will be a transition period, a time of figuring out the new normal. Transitions by definition mean change, and change, even positive change, brings stress. In the coming weeks when the flowering world signals one message but your soul feels another, remember God’s gift of the Lament and let your holy tears join the rain of the season. Both bring welcomed growth.
Preaching One Year Into the Pandemic
As the U.S. comes to the end of its first year managing the pandemic, I hear frustration among preachers with each other. The source of tension? A disagreement about the best ratio between preaching lament and joy. To all preachers everywhere, I say: Yes. There is the need for lament, and there is the need for joy. And if we’re not sure about the best ratio, and if we’re feeling a little suspicious of our colleagues who tip a bit more toward one side than the other, then our parishioners are probably feeling the same way about each other—and us.
Panel Discussion: "Preaching in a Time of Pandemic" with Cressman, Gunn, Jefferson, and Wells
Wondering how to keep preaching into this strange new world? Hosted by Bexley-Seabury Seminary, The Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes, and the Anglican Theological Review, and moderated by Micah Jackson, a panel of theologian-preachers discuss what it means to preach into a pandemic. Panelists include Scott Gunn, Mark Jefferson, Sam Wells, and Lisa Cressman.
Suggestions for Online Memorial Services Based on First-Hand Experience
Unimaginable just a few months ago, many preachers now find themselves in the position of holding online memorial services. As we wade into this unfamiliar territory, Sr. Miriam Elizabeth Bledsoe and Rev. Jim Said share their experience and suggestions based on the online service they held for Sr. Bledsoe’s mother, who passed in mid-March.
How to Preach into Grief
I never could have known this treatise on grief would be released in the midst of a pandemic. I could not have foreseen just how dramatically the ways of life we’ve always taken for granted would shift almost overnight. The lessons are keenly relevant to our new reality, and I want to share a few as you grapple with how to support not only your congregations but also your own spirit in the weeks and months to come.
Preaching Themes During COVID-19
Like you, I have a lot more questions than answers about life and faith as we figure out how to respond to this defining global moment. We will often need to preach out of our own questions and the ones our parishioners ask. Click to find a few possible preaching themes as we navigate this global crisis.
Preaching and the Cornavirus/COVID-19
None of us has lived through anything similar to this before. Certainly none of us has preached into circumstances like these. But Jesus lived with the same kind of daily uncertainty that we’re living in. So as preachers in this new reality, we can follow the model of Jesus, who’s gone before us in crisis.