Finding Courage to Preach in "The Purple Zone" (A Guest Post)
Here’s the truth many clergy have shared with me: they are afraid to preach about issues of public concern. They know their sermons should in some way address things like racism, homophobia, climate change, sexism, economic issues, or hatred of foreigners, for example. But fear holds them back, keeps them quiet, and muzzles their prophetic voice. How can you preach when you are afraid?
Preaching Advice Roundup: 16 Backstory Preaching mentors share strategies to make preaching easier, more effective, and more fun!
Sometimes, one small tip is powerful enough to unlock a new competency or significantly improve a skill or process. That’s why today's blog is all tips, tips, and nothing but preaching tips. As the 2023-2024 Mentorship class wraps up their program and celebrates graduation, I asked current Backstory Preaching mentors to offer some of their favorite preaching strategies to help you craft more effective sermons in less time—while loving the process!
The Power of Comparison: How to bring abstract concepts to life with effective metaphors & similes
Crafting effective comparisons is one of the life-bloods of preaching that engages listeners and holds their attention. These comparisons do the heavy lifting of explanation so listeners grasp the strange, unfamiliar, otherworldly reality of God within the reality we know.
Sacred Imagination: Preaching a Picture of God's Vision
Even though Jesus gave us these and many more concrete examples of what the reign of God is in real life, as preachers we often struggle to imagine God’s reign as concretely, today or in the future. I want to raise up an exercise and offer an example to help us imagine the concrete manifestation of God’s hopes for us so we can easily preach God’s vision revealed in a text.
The Freedom that Comes from Preaching Growth
Improving our sermon craft results in more compelling preaching, which of course benefits our listeners who hear Good News and experience freedom from the sin, shame, legalism, or pain of living in this imperfect world with imperfect humans and their imperfect selves. But growth in our preaching craft provides freedom for us, too. We feel confident in our ability to execute the preaching vision deposited by the Spirit. And we experience freedom to play, create, experiment, and ultimately excel at preaching—for the sake of the gospel.
How to Hone your Powers of Observation for More Engaging Sermons
By practicing our powers of observation, connecting behaviors to emotions, exploring short bursts of creative writing, and creating files for future reference, we’ll be able to apply details that tell a story of Good News our listeners will not only hear—but experience.
How to enrich your understanding of biblical characters for more compelling sermons
In the same way that seeing Batman with an ice cream cone colors your perspective of him, so too can a few well-placed details in your sermon open up the humanity—the common fears, hopes, regrets, quirks, and dreams—of the biblical characters so your listeners connect to the Good News more deeply.
The Preacher's Trust: A Practice for Becoming a Better Preacher
To become a better golfer, there are clear skills one can practice to improve. But what if you want to become a better preacher? The Preacher’s Trust offers ten areas to which preachers can dedicate consistent effort in order to see growth in their life, spirituality, and craft.
What the comical can do for your preaching (a guest post)
The humorous signifies discourse that aims to make us laugh. Period. The humorous links with the human body and its many foibles. By the comical, I refer to a use of humor that seeks something more than laughter; it aims a metanoia. Such, I believe, is what makes the comical worthy of the serious calling to which we have been called.
Four MISSED opportunities to take your sermon from good to great
This is the third of three posts in our blog series about getting unstuck during sermon prep. Today focuses on the opportunities we miss to take our sermons from good to great so that the message we so carefully discerned can truly land in the hearts of our listeners where the Spirit can do her best work.