Do Your sermons Suffer from a "Vitamin C Deficiency"?
We often fail to understand the ways our everyday choices impact our environment and, in turn, our neighbor's quality of life. As preachers, we have an obligation to illuminate this reality and invite our listeners into a new dimension of relationship with their neighbors through creation. And not just on Earth Day.
9 Ways to Ensure Your Last Sermon of the Weekend is as Strong as Your First
When you preach the same sermon across multiple services, there can be a drop in energy, enthusiasm, or presence as the morning wears on. How do you maintain focus and attention so that each event receives the fullness of your abilities?
How Kurt Vonnegut's Failed Thesis Can Make You a Better Storyteller
Why do we care about a story’s shape? If Christ has redeemed all, ensuring every story ends above baseline, what is the purpose of exploring what comes before? We ask different questions—and discover different answers—when we're honestly following the story's shape into every moment.
The Key to Deeper Insight & Broader Perspective (+ 3 Recommendations)
Collaboration invites us beyond our own limited understanding to gain new insights and consider other perspectives. It refines our ideas and helps us solve problems that seem insurmountable alone. Not only is the burden of sermon prep lightened, our authentic connection to our listeners is expanded. We are simply better when we are working together.
Who Did You Say God Is?
When you preach, what do your listeners learn about God? Are there any subconscious or “embedded” beliefs that sneak into your sermons without your awareness?
The Opposite of Love, According to Bishop Curry. This Will Preach.
The opposite of love is less violent than hate, more consequential than indifference, and shapes our culture individually and at large. What is it? And why does it matter?
Pick 1: Try Shifting Something Small for Big Change (a Roundup of Our Most Useful Posts)
This holiday week, we've rounded up some of our most popular and useful blog posts to help you find the encouragement and strategies you may need to try something new. Pick one thing to shift this week and see what happens.
Eight Tips to Preach Across the Divide
If your experience is like mine, you’ve never preached in a political and cultural climate as volatile and unpredictable as the one we face in the U.S. right now. How do we preach the unifying love of Christ when many are divided? How do we preach peace in the face of vitriol? How do we preach dignity when displays of disrespect are paraded as badges of honor?
Is Your Preaching a "Performance"? 3 Guiding Questions
It put the holy fear of God in my heart to realize I had the ability to perform the role of a preacher and be believed and trusted when I shouldn't be. I had skills at the ready to inflate my knowledge of scripture, embellish its presentation to appeal to certain people, or protect myself with silence. So what would guide me to ensure I wouldn't perform as a preacher, but enter the pulpit as a preacher of integrity regardless of the stakes?
"The Preacher's Panel of Shame" (and What I Learned from Sitting on It!)
I haven't laughed so hard in ages as I disclosed my own worst foibles and heard from my colleagues about theirs! Rather than reveal our "worst" sermon (which for all of us had been blessedly erased from our memories; God is merciful!) we on the panel revealed three of our biggest mistakes and what we learned from them. Here are my "Top Three."