A 4-Step Process to Connect Scripture to Your Listeners’ Lives
When the cultures and circumstances of Scripture seem irrelevant or unfamiliar, how do we help our listeners connect. How do we find the truth that transcends time and context? This 4-step process helps you look at the human condition beneath the circumstances to find the the ways God showed up then and continues to show up now.
Lectio on Life: Four Steps to Writing a Topical Sermon
Sometimes you just gotta say it.
Sometimes you just gotta address the topic of the day:
- a sudden turn of events for the congregation
- a tragedy
- social justice
- a natural disaster
- the "elephant in the room"
How do you preach a topical sermon and also rely on the lectionary like we're supposed to?
Risking Your Job to Preach The Gospel? Two Questions to Ask First
We often preach a message people already agree with, a message that reinforces what people already believe. When we preach to the choir, we probably don’t feel vulnerable about the anticipated reaction: we expect more kudos than pushback. But what happens when we preach against the choir?
3 Lessons Yoga Taught Me About Preaching
I am a yogi not because of the poses I can hold or the shapes I can twist my body into, but simply because I practice. And practicing yoga about three times a week for several years has taught me useful life lessons about my source, foundation, and mindset, many of which apply to preaching.
Who are the People in Your Neighborhood? How Knowing Your Neighbors Will Strengthen Your Sermons
“In my work, I frequently meet clergy who don’t know their neighborhood colleagues, or only know the people in their own faith traditions, or only know those in their own ideological bubbles. They don’t know the leaders of local food pantries, transitional housing shelters, and other social services except in a transactional way: the clergy are valued for the donation they can organize or what sound bite they can give.
What if clergy took the time to build relationships in the community and in the congregation? What happens when we take the time to get to know the people in our neighborhoods?”
“If Anyone Has Ears to Hear, Listen (to the Gospel)”
As preachers, how do we tell when we’re crossing over from gaining essential knowledge for preaching into the world’s sorrow to too much information? How do we help our listeners discern the same? Ask these three questions.
Taking Humor Seriously in the Pulpit (A Guest Post)
Humor can do in the pulpit everything it can do in everyday communications, only in service of the gospel:
lower defenses when broaching a tough topic
strengthen us in trying times
unite us in a shared identity
and embrace us in the enjoyment of a moment of laughter at the sheer absurdity of human life and the joy that can shine through the broken places.
How to Cultivate a New Preaching LIfe
When your preaching life feels overgrown with last-minute scrambles, the tyranny of the urgent, insecurity about your sermons, or frustration that your sabbath feels ever out of reach, it may be time to pull up the old and plant something new.
How—and why—to preach Transformation in An unsafe world
Adaptive theology is uncomfortable because it doesn’t come with a blueprint, rule book, or even stick-figure assembly directions. Instead it offers a snapshot of cleared ground where the reign of God waits to be built; a rendering of the renovated halls of justice where peace keepers hold dialogues instead of guns; a silhouette of all the peoples gathered to save the planet.
On Keeping the Listeners' Attention (A Guest Post)
It’s challenging to hold our listeners’ attention when we have only limited information about them. There are several strategies that will help you engage your listener from start to finish no matter how well acquainted you are with the nuances of their day-to-day lives.