Summary: There are preachers who are apprehensive about broaching social and political issues in their sermons, especially during times in which polarization abounds. How does a commitment to biblical preaching equip those preachers to speak convincingly about the gospel’s implications for the church’s witness and Christians’ public priorities? This article offers three suggestions for preachers who seek ways to make connections.
Read the full article at Working Preacher.
Summary: Familiar biblical texts, especially those that appear each year in a lectionary, often pose challenges for preachers. How might our sermons encourage people to explore new dimensions of these well known passages?
This video was prepared for those who preach or teach. Watch it at Working Preacher.
Summary: In this video, Peter Wallace, host of Day1, interviews me about the Bible, preaching, and the creativity involved in bringing people into a meaningful engagement with scripture.
Watch this video at Day 1.
Summary: Children’s sermons are tougher than they look. How can preachers do a better job of using these to speak authentically to the young people in their congregations?
This video was prepared for those who preach or teach. Watch it at Working Preacher.
Summary: The structure of a sermon matters for how people understand it. Here I suggest ways for preachers to vary the organization of their sermons, not just to keep things fresh, but to embody the movement and rhetoric of a biblical text.
This video was prepared for those who preach or teach. Watch it at Working Preacher.
Summary: Everyone knows what the preacher is going to talk about on Easter morning. How can a sermon take people into a gospel text in creative and engaging ways on this important day?
This video was prepared for those who preach or teach. Watch it at Working Preacher.
Summary: I confess, I don’t think much of Lent. Most people, I suspect, already live pretty aware of their brokenness and mortality all year long. I yearn for churches to spend more time talking about how this life matters and how we can encounter and even bear the Divine amid all our brokenness. Lent seems a good time to do that. I wrote this essay to help preachers think about preaching the gospel texts assigned by the lectionary during Lent (Year C in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary).
Read the full article on Working Preacher.
Summary: In this video I offer reflections on the distinctive opportunities the season of Advent presents to preachers. My focus in the video is especially on the first chapters of Luke’s Gospel.
This video was prepared for those who preach or teach. Watch it at Working Preacher.
Summary: I wrote this piece soon after the launch of the website Working Preacher. It introduces the website and offers advice for how a time-strapped preacher might stay abreast of resources that assist us in interpreting the Bible.
Read the full article on Working Preacher.
Preaching from the Book of Acts during Easter
Summary: The Acts of the Apostles often proves to be a challenging book for preachers. Acts contains so many larger-than-life stories that it can leave congregations incredulous and dismayed. In this article I offer advice for preaching from Acts. Preachers do well to embrace the wonder, adventure, and hyperbole that pulses through Acts, for those features are part and parcel of the book’s attempts to celebrate God’s commitment to bringing new realities into being. Acts is a book whose mood matches the magnificent claims of Easter. It is a book that aims to unleash imagination. In doing so, it provides a vital counterbalance for our more cautious and prudent tendencies. It corrects us when we mistake the status quo for God’s true intentions for humanity’s flourishing.
Read the full article at Working Preacher.
Bible commentary: preachers & teachers
acts of the apostles christian imagination church easter preaching sermons