5 Tools Making Preaching & Life Easier, More Inspired, and More Fulfilling (A Resource Round-Up)
These resources are all tools I endorse because I use them regularly and find genuine value. Backstory Preaching does not receive compensation for recommendations outside BsP .
When something in my life or work shifts for the better, I pause to ask why.
What’s improved, and what pushed it in that direction?
Lately I’ve noticed a few shifts for which I am very grateful:
I am writing more often
I’m retrieving my thoughts and notes easily and reliably.
I ruminate on and implement some authors’ ideas, seeing how they simplify and clarify most areas of life.
For the first time in my life, I have a morning routine that is not only working, I look forward to it. Believe me, that’s saying something because I’m not only not a morning person, I’m an anti-morning person.
When I’m deriving significant benefit from a resource—implementing its ideas, developing new systems, and enjoying a long-term, habitual impact—it’s time to give credit where it is due.
I’m offering public thanks for these tools which reflect the work of others, and I’m spreading the word in hopes one or more of these resources will make a difference for you, too.
Influencing my Preaching
Daily Audio Bible (DAB) Podcast
Website: dailyaudiobible.com
What It Is
A bible-reading podcast to listen to the bible cover-to-cover with the choice to hear a daily reading from the Hebrew Scripture, Christian Scripture, Psalms, and Proverbs, or hear the Bible read chronologically. A different Bible translation is used each week.
DAB also reads the Bible in many languages, and there’s a kids’ version available too.
What I Like about It
I’m listening to the entire bible in a year, cover to cover.
The Effect
I haven’t read the entire bible in some years. I’ve tried, but I couldn’t muster the sheer stubborness needed to make it through Leviticus. I’d alternate between confusion, boredom, and horror, give up, feel guilty, try again, and then conveniently forget my intentions.
However, having it read to me as I get ready for the day, combined with a renewed and, yes, stubborn personal commitment to listen every day in 2022, is working.
I’m feeling grounded in and a part of the Big Story of God forming and reforming a people over and over again.
A note for full disclosure: I find the DAB website off-putting for its references to “mankind,” an only-male God, and a theological perspective that doesn’t match my own.
In contrast, however, I find the podcast host’s introductions of each book and most of his commentaries to be sound, insightful, and gracious yet firm in challenging biblical assumptions. Plus, when I disagree it helps me understand the thinking for some of my sermon listeners.
There are many bible apps out there. I’ve landed on DAB, but whichever one speaks to you is the best one to listen to!
Master Class
Website: www.masterclass.com
What It Is
A subscription video universe of learning from the best of the best, including meditation, history, humor, writing, vocal training, hip-hop, cooking, fashion, and more.
What I Like about It
With no end of subjects available taught by the leaders of their industries, there’s always something to spark the imagination, ignite new ideas and perspectives, and learn from people you’d never otherwise encounter.
The Effect
I’m becoming a better storyteller because of LeVar Burton.
Angela Davis and Nikole Hannah-Jones are giving me the information and courage I need to preach the truth as I learn about Black women and their struggle for liberation and discover what I wasn’t taught—but should have been—about what happened to Black people after Emancipation.
Joy Harjo is helping me speak more poetically.
And for sheer joy and creativity, I’ve learned a thing or two about flower arranging from Maurice Harris.
Learning from a wide spectrum of subjects and people deepens the well of inspiration for sermon illustrations, helps us make connections to people and concepts in scripture and life, and sparks our imagination and creativity, which is always good for preaching.
Influencing my Life
James Clear: Atomic Habits
Website: jamesclear.com
What It Is
It’s a book, but it’s also a lot more than that. Clear gives the "why” of habit formation and a simple process to move out the bad ones and usher in the good ones.
What I Like About It
It’s simple, and simplicity, as it so happens, is one of the foundational steps to any new lasting habit.
Plus, I always like to understand why. Understanding the principles based on research connects the dots to help me un-shame my bad habits, like being generally messy while seeing the way forward to an organized sock drawer that I can maintain!
The Effect
Clear’s simple approach, if you’ll pardon the pun, clarifies habit formation. To form a habit make it obvious, make it easy, make it attractive, and make it satisfying.
Each of these recommendations also serves as a diagnostic. If I have a bad habit I want to change, I can identify which of those (obvious, easy, attractive, or satisfying) is absent, thus creating the hurdle I haven’t been able to get over.
For example, like many preachers, I often do my best work on adrenaline when the deadline is approaching. BsP’s Sermon 52 Framework cured me years ago of crafting sermons on Saturdays, but I found I had stumbled into my old adrenaline pattern to motivate me to write this weekly blog.
Like with preaching, there’s a sweet spot I crave when I have just the right amount of adrenaline to sharpen my thinking, but not so much that I feel paralyzed.
How do I create the adrenaline needed to write when I want to write?
Clear helped me reframe the problem.
In short, I made writing when I want to write more satisfying by conducting a three-minute visualization: what it will feel like when the blog is wrapped up. The visualization provides instant adrenaline and focus whenever it’s needed.
Atomic Habits teaches the principles to apply to living day to day and week to week with an intentionality that fosters the identity that is our truest self.
For an introduction, check out the episode where Brené Brown hosted James lear on her podcast.
Craft
Website: craft.do
What It Is
A web-based app for writing, note-taking, retrieval, and new insights. It uses internal hyper-links to create connections between notes, spark creativity, and discover new ideas. Available for Mac operating systems and devices. (See below for Windows-compatible apps.)
What I Like About It
It’s easy to learn and use, it’s visually appealing, and there’s no end of new ideas waiting to be unleashed.
The Effect
Where do I begin? Perhaps with regret: that this app didn’t exist when I started in ordained ministry. If I’d had it from the beginning my sermon notes would be so abundant and so easy to find and discover new connections, that I’d never run out of ideas for sermons!
If you haven’t encountered the apps now available that create internal hyperlinks (like Obsidian and Roam which are also Windows compatible), it’s a bit hard to grasp why hyperlinks create an almost unlimited power to find thoughts, even tidbits you might have written years earlier, then forge new connections that generate new ideas.
In a nutshell, creativity is the new idea formed when two old ideas collide. Therefore, the more we can crash old ideas into each other the more likely new ones will get born. Hyperlinks—far more than tags, files, or folders—put those ideas face-to-face organically, supplying us with a nearly infinite source of new ideas.
There is a learning curve to be sure, and that’s one of the reasons I prefer Craft to the others out there. It’s the easiest one to learn, and the return on the investment of time and energy is exponential.
Read ‘n Pray
Website: Held via Zoom within The Collective/+
What it Is
A thirty-minute, online work/read session held Monday-Saturday mornings in community. The time is used to read, share something learned, and pray silently. This is followed by an optional thirty minutes to journal and plan the day.
What I like about it
What’s not to like about it? I’m reading more, learning more, discovering more, and planning more, all while ensconced in community. Moreover, the notes I take, and the ones shared by members of the group, end up growing my Craft stash of cool info.
It’s the best!
The Effect
As I said above, I’m genetically engineered to avoid mornings. (Believe me, when I get the chance on the other side of the Pearly Gates, I intend to have “words” with God that the Resurrection was chosen to be held at sunrise. Sunset would have been so much better!)
And yet, the consistent, cumulative, habitual influence of Read ‘n Pray is so life-giving that I’ve rearranged my bedtime schedule to get up early and hold the time sacrosanct.
Read ‘n Pray is available to members of The Backstory Preaching Collective and Collective+. If you’re a member, I encourage you to join us!
If you’re not, you can create your own version Read n’ Pray by yourself, or invite some colleagues to join you. All it takes is an online meeting and a countdown timer to keep you on track.
You, too, might find yourself waking up to a foreign sensation: a smile on your face!
Did you Receive your free Easter Retreat for preachers?
After the busy season of Holy Week and Easter, take time to rest, recharge, and renew your spirit. I pray this retreat blesses you and your ministry. It’s our gift of gratitude for your deep work and dedication to share the Good News.