Four Tips to Preach Through Change, Loss, & Grief During Lent
Change—and its attendant grief and loss—can feel like darkness, gloom, and storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, which makes Ash Wednesday the perfect time to explore those feelings in our sermons. Here are four tips to preach through change, grief, and loss during lent.
Connect With God During Lent: 3 Steps for Contemplative Sermon Prep
This is the most intensive season of the year for priests and pastors. With Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, multiple services for Easter, plus extra Lenten parish educational activities, there’s a lot to prepare for. Before you feel overwhelmed, though, let’s do a quick review to remind ourselves what will help your sermon prep—and all your preparations—to be holy, from your heart, and as efficient as possible.
A Creation Care Preaching Guide to Lent (A Guest Post)
Earth-keeping is found in every corner of the Bible. Each Sunday the scripture readings feed our abilities to envision living harmoniously with the rest of creation in all its forms. The RCL passages during Lent, for example, give us images that are windows into healthy and whole living.
Lenten Quotations for Preaching and Reflection (Free Download)
Curated for your inspiration, this collection of quotations about Lent can be used to guide your sermon development or to spark personal reflection. Download yours for free here.
At-Home Christmas Retreat for Preachers (2022)
Merry (Early!) Christmas! After tending to everyone else's spiritual and celebratory needs, it will finally be your turn! Inside is your free, downloadable, at-home Christmas Retreat to rest, reflect, and renew your spirit.
Christmas Quotes for Reflection and Preaching
The Advent season is filled with preparation, talk, and often the stress of gift-giving for Christmas, so this year’s collection of Christmas quotes focuses on gifts, and THE gift of Emmanuel that puts all other gifts into perspective.
2022 Annual Christmas Gift List for Preachers
This year’s suggested gift list is an eclectic mix your loved ones will be delighted to give you to help you relax, grow, and tend to your spirit in the coming year.
Advent quotes and inspiration for your Advent sermons
Download your copy of this year's Advent Quotes to inspire you and your sermons: "Advent: The Season of Longing."
Sermon Themes for Advent & Christmas
This guide to potential Advent and Christmas sermon themes will jump-start your sermon prep inspiration for the Advent season.
Ash Wednesday & Lent Quotes for Preaching and Reflection
Do we really need Lent this year? Do we need—yet another—season of withdrawal, discipline, and abstention? Haven’t we been living in such a season for the last two years? Since the global pandemic began, we have been deprived of birthday meals, wedding gatherings, and the comfort we receive from expressing our collective grief at funerals. We’ve missed out on meals at restaurants, concerts and plays, hugging our friends, sitting at our favorite coffee shops, and receiving consecrated bread and wine. What does Lent have to teach us that the last two years haven’t?
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I participated in the Lectio study today with a complicated and double-speak Gospel (John 17:6-19) and WOW! I received so much great insight and am headed in a direction I feel really good about. Thank you to all my colleagues! If you are wondering if this is worth it, wonder no more. It is.
—Donna G.
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