Free, At-Home Christmas Retreat, 2023
This retreat will not completely fill your tank, assuage your exhaustion, or provide a clear path of hope for the future. But it will, I pray, provide a theological and spiritual framework for what you have endured, witnessed, and felt this past year.
(Free) Epiphany Quotes on Faith for Preaching and Reflection
The Season of Epiphany is the eight-week journey of coming to put our faith in the belief that God not only exists but is embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. For this reason, this set of quotations for Epiphany focuses on faith. I hope you find them helpful in your preaching and personal reflections.
Advent (&dvent) Devotional (A Guest Post)
Like all deliciously wonderful things in life, Advent takes time to simmer and to develop flavor, texture, and richness. We have created a multi-media devotional based on the assigned texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, Yr B. Inside you’ll find corresponding word clouds, photographs, and resources, as well as questions for reflection. May this devotion offer you a sense of ease and comfort, a place for the Spirit to simmer inside you and inspire you to pull up a chair alongside nature—to see and hear her Advent beauty.
"I will offer the sermon I am capable of offering. I will forgive myself."
It is good to offer the sermon we are capable of crafting—loaves and fishes style—within the limits of our skills, available time, competing demands, and lack of feedback. We can trust God to multiply our efforts so that listeners receive the nourishment they need.
Your call is to offer the sermon you are able to offer. And forgive yourself for not meeting your expectations.
10 Rules for Preachers to Stay Healthy, Wealthy in Spirit, and Wise
Whether we preach weekly or less often, there’s always another Sunday, another funeral, another wedding, another Holy Week circling back around that needs a sermon.
If we’re not careful, the things that bring us joy—our loved ones, our fascination with Scripture, and our connection to God—are in constant danger of being taken for granted.
Left untended, they wither.
How do we want to feel when we look back on our preaching careers? How do we want our loved ones to feel looking back on them?
Here are ten rules to keep us healthy, wealthy in spirit, and wise—for the long haul.
Preaching Holy Saturday: Proclaiming Good News from the Depths of Grief & Suffering (A Guest Post)
When preachers suffer grief, loss, illness, disability, or despair, still they preach. What does it mean to preach from these depths? What are the unique gifts of preaching from Holy Saturday, that liminal space when all seems lost and yet God continues to work?
Stewardship of Time: Preaching on the One Thing We're Embarrassed to Have More Of
Most resources we guard and amass as precious stones: money, skill, assets. But there’s one resource we give away as though its scarcity were a badge of honor…
The Uncomfortable Relationship Between Preacher, Stewardship, & Congregation: 4 Revealing Conversations
During stewardship season we preach to our parishioners about the need to offer their time, talent, and treasure.
But we preachers need a different conversation.
We need a frank, "backstory" conversation about our personal dependence on parishioners' donations, and the ways money affects our relationships with parishioners and colleagues and our capacity to preach with our whole selves.
Racism and Segregated Sundays: What We Need to Talk About (A Guest Post)
"The most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. offered this tragic insight decades ago.
Not much has changed since.
How did we get here? Why do we stay here?
Flat-out racism is a cause, to be sure.
But racism is not the only cause.
This guest post by Backstory Preaching mentor, the Rev. Dr. Melinda Quivik, raises questions helpful to the conversation about how we address our segregated Sundays.
From Insecurity to Impact: Embracing your genuine preaching voice
God. Called. You. To this congregation. At this time. Do you trust that call? Enough to trust your own voice?
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Live Lectio for Sermon Prep (Free!)
Get an early start on your sermon prep by joining us live on Facebook (Mondays at noon Central) as we prayerfully discuss the coming week's gospel passage (RCL & NL).
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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The Gospel People Don't Want to Hear: Preaching Challenging Messages was written to aid preacher’s in understanding what’s at stake for their listeners so they can craft sermons their audience can receive, even if they challenge cherished beliefs.
I just have to say WOW. I'm so grateful that I made the investment and joined The Collective. These Thursday [workshops] are a game-changer for me.
—Andrea M.