Author: Administrador

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, [Editor’s Note: This article accompanies our special edition podcast Sermon Brainwave #99.] No doubt you’ve been overwhelmed by the news and images of the disaster in Haiti, as I have. The earthquake is being called the worst natural disaster there in two centuries. Thousands are dead, thousands more trapped, and … Continue reading “Preaching after Natural Disaster”

Tom Teichmann I have a recurring nightmare in which I am in a courtroom on trial. The prosecution and defense lawyers have presented their closing statements eloquently and passionately. And then the judge pronounces judgment. “Guilty! Guilty of preaching straight from a manuscript!” The crowd cheers and the guards drag me out to my punishment–non-stop … Continue reading “Preaching from a Manuscript is Not Heresy”

Jennie English It happens more often than I’d like to admit. While proclaiming the Gospel lesson to the congregation on Sunday morning, I realize I’m reading words that I would have sworn were not in the text earlier in the week. Sometimes I wish I’d noticed these words earlier, thinking what stellar sermon material they … Continue reading “Preparing to Preach by Memorizing the Scripture”

Paul S. Berge The Advent texts from the gospel of Matthew in Year A span from chapter one to chapter twenty four. This is a wide sweep in the gospel that takes us from: the dilemma of Joseph who hears that Mary is with child and would dismiss her without the intervention of an angel … Continue reading “Advent Gospel Readings 2010”

Tom Rogers Let’s face it. Preachers can sometimes experience a good deal of pressure to get that next sermon ready. Why We Sometimes Fail to Pray the Text It is easy to hurriedly approach a sermon text asking, “Okay. What’s there to preach here?” We sometimes start by thinking about what can say in the … Continue reading “Praying the Text”

Susan Hedahl Sally A. Brown’s work, Cross Talk: Preaching Redemption Here and Now, makes this stunning assertion: “The subject of this book is one that theologians are discussing more and more, while preachers seem to speak of it less and less; the death of Jesus (1).” I could not agree more. In fact, I wonder: … Continue reading “Jesus Christ in the Sermon–Presence or Absence?”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, Do you remember when you first felt called by God? That moment when you had an irresistible tug toward ministry? Over the years I’ve heard many preachers talk about it. For some a sense of call came early, for others it emerged over years of discernment. Some preachers responded eagerly, … Continue reading “The Transfiguration of Peter”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, In recent weeks we’ve been working together on helping our people take the biblical stories with them as they leave church, offering these stories as lenses by which to make sense of their lives in God’s world. This week offers an excellent chance to continue down this path. Rarely, in … Continue reading “Into Temptation”

Fred Gaiser “How shall they hear,” Paul wonders, “without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14 KJV). And I might add, how can we preach without reading? There is no “word” without words, and words must be fed and nourished and replenished through reading. True, oral tradition served for millennia, and it still has its place (“Jesus loves … Continue reading “The Preacher and the Library”

C. Clifton Black In a previous article, posted on this site last year while our normally alert editors nodded off, I proposed that the Second Evangelist may be the New Testament’s unsung comedian.  Exhibit A of my case was Mark 11:1-11, which in the other Gospels is Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem.  Mark sets up … Continue reading “Marklarkey II: Parabolic Tomfoolery from the Second Gospel”