Author: Administrador

Alphonetta Wines Almost everyone has heard of writer’s block. Writer’s block is a well-known reference to a lack of ideas upon which to expound. This loss of words is a secret fear that writers are likely to experience sooner or later. Did you know that preachers face a similar occupational challenge? Preachers are continually called … Continue reading “Dealing With Preacher’s Block”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher,  Over the last couple of years I’ve developed something of a mantra about the task facing this generation’s leaders of the church. We need, I’ve said, to focus on two areas: biblical imagination and vocation. Biblical imagination, in brief, is knowing the biblical stories well enough that they suggest ways … Continue reading “Learning to Pray”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, I sometimes wonder if temptation is one of those things we have a hard time talking honestly about in the church. I think we worry the conversation will go in one of two less-than-helpful directions. Either we’ll take the cultural cue and move immediately to a “racy” conversation where the … Continue reading “Trust and Temptation”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, I want to start with a question: how did you react to the name of this column being “Re-imagining God.” Did it make you curious, nervous, annoyed, bored – or maybe you didn’t notice at all. I ask because about twenty years ago a group organized a conference called “Re-imagining: … Continue reading “Re-Imagining God”

Susan Hedahl Last summer after a car accident, an x-ray revealed that I have a brain tumor, essentially terminal in nature. Has this fact sharpened how I listen to proclamation? Definitely! It means I am more alert to the ways preachers choose to speak about disease, illness, and their meanings and relationship to an ongoing … Continue reading “Our Shared Reality: Preaching on Illness (Part 1 of 2)”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, Some biblical passages, like some flammable materials, should probably carry a warning label: handle with care. This story – with its attendant questions of evil, culpability, and divine judgment and forbearance – is surely one of them. But if handled with equal measures of care and courage, it may yield … Continue reading “When Bad Things Happen”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, I’m not sure that there’s a more beloved story in the Bible than that of the Prodigal Son. Ralph Waldo Emerson called it the greatest story in the Bible…or out of it. Charles Dickens agreed. Along with the Good Samaritan, it is surely Jesus’ most famous parable. The question, of … Continue reading “Preaching the Prodigal”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, First and foremost, a word of thanks. Your comments in response to my column last week offered a profound testimony to the power of learning in and through conversation and community. You taught each other much and I learned a great deal as well. Between your comments and those to … Continue reading “Questions about Discipleship”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, We are close, now, to the end. For the last five weeks we have traced Jesus steps toward the cross and this Sunday we reach the sobering and even brutal conclusion to Luke’s account of our Lord’s Passion.  And I have to admit that each year as we again approach … Continue reading “A More Important Question”

Patricia Tull Environmental writer Bill McKibben has been working to bring climate change to the forefront of the U.S. agenda. Immediately after Election Day 2012, he embarked on a 20-city “Do the Math” bus tour, raising support for renewable energy.  “Do the Math” refers to scientific evidence that raising the atmosphere’s carbon content beyond 350 … Continue reading “Do the Math”