Author: Administrador

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, It’s time to talk about prayer. Not so much between you and me. I’m relatively confident you know what you’re doing. But with our people. Because I’m equally confident that they are less sure about what they’re doing when it comes to prayer. Oh, that’s not to say that our … Continue reading “Jesus’ Prayer and Ours”

Nathan Aaseng I’m reading a novel by a best-selling author that reminds me of one of the cardinal rules of writing: Write what you know. The author describes a coalition of five churches in a small town in Michigan who gather to deal with an emerging crisis. The churches are listed as Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, … Continue reading “Preach What You Know”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, Pentecost is the time to dream. Come to think of it, maybe every season in the church is a time to dream. After all, we worship a God who not only created light out of darkness but raised the crucified Jesus to life again! But while we should perhaps always … Continue reading “Pentecost Dreams”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, I don’t know about you, but I often find myself dreading Trinity Sunday a bit. Okay, sometime more than a bit. We all know the presenting problem: It’s the only Sunday in the church year that focuses exclusively on a doctrine of the church and, if we’re going to be … Continue reading “Trinitarian Congregations”

Kae Evensen The things we carry with us — our race, our education, our gender, our families, our age, our masks, our broken pieces, our patterns, perhaps particularly our prayers — stick with us, and though they can be wearisome, they tell us who we are. For many of us Mainlines, prayer reveals much about … Continue reading “Prayer and Preaching”

Matthew Ian Fleming Lent. A time for self-reflection, austerity, and somber music. A time to put away the alleluias and remember Jesus’ road to Calvary. A time for selfies and tweets and photo-booths? For one season, we challenged our congregation to immerse themselves in social media, not only while they were waiting for the bus … Continue reading “A New Pentecost? A Season of Social Media”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, I’m writing this letter just after watching the U.S. World Cup match against Ghana and in this context remembered something I learned about fear while playing soccer years ago. Actually, it was something I learned in psychology class but played out on the soccer field: the physical, bodily symptoms of … Continue reading “Living Beyond Fear”

Patricia Tull Author’s Note: Friends, if you enjoy writing and would like to hone your skills, consider applying for a Collegeville Institute fall writing workshop. They are small (12 participants), and Collegeville provides tuition, room, and board. I (Patricia Tull) will be leading the Louisville workshop, and Kyle Kramer, discussed below, will join us for … Continue reading “Vegetative Parables”

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, What do you make of this week’s Gospel passage? I have to say that on my first read, I came up rather empty. With last week’s predictions of suffering and persecution in mind, I at first wondered whether this was just the counterpoint — the promise of distant glory in … Continue reading “No Small Gestures”

Karoline Lewis Dear Working Preachers, I remember well the first time I preached on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. I was on my internship at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon, WA, with supervising pastor, Mark Johnson. In many respects, it was a normal internship year, representing the breadth of parish ministry — exactly what every … Continue reading “On Hard Yokes and Heavy Burdens”