Craft of Preaching

Jerry Seinfeld said, "Being a comedian is like being a murderer; no matter what people tell you, you're probably going to do it anyway."¹  Preaching …

Rock-a-my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Rock-a-my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Rock-a-my soul in the bosom of Abraham,
Oh, rock-a-my soul.

You know …

The preacher in me is tired. She absorbs so much of other people’s pain that she forgets (or avoids) attending to her own pain. Sometimes she feels …

A few years ago, I gave up on the idea of balance. Balance is a myth.¹ It is simply not possible to keep the important things in your life in perfect balance …

“Issues reach the pulpit before you do." This statement by my dear friend Rev. Michael Brown, senior Pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in NYC, first …

What preachers do is more than a little bit crazy. “The foolishness of our proclamation,” as Paul put it, is quite literally all that we have …

What does the cross mean to you? You kind of have to figure that out before you can make sense of or preach on Jesus’ statement, “Whoever does …

The words “crisis,” “unprecedented,” and “chaos” seem to be appearing with alarming frequency in this year’s news …

My first reaction to the Gospel lesson this week was a movie memory: a scene from Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal Lecter (the brilliant Anthony Hopkins) …

“Immediately, she stood up straight and began praising God.” I have a feeling that when this woman bent over for eighteen years was finally …

Family division. Sadly, it doesn’t take much these days to procure a pointed argument between those with whom we are supposed to be the closest. We …

After a recent baptism at which I presided, a young girl asked me, very shyly, “How did you make the water holy?”

I love such curiosity in …

We are not done yet.

We are moving my mom into a nursing home. We are getting closer, but the sorting and the sifting and the sadness persist.

And so, …

We moved my mom into a nursing home last week. If you are a regular reader of this column, you know that she has Parkinson’s. She also has been diagnosed …

I am writing this column from beautiful Bay View, Michigan, a Chautauqua on the northern shore of Lake Michigan, where I am the preacher/lecturer for the …