As a part of almost every Working Preacher Books podcast episode, hosts Rolf Jacobson and Karoline Lewis ask the guest author: What are your strategies for getting unstuck? When the text just isn’t speaking to you, what do you do? Notice some patterns, and some completely unique approaches, in their paraphrased responses below:
- I go for a walk. I imagine some folks from the congregation in their usual spots, then hit record on my phone and just start preaching while walking. 15-20 minutes later, I can listen to it and there might just be something in there that I can use. —Shauna Hannan, The Peoples’ Sermon: Preaching as a Ministry of the Whole Congregation
- No surprise, I favor a visual exercise, of marking up the text. I color words or phrases that repeat in a certain color, color things that stand out to me in another, etc. Once I’ve done all that I step back and usually patterns emerge. I also like reading multiple translations, or an interlinear text with the Greek beside the English because the differences and similarities can provide insight. —Steve Thomason, The Visual Preacher: Proclaiming an Embodied Word
- I take the text with me to a new setting, to dislocate me from where I usually read or study. It belongs out in God’s world. —Karoline Lewis, A Lay Preacher’s Guide: How to Craft a Faithful Sermon
- Return to the text. The biblical text will always be more interesting than any story you can conjure about it. Ask: why did the community keep this text as part of sacred Scripture? —Walter Brueggemann, Preaching Jeremiah and Preaching the Old Testament
- I go back to the text. I also have a couple conversation partners I can talk to. —Lisa Cressman, The Gospel People Don’t Want to Hear
- It really helps if you can see the story or text through somebody else’s lens, like a comedian’s. Or view the story in its larger context instead of taking it out of context like we generally do by reading just a small part in church. —Karl Jacobson, co-author of Divine Laughter: Preaching and the Serious Business of Humor
- It’s a joke, but one way to get unstuck is to quit working so hard. To disengage a bit when it’s not working, and that releases the pressure. —Rolf Jacobson, co-author of Divine Laughter: Preaching and the Serious Business of Humor
- Sometimes I have to walk away from it, do something that is not the sermon, not preaching, not Jesus. And I really do believe in play, so whether it’s a walk, a movie, a conversation with a friend, I’m always getting other voices into my sermon. —Lisa L. Thompson, Preaching the Headlines
- I walk, go to the art museum or a movie, or watch a good historical drama. Many of the stories in the Bible are told like histories, so that genre helps me to see characters from different angles. —Sunggu Yang, Digital Homiletics
- I have to get out of books. For inspiration, I garden, I play piano, I try a new recipe; these things open me up, help me to hear things differently. —Jennifer Ackerman, Preaching the Gospel of Justice
- The way I teach students to have a broader view I also use on myself: to ask questions. Good point, but how does it feel? Where is God in this? —Beverly Zink-Sawyer, co-author of For Every Matter Under Heaven: Preaching on Special Occasions
- I ask the question about context: What is going on? Who is going to be there? Especially for special occasion preaching, the event and the people have to be understood first, before I delve into the text. —Donna Giver-Johnston, co-author of For Every Matter Under Heaven: Preaching on Special Occasions; author of Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart
What about you, Working Preacher? If you were asked that question, how would you respond?
And if you are looking for some new practices to have in your pocket for when they are needed, whose approaches from these named above could you try first?