sermon
The altar in my attic
My boxes of old sermons are a monument to my church’s ongoing conversation with God.
Black men I’ve mourned
I’ve preached more than 800 funeral sermons. Many of these deaths have marked me.
Preaching in the valley of actual death
My task at funerals is to share the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Living water isn’t just a metaphor
On the cross, Jesus needed actual water. No one gave him any.
11 adverbs for good preaching
The best preachers, says Russell Mitman, preach liturgically, eschatologically, multi-sensorily, and eight more ways that end in -ly.
Listening all the way into the pulpit
The preacher maintains a sacred conversation between God and the congregation.
Lost in a sermon
I can see my dad's manuscript: the title centered in caps, the body double-spaced and marked up by hand. But I can't remember the words.
Speaking to mourners: The evolution of funeral sermons
In 1983, Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson wrote that "death is only one form of loss." This would have been unthinkable for Christians half a century earlier.
by Lucy Bregman
Why sermons bore us
Much of the snickering about boring sermons comes not
because we expect so little but because we have hoped for so much. A hunger persists for a word from the
Lord—without which we are left to our boring selves.