Julian DeShazier
Why I came back to the lectionary
My job as a preacher isn’t to change the game. It’s to run the plays well.
When rituals leave us full—and then empty
Leaving the jailhouse graduation, I wondered, Where have I felt like this before?
Catharsis at church
The book of Ezra helped me realize how bad most congregations are at handling big emotions.
Reimagining how we reimagine church
We need to end our obsession with novelty and corporate jargon.
The little engine that needed collaborators
Clergy burnout happens when churches expect pastors to do everything and pastors oblige.
Our holy, human bodies
To build the Beloved Community, we need to think and talk and act differently about bodies.
The crowded elevator of opinions
We’ve become convinced that speaking is the most important thing we can do.
Who we can hear
Local leaders sometimes convene to try to stop the violence in Chicago. But whose voices are at the table?
King David and Kendrick Lamar (2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33)
Hip-hop’s origins go back farther than the 1970s.
August 15, Ordinary 20B (1 Kings 2:10–12; 3:3–14)
Solomon has everything—and still, he seeks transformation.
August 8, Ordinary 19B (2 Samuel 18:5–9, 15, 31–33)
David, Absalom, and the dangers of “hanging between heaven and earth”
Money in our hearts (Luke 16:1-13; Amos 8:4-7)
Jesus has a zeal against the human willingness to turn wealth into an idol.
September 29, Ordinary 26C (Luke 16:19–31; Amos 6:1a, 4–7)
Conversion narratives raise a question: Why does it take so much to get there?
September 22, Ordinary 25C (Luke 16:1–13; Amos 8:4–7)
Jesus is talking to two different audiences.
What makes Good Friday different?
On Good Friday we face conflicting urges, on multiple fronts.
On the one hand, I don't want to be one of the Christians who Gardner Taylor called "a Resurrection people, but not a Crucifixion people." I don't want to rescue Jesus from the cross--the weekly tendency of many preachers, and I think a poor interpretation of "bringing the good news." It is a reality: Jesus died.
The gravesite and the marathon
I have a friend who visits his mother's burial site each year on the anniversary of her death. When the day comes, the mood is always solemn and deeply reflective--and tremendously difficult for other people in his life. What they don't know is that this annual ritual is generative, corrective. It helps anchor my friend for the rest of the year.
I have another friend who almost never visits his parents' gravesite.