In my new book Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life, I address preaching in multiple chapters. I was fortunate to learn from wise and skilled pastors and professors in my years of seminary. Many of the concepts…
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Guest Blog: Mary Elizabeth Hanchey
This week we are delighted to welcome a guest blog about preparing for Advent from Rev. Mary Elizabeth Hill Hanchey. She and her friend and collaborator Carlye Daugird have composed and curated a set of Advent resources to carry us…
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3MMM | Episode 63: Listening for the Holy
Holy Week Stop. Drop. And Listen. Holy week is upon us. As one of the two most intense weeks of the church year, perhaps you feel tempted. I know I have been. Tempted to make everything as meaningful and wondrous…
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3MMM | Episode 18: Preaching Jesus
I felt enthralled and overwhelmed by the sculpture of Mary holding Jesus (pictured above) when I stepped into the foyer at Belle Meade United Methodist Church to film this week’s episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor. And the name of the…
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Immigration Sermon 6-23-2018
The following homily was offered on June 23 as part of an action to “Stop Jailing Families” which called on Nashville Mayor Briley and Sheriff Hall to untangle their relationship with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and stop detaining immigrants,…
Read MoreAsh Wednesday – 2015
Gimme All Your Love So tell me what do you want me to do…You want me to lay down and play dead and do backflips for you? Walk in your shoes for a while? Tell me, what’s right? Gimme all your…
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Eastertide V
Practicing Resurrection E is for Every Body Rule # 3 for practicing resurrection: engage your whole body. We are equipped with a kind of knowing that is not mainly with our minds or cognitive abilities. We also know the world through…
Read MoreLent XXXII
Lenten Lights FF ~ Guest Post by Michaela O’Donnell Long Today’s photo and reflection come from photographer, media producer, and friend, Michaela O’Donnell Long.* “Morning Door” by Michaela O’Donnell Long I work from home. Well, technically, I work from my garage-turned-studio.…
Read MoreLent XVIII
Lenten Lights R ~ Visibility Walking through the streets of New Orleans, so much captures my vision: the visible and the hidden. A wrought iron window in a blue door pulls me up for a closer look at its intricate…
Read MoreTransfiguration Sunday
The Beauty of Need To want. To need. To love. Surely this is what lit up the face of Moses? Want. Need. Love. Awe. “Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two…
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Advent IV : Rethinking the Posture of Waiting
Rethinking the Posture of Waiting (2011) Here we are on the third Sunday in Advent, a celebration of Joy. We are thinking and waiting in expectation. And although my daughter awoke sick long before dawn, she is on the mend,…
Read MoreAdvent III
St. John’s Abbey church is an amazing cavern with a multi-story wall of honeycomb shaped windows. Each pane is filled with abstract shapes and color. They grow more beautiful as morning light rises. However, this morning the beauty cannot outweigh the exclusivity and harm of the words and deeds of the tradition itself.
Read MoreEpiphany VI
This Epiphany season one image keeps flitting through my mind. I snapped this pic of a statue of Jesus at Christ Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill last fall. I was there with a group of faculty and students from Luther Seminary sharing the experience of Pray and Break Bread. When I’ve visited churches of the neighborhoods of the Twin Cities I’ve found it interesting to ask this question: “What does Jesus look like here?”
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