preaching

Mary Clark Moschella recommends the best recently published books in her field.

In Athens, the apostle bears witness—and doesn't try to be cool.

On Sunday, after a tragic week of race-related killings in Dallas, Minneapolis, and Baton Rouge, I took a seat in my white evangelical middle-class megachurch in central Pennsylvania. I didn’t know what to expect, but as the sermon began I found myself pleasantly surprised.

My pastor used his scheduled sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to address the issue of race in America.

This episode consists of some of our favorite moments from episodes 14-33, which aired during our second season in the winter and spring of 2016.

In response to our request for essays on the subject road, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.

There's a subtext to lots of sermons I hear, and some I preach: Discomfort is avoidable. Here's my formula. It's the promise of all bogus religion.

This episode consists of some of our favorite moments from the first 12 episodes, which aired in the fall of 2015. Matt will be back with new interviews with preachers starting next week.

A preacher's nightmare is to be in front of an eager congregation and realize your notes are missing. No wonder one of my favorite Bible stories is about a clergyperson who's rendered speechless.

The Totentatz window was created soon after the Shoah but with no reference to the city's murdered Jews. Two of them were my grandparents.

Fleming Rutledge's magnum opus is many things: a look at the ways the death of Christ has been interpreted, an argument that the how of his death matters, and a protest against Christianity-light.

I’m not one who has any natural inclination to vulnerability, but the suggestions I read that clergy vulnerability should be exercised in the pulpit of all places really make me cringe. I’ve asked Carol Howard Merritt for her thoughts on vulnerability as an element of clergy self-care.

My sixth-grade sex ed teacher held up a worksheet and apologized: “I know this is sort of unromantic.” Books on preaching can leave us similarly cold.

What I miss most is not the preaching itself but the preparing, the rhythm, the demand, and the discipline.

After I preach, I want to relive the moment over and over, soaring away on an ego-driven high. Beforehand, I hide in the bathroom.

Reading Amy-Jill Levine's Short Stories by Jesus, I kept wishing she had published it earlier. It would have saved me some mistakes in the pulpit.

Craddock let the word out that he would be available at no charge for preaching and teaching. Only non-seminary graduates should attend.

After years of wrestling, I settled in a predominately white church. My logic was this: if every white person concerned about racial justice leaves white churches, then there will be few women or men there to help. This Sunday, I worried that Ferguson or other police shootings of African Americans would once again go unmentioned in the sermon or a prayer.

There is a black lab—a student's guide dog—lying on the floor during chapel. As I preach, I wonder what the dog is thinking.