A homiletics professor and a communications scholar sit down to write a book about preaching. This is either the beginning of a terrible joke to start a sermon on a Sunday morning or a fantastic collaboration between two vocations that both thrive on humor to convey a point quickly, meaningfully, and effectively.
Africans were brought to America in 1619 to be subjected to the cruel and evil institution of slavery. From 1619 to 1865, the brutal system of slavery was the law of the land, and then came years of Jim and Jane Crow. For African Americans, it was God and the church that fueled our imaginations of freedom.
Have you ever heard a technically beautiful sermon that impacted you more like a distant performance than an act of worship? An even better question: have you ever preached a sermon that felt that way to you? If I were in the room with you right now, I would have just raised my hand twice.
Many churches struggle to address the challenges of worship music in today’s diverse settings. As we move through 2024, congregations find themselves at a crossroads, grappling to reconcile the varying musical preferences across generations within their communities.
My job as a college chaplain involves quite a few public prayers at convocations, worship services, sporting events, and more. As I introduce myself to students or potential students, there is a running joke that I am the designated pray-er for our community. I am the one who shows up and has a word or two to offer for whatever we face as a community.
Cooking is a daily act full of deep connections and significance. Its significance is not as metaphor. Because all the spiritual meanings are inherent in the material parts and process of cooking; in cooking there is already a web of interdependence that connects us to land, people, and our ancestors.
It was Sunday morning and Julia, age five, was awake before the rest of the family. Her Sunday church clothes were laid out on the dresser in her room, and she began to get dressed hoping that this Sunday would bring her a church like the one she had gone to before her family moved to this new community. Hope Community Church had felt like home.
Worship is an important part of church life. Like a filling station, where you go to fill your car’s tank when running low on gas, the church is the place where people go to replenish their empty tanks with the Holy Spirit. This process occurs through worship with other children of Almighty God.
The rehearsal helped prepare us to sing well throughout the Advent and Christmas season, and we had a great time singing for our neighbors and enjoying cookies and cocoa afterward. Though it was a long day, everything went off without a hitch . . . well, not exactly everything.
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