During the Synod of the Covenant’s Equipping Preachers webinar last week, the Rev. Dr. Cindy Halvorson worked with participants to engage John 2:1-11 — an account of Jesus’ first miracle — through the eyes of the person of their choice as part of the story of Jesus transforming water into wine during the wedding at Cana.
Now that they’ve turned the corner on Advent and Christmas, preachers are, ready or not, turning their attention to Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 14 and runs through Easter Sunday, March 31.
When the Rev. Dr. Cleo LaRue hears a sermon, he’s listening for four things:
• Was the biblical text central to the sermon?
• Was there a controlling thought or identifiable sermonic idea, or was it, as LaRue calls it, “pearls without a string?”
• Could you follow the sermon with your listening ear? “I am opposed to long quotes,” the former homiletics professor at Princeton Theological Seminary said. “It takes it out of your voice and makes it difficult to hear and follow with your listening ear. You have to write in conversational tone to engage your congregation.”
• Did the sermon make a claim on your life? “Are you preaching because you have something to say,” he asked, “or are you preaching because you have to say something?”
Together with the Rev. Dr. Ellen Davis, her colleague at the Duke Divinity School, the Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal, who teaches homiletics there, has been teaching a class that requires students to preach a sermon on the climate crisis to any congregation in North Carolina.
The Synod of the Covenant, in partnership with Alma College, Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, and the Presbytery of Cincinnati, has received a grant of $1.25 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Cultivating the Gift of Preaching initiative.
The Rev. Dr. Cleo LaRue appeared online earlier this month as part of the Synod of the Covenant’s Equipping Preachers series. His nearly 90-minute webinar, hosted by the synod’s executive, the Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick, was entitled “A Refresher Course on Sermon Preparation.” It’s available here.
Wrapping up their three-part series on Mental Health, Science and the Church, the Synod of the Covenant and its partner, Science for the Church, recently offered an hourlong conversation on churches and church leaders who are offering mental health services to congregants and to their communities.
Which Harry Potter character are you? Which famous clown are you? Which “Friends” character are you?
Quizzes like this abound on the internet, claiming to tell us who we identify with most in pop culture. And they’re not just on the internet. I remember a rogue questionnaire — “Which Princeton Theological Seminary professor are you?” — that a couple of seniors with too much time on their hands wrote.
During the second of three webinars offered by the Synod of the Covenant and Science for the Church, this one held last week on the mental health and well-being of clergy and church leaders, Dr. David C. Wang of Fuller Theological Seminary laid out the reasons — many related to Covid — that church leaders are impacted by more mental health challenges than they were just three years ago.
On Wednesday, the Rev. Dr. Carolyn Helsel helped preachers in and around the Synod of the Covenant to think through preaching about racism in an era of critical race theory bans.
