Four Ways to Preserve Your Humanity When Stressed
When we’re under stress, our body releases hormones that interfere with our executive functioning—our ability to make thoughtful, strategic decisions. As a result, we know we have a ton of work to do, but we don’t know what to do right now to move forward, leaving us stuck in overwhelm. Or worse, we turn on those around us. Read on for suggestions to pause the surge of fight-or-flight hormones, regulate your emotions, re-enter a thinking state, and do the good work.
Going small for Sermon Inspiration
God's glory is revealed in the small as well as the big: in the sparrow and the heavens, the mustard seed and the mountains, the little children and the disciples. And our preaching grows stronger when we learn to attune ourselves to the way God appears in the smallest details of the Bible's stories and text.
I Hate to Tell You: We Can Still Get It Right
Humanity continues to get so much wrong. And until we can admit we’re getting things wrong, we can’t get them right. We will continue to dig deeper and deeper holes that are harder to get out of. So why don’t we just admit it? And how do we preach into this resistance?
Lenten Preaching: Why Change is So Hard
We preachers often wonder whether our words have any effect. The people we preach to and the world around us pretty much look the same week after week. It doesn’t often look like the Good News has caught fire in people’s hearts. It doesn’t look like the reign of God is being built. For all our efforts to preach the Good News, how come it looks like nothing much is changing?
Your free, at-home Lenten retreat: Exhale
We work hard to create an environment so that those we serve enter into a holy and sacred season of fasting, reflection, and prayer. And what about you?
We have created an environment for you with this free, at-home Lenten retreat. It includes quotations, poetry, Lectio Divina, and questions for reflection—with suggestions for three schedules to suit your schedule of ninety minutes, three hours, or six. By the end, you will have exhaled your concerns about what is to come, and be held in the present, liminal moment between breaths: our place of rest within the Holy.
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I participated in the Lectio study today with a complicated and double-speak Gospel (John 17:6-19) and WOW! I received so much great insight and am headed in a direction I feel really good about. Thank you to all my colleagues! If you are wondering if this is worth it, wonder no more. It is.
—Donna G.
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The Gospel People Don't Want to Hear: Preaching Challenging Messages was written to aid preacher’s in understanding what’s at stake for their listeners so they can craft sermons their audience can receive, even if they challenge cherished beliefs.
I just have to say WOW. I'm so grateful that I made the investment and joined The Collective. These Thursday [workshops] are a game-changer for me.
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