Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

An Introduction to North American Indigenous Sermons During the waning years of the COVID-19 pandemic, my co-author Danny Zacharias and I traveled across Canada and the United States, respectively, to interview First Nation/Native American ministers, leaders, and medicine men on how their Indigenous heritages and lifeways inform how they read the Bible. We sat through …

I took a deep, steadying breath as I walked to the pulpit, remembering the words of the 12th-century Benedictine nun and mystic Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179): “I am a feather on the breath of God.” This phrase had become my mantra as I went through sudden and painful job loss, unexpected surgeries, and relationship issues.  …

In her graduate studies, Elisabeth R. Jones kept encountering the phrase “referencing the rabbis.” Over time, she came to understand that the rabbinic way of looking at texts felt quite different from how she approached Scripture texts as a Christian theologian. But it was not until she began serving as pastor in her current congregation …

Lament is a language born of both grief and anger: grief over that which is being lost, and anger over the circumstances that brought about the loss in the first place.  If we forfeit the language of lament in our preaching and worship, faith communities are bereft of one of the most significant resources for …

Grab your coffee and join Karoline Lewis on the porch for this week’s Preacher to Preacher moment. She’s reflecting on the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, a woman who refused to be silenced, even by Jesus. Sometimes speaking up is for us, and sometimes it’s for someone we love. View this post on Instagram …