Last week I soaked up powerful words, ideas and images from a premiere host of preachers at the Festival of Homiletics held in Nashville, Tn.  1700 gathered from all around the globe to engage theologically the practices of preaching and worship, as well as issues related to congregations in the 21st century.   The enthusiastic crowd seemed more than satisfied with the spectrum of worship, lectures and workshops.   Yet in the midst I heard a very specific challenge urging preachers to stop reading/using manuscripts and even notes in the pulpit.

Excellent messages were delivered by a range of preachers including Barbara Brown Taylor, Otis Moss III, Vashti Murphy McKenzie, and Will Willimon, but I want to focus on what I heard echoed in the lectures of two seminary presidents, Craig Barnes of Princeton and William Carl III of Pittsburgh.  Barnes’ lecture, “Preaching as Sacred Conversation” and Carl’s “The Brain Technique for Preaching without Notes” really made the case that the more you look at your congregation the more they will engage with what is said.  Surely this is not a radical concept, and yet most Young Preachers I know are very tied to their notes or manuscript.

I think of how distracted I was by the Young Preacher at an AoP Festival who kept flipping his big yellow legal pad as he preached.  No matter how powerful the content, the message got a little lost in the medium.  His words would have been received so much better if he’d put as much energy into internalizing his sermon as he did writing it.  I readily confess that I’ve preached from a manuscript, and likewise can say it’s never been as satisfying for me or the congregation as when I haven’t.

Though manuscript preaching may be a time honored tradition, must I remind you the times are changing.  Preachers need to engage with people, not just allow their words to wash over them.  So the idea of preaching as conversation is a perfect metaphor. Barnes noted the preacher is only to be a conduit for the “sacred conversation between the congregation and God.”

Barnes offered a list of 16 very practical steps he followed as a local church pastor in weekly sermon prep.  He began by spending each morning in prayer and study of the week’s text without interruption.  (Read: out of the church office.)  This allowed him to approach the rest of his day with God’s word in his mind as he absorbed the many words of parishioners.  Thus the sermon was the result of both sides of the weekly conversation.

I found his lecture so helpful, I’ve asked him to allow us to print it.  Be on the look-out in the coming weeks for the additional 15 steps.  Know that weaning from manuscript to expansive outline to minimal outline to preaching note free, is a highlight of Barnes’ advice.

William Carl III is both the President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Professor of Homiletics.  (Happy to note PTS is AoP’s newest National Partner.)  Holding a Ph.D. in rhetoric and communication has added to Carl’s credentials as preacher and communicator.  He’s evidently done his homework on how to expand brainpower for effective preaching.  He offered a masterful workshop that was packed and overflowing at the Festival of Homiletics.  Seems the idea of preaching note free appeals to preachers as well as listeners and in an age of constant communication, we need to give of our very best in telling the very best news.

Carl gave good background on how the human brain developed and functions helping us know that the brain is a phenomenal treasure chest allowing so much more than we think possible.  He advocated a right brain/ left brain methodology for reducing a 10 page vertical manuscript down to 2 horizontal pages of words and hand drawn pictures.  The idea is to place one key word from each paragraph on the right side of the page with an image you’ve drawn to the left of it. This allows the left side of the brain, which relates to words and ideas, to read what’s on the right.  The right side of the brain, which relates to images, will see the picture on the left.  The combination will trigger the information stored from the manuscript you’ve written and allow you the freedom to communicate without losing precious eye contact with the listeners.  With practice, the goal is to learn the trigger words/ images, but not use them in the pulpit.

The full lecture is readily available and more than worth the hour you’ll spend.  http://vimeo.com/21430414  I recommend watching his presentation over reading his article for obvious reasons.  He makes his case visually.  During the lecture in Nashville, a preacher who has learned the technique reported, “My people say they can really tell a difference.  Most importantly, they say the gospel is more real to them since I stopped preaching from notes.”

Recognizing that communication is proven to be 10% verbal, 20% visual (body language) and 70% facial, what are we waiting for?  How long do you want to converse with someone who keeps looking down?  Why do you expect your congregation to stay engaged with the top of your head?  Developing the best of communication skills is essential in your calling.

Preachers, we are responsible to give those in our congregation every opportunity to carry on their own sacred conversation beyond Sunday morning.

If you can’t remember your sermon, be assured no one else will.

In working with youth and young adults I have found there is no topic that is off limits. Asking the hard questions and “keeping it real” is what speaks to this culture. Coming up with answers that are laced with biblical scriptures, often times out of context, or clichés void of practical wisdom will leave this generation walking out the door to find a more meaningful experience that will give voice to their present day realities. However, the church has a group of older saints who hold a very different, and often times traditional view of scripture. They are more reserved and private. They believe in literal translations of the bible and certain topics should never be taught, much less preached about from the pulpit. This is the challenge the emerging preachers are met with as we move out to fulfill our call to be gospel preachers.

Heiji Faber compares pastoral care to that of the circus clown. One of the things we must learn to do with great skill and ease is walk this tight rope of preaching if we are going to honor the sacred task we have embraced. In my two months of serving as minister-in-residence I have found two things helpful. First, my job as preacher is not to give people the answers. Rather, I have been called to facilitate conversations; conversations between individuals and conversations that take place within the individual. Authentic preaching will cause us to wrestle and push past our comfortableness to truly hear what God is saying to the church. These exercises will facilitate growth and growth moves us into deeper relationship. Secondly, the preaching moment is not the time to push my personal opinions or agenda. Instead I have been called to offer hope to the hopeless, love to the unloved, strength to the weak and second chances to those who have fallen short of perfection. What I believe in the moments I stand behind the pulpit is irrelevant. I am called to illuminate God and the transforming power of the Good News.

So yes, preaching to this new generation and the Church is a difficult task. It stretches the preacher to grapple with questions that have no answers and forces us to admit we don’t know everything. For a seminary trained person, those are difficult realities, but its rewards are priceless!

George Thomas Moody 1923-2013

Tom Moody died this week, after a wonderful life of 90 years and 2 months. Somewhere along that long and circuitous journey he answered the call to preach the gospel. No, he didn’t walk the aisle, attend a vocational discernment retreat, or hear the voice of Jesus; he simply responded when somebody called and asked him to “supply the pulpit” in the absence of their pastor.

I went with him a time or two when I was young, and heard him preach now and then during high school and college. When I was 28 he asked me to preach the sermon at his ordination; it was one of the high points of my ministerial career: June, 1978, in Murray, Kentucky.

My father was never completely comfortable in the pulpit, not even when leading prayer or making announcements. He did it because it was required of him and because it was essential to the success of his work (and the work of the entire congregation) and because someone else asked him to.  And when they asked him to preach, he did that also.

But the truth is, any time he stepped before the people they heard him gladly, largely because he carried with him into the pulpit such credibility, such authenticity, such humility, such earnestness; he was deeply concerned about the spiritual welfare of his hearers and that concern radiated under and around the reluctance that naturally accompanied his preaching. He was a living testimony to the real gospel, the power of God to shape a person’s life so as to reflect the goodness and grace of Jesus.

This genuineness did not fully compensate for the reluctance that accompanied his walk to the pulpit; he would much rather sit in his pew, always the second pew on the left (facing the pulpit), and listen to someone else preach, especially when the preaching was animated, biblically rooted, oriented toward the conversion of the lost, and punctuated with stories and humor.

Tom Moody loved good preaching, of the Southern evangelical style, and often during more than four decades in ministry he was privileged to hear it, and occasionally called to do it. In both of these practices, the hearing and the preaching, Tom Moody was my inspiration, and it was to him that I turned again and again to navigate the waters of pastoral work and gospel preaching.

To honor Tom Moody, the reluctant preacher, I (with the Academy of Preachers) am creating a Tom Moody Preaching Scholarship. I invite you to join me is honoring one who has run his race and finished the course even as we invest in others who are just now approaching the starting line; and some of those just may have the same brand of reluctance that accompanied my father every time he took a text and talked about Jesus.

Here is the complete obituary read at his funeral; here is my short eulogy (one of four in the service).

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.  Acts 17:11 NIV

I have to confess that I am deeply uncomfortable with the word “entrepreneur.” A few negative run-ins with business majors while in college – coupled with a deep sympathy for the Marxist critique of the whole Capitalist enterprise – has apparently resulted in rather ambiguous feelings about those business people who call themselves entrepreneurs.

So when I was asked us to write about “being an entrepreneur in ministry,” I didn’t know how to respond. It was obvious from the initial prompt that we were supposed to focus more on the pluck, determination, and imagination of an entrepreneur than on his or her specific role as a business person with an idea to pitch and a bottom line to meet. But it is difficult for me to divorce the charismatic connection-maker from the [business person].

Still, I was determined to stick to the theme, and to be only mildly critical of it, so I began looking for alternative kinds of entrepreneurs, people who weren’t interested in large profit margins but were still plucky, determined, and imaginative. The solution to my dilemma, it turns out, had been right under my nose the entire time.

In October, I recently began attending Berea Mennonite Church, a small Anabaptist congregation near the heart of East Atlanta. If the word “pluck” has ever been properly used in the history of the English language, it is when referring to this congregation. Over the past two decades – with plenty of entrepreneurial spirit – Berea has cobbled together a 9-acre farm, a significant piece of land that allows the congregation to live into an alternative economy.

For example, the congregation just asked my fiancé Leanna to come on board as their worship leader. Instead of providing her with a nice salary and an office, they offered her a place to live in the church’s basement apartment suite. When she gets up in the morning, she takes care of the farm’s chickens, and takes a few eggs back for her morning omelette. Or she can spend her afternoon working with the farmer and then use some of that produce in the evening meal. The church supports the farm, the farm supports Leanna, and Leanna supports the church. Instead of relying on the transfer of currency, Berea focuses on a different way of living, one that emphasizes abundance over scarcity and insists on a connection to the land.

But even when money does change hands, it does so in a different way. This summer, Berea will host a series of farm camps that will focus not only on the importance of sustainable food, but will also teach peace skills to the campers. The modest fee collected from the campers who can pay it will be immediately turned around in the form of scholarships for those kids who would otherwise be unable to attend. Instead of focusing on making a profit and then investing those profits to produce an even great profit, Berea is choosing to use its money to impact the real flourishing of human lives all around the neighborhood.

And all this talk of farming reminds of a time when Jesus spoke about a farmer. This man went out to sow his seed, but only some of it landed on the good soil. The rest of it was eaten by birds, choked by weeds, or failed to grow in rocky soil. Any way you interpret it, it seems that 25% is the success rate in the Kingdom of God, though that initial 25% goes on to produce a much greater crop.

What the parable is trying to communicate is the message that Berea is carefully attempting to live into: the Kingdom of God operates on different economic principles than the U.S.A. The parable of the sower seems utterly foolish to a “normal” farmer, just as Leanna’s living situation (which builds no home equity) or the situation at the peace camps (which produces no profit for the church) might seem foolish to those entrepreneurs who are concerned with the activity of every dollar.

Thus, if we are called to be entrepreneurs, we are called to do so within the economy of the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the world. We must be imaginative and creative and plucky and charismatic, but we must also embrace the lavish and foolish abundance that Jesus modeled for his followers. We must live into a different economy, one that is unconcerned with stock options and dividends but cares deeply about human beings and their flourishing on this earth. If we can be those kinds of entrepreneurs, then I might just be willing to leave all my hang-ups behind.

What visit to England is complete without visiting the astonishing and ancient cathedrals and abbeys that dot the land? Three were on my agenda, Bath Abbey, Westminster Abbey and York Minster Cathedral. Each was of course grand with centuries of history, medieval stained glass and a sacred sense of those who envisioned such houses of worship and those who lived to see them erected. None of these amazing edifices let me down in any regard.

What I didn’t know to expect was that these are thriving Christian communities. Unlike my ignorant presupposition, none were museums. As active Anglican churches they welcomed worshipers of all traditions to join them for daily services in addition to the historical and architectural tours. Worship was and is the core of these magnificent buildings, just as it has always been.

I attended a contemporary service on a Sunday evening in Bath. Though it seemed a bit oxymoronic to me to be singing praise choruses projected on a screen in a sanctuary begun in 1499 A.D., the congregation seemed fully at home with the ancient and the modern. This made me wonder why I thought it odd to begin with. Christianity has in fact a 2000 + year old history, and because of the ability to evolve all those generations have held a Christian witness. The sermon that evening wasn’t a history lesson; it was a very present scripture lesson encouraging us to live the gospel now.

While in Westminster we were called to a time of prayer on the hour, led over the loud speaker by one of their ministers. While there I spoke at length with a canon-steward and learned how very personal Westminster is to the Royal Family in meeting their needs for pastoral care over the centuries. In fact in 1861, after the death of her husband, Queen Victoria spent many nights at the Abbey with the Dean’s family because she couldn’t yet face returning to Buckingham Palace alone.

York, in the north of England, was the biggest surprise in a small city. I was so struck by the distance of York from Jerusalem, given the earliest Christian worship took place on the spot that became the Cathedral within 200 years of the resurrection of Jesus. Obviously, there were eager evangelists taking the message to what was the end of their world. According to the literature “Generations have, by their presence, their prayers and their gifts created this great house of prayer.” This was particularly evident in the North Transept not because of the architectural and artistic treasures, but because a bake sale was taking place to raise funds for meeting the needs of the poor. The current generation continues to do the work of Christ in this place by prayerfully acting on Christ’s good news.

Evidence abounded in all of the churches that the ability to adjust keeps Christianity vigorous. I was reminded that the bride of Christ is a not new invention, while being encouraged that his tender mercies are daily renewed. Knowing the message of Christ’s grace as our center and continuing to faithfully preach it will take the Church into the future just as faithfully as it has brought us safe thus far.

By Tyler Best AoP ’12, Religion Student University of Evansville

England may be a small country geographically, but it has a tremendous history of creative Christian witness.  With that in mind I want to focus our attention on a distinguished native of England and his adventures.

It is rather natural to envision images of Mary Kay Ash, Bill Gates, Madame C.J. Walker, and Steve Jobs when we hear the word “entrepreneur.”  These are honestly the names that have come to my mind, but just as these people have affected the lives of millions through their work, there is one individual who may have impacted more lives than Ash, Gates, Walker, and Jobs combined.

Whether you agree with none, some, or all of his theology, there is no denying that John Wesley had an entrepreneurial spirit that was contagious and transformative.  When Wesley sought to spread the Gospel to Native Americans in an unknown place, everything did not turn out exactly the way he envisioned.  In fact, it isn’t a secret that his endeavor in America was a complete catastrophe.  Not only was he unsuccessful with Native Americans, he also had issues with parishioners in the community he served.  His experience in America ended as he literally escaped the colony before charges could be brought against him.

Did Wesley cease his ministry endeavors after this failed attempt?  Of course not!  Sure, he was discouraged and unhappy from the whole experience, but it did not stop him.  True entrepreneurs of the Gospel do not allow failures to hinder their eventual success.

Upon returning to England and experiencing a conversion experience on Aldersgate Street, Wesley began implementing several innovative ideas.  Through obedience to God and the encouragement of people around him, he was able to effectively put these ideas in place.  Chief among these was his desire to preach outdoors and reach people the Church had neglected and avoided for quite some time.

Just like any effective entrepreneur, Wesley did not build his movement alone.  He also trained and sent out other lay preachers to take part in the very same activity.  It did not stay in one place and become stagnant.  Just as we see companies like Apple Inc. expanding into markets all throughout the world, we saw John Wesley using Gospel preachers to influence their world throughout England and eventually America.  He chose people he could trust, people who captured the vision and I will acknowledge my belief that the effort has been quite successful.

It wasn’t completely acceptable to all the people around him.  It is unfortunate that Wesley received opposition from leaders within the Church of England, but also close friends, that rejected his ideas.  Obviously, this criticism did not hinder Wesley either.

These experiences are not relevant to John Wesley alone.  Often times we allow what may be perceived as a failure (ministry related or not) to hinder our entrepreneurial and innovative side.  We allow others to impede our Gospel-spreading effectiveness through negative attitudes.  If you haven’t experienced a situation like this personally, you may know others that may have experienced a similar situation.

Be encouraged as you remember the determined attitude of John Wesley and help others do the same.  What if he had abandoned ministry after his failure?  There is no doubt that the world would be a far different place.  Today Methodists number about 30 million people worldwide, but the impact goes far beyond simple numbers.  All of this achievement is due to one man being obedient to God as he stepped outside his failure and used entrepreneurial skills to reach people in the name of Jesus Christ that hadn’t been reached before.  As a result, many lives have been transformed and will continue to be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“I look upon all the world as my parish.” – John Wesley

Dwight A. Moody

National Geographic cable channel recently aired a program entitled “Pint Size Preachers.” Here is the link. It is both spell-binding and disturbing.

Perhaps that 50-minute video inspired the studio in Hollywood who contacted us last week seeking names and addresses of other pint size preachers.  I did not respond.

Eighteen months ago we were approached by another production company wanting to do a reality show with high school preachers. I engaged in a month-long email dialogue, during which I fielded warnings from key colleagues and watched last year’s reality show about Amish: Breaking Amish. Frankly, I thought that show did a good job of reflecting reality and making it interesting.

But pint size preachers?  One colleague wrote: “Not the pond we want to swim in.” I agree; but at the same time, I am fascinated by child prodigies, especially in the arts. Jesus, I am convinced, was a child prodigy as have been many of the famous pianists and composers. Some mimicked their musically talented parents and started playing musical instruments at a very early age. Van Cliburn testifies that his call to be a classical pianist happened at age five!

There is much evidence that many young people think seriously about their life work beginning at adolescence, about age 12. Their dreams at that age of making movies, fighting fires, teaching children, discovering cures, playing ball, planting corn, programming computers, singing songs, and yes, preaching gospel are very real and powerful.

Not all vocation visions last through college into the job search; but many do. Such dreams at this age cease being primarily about parental influence and begin to flow directly from the soul and imagination of the young person.

Which is why we seek to identify young people as early as 14 think of preaching the gospel as a vocation. I was 15 when the idea stirred my imagination. I am suspicious of three-year-old preachers; but when a 16-something kid signs up to preach at a regional or national festival I take it very seriously. It is part of our mission to “identify, network, support, and inspire young people in their call to gospel preaching.”

I am reproducing here an article distributed by the Alban Institute. The text is taken from a new book the Alban Institute has just published entitled Preaching That Matters: Reflective Practices for Transforming Sermons. The book is written by Dr. Lori J. Carrell, who is Distinguished Professor Communication at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. Dr. Carrell is also a friend of mine and a member of the core leadership team at the Academy of Preachers. She attends our National Festival of Young Preachers where she has been both a featured speaker and a workshop leader; she designs and administers the tools we use to assess our festivals and their impact on the Young Preachers. Dr. Carrell is committed to the mission and programs of the Academy of Preachers and sees them as a powerful antidote to the growing indifference to preaching in the church and among ministers.

Now these words from Dr. Carrell:

“Thousands of listeners from across the United States can contribute to your thinking about the potential value of preaching. These adult listeners attend all kinds of churches—tiny and mega, but mostly medium; healthy and troubled; mainline, evangelical, Catholic, and community. Their responses have been gathered through multiple studies.

“Fifty-four pastors will arrive at the Center for Excellence in Ministry in a few months, ready to hear feedback from their listeners. Their parishioners have recorded responses to recent sermons through ten-question surveys. If these new listener-respondents are like the thousands surveyed previously, they do not usually provide their preachers with feedback.

“More than 78 percent of listeners say that they have “never” discussed a sermon with their preachers, so how could you possibly know what your listeners are thinking?I am writing to share compiled results of listeners’ responses about the value of your preaching, to apologize for our previous silence, and to set the record straight. Pastor, here’s why we listen and why your preaching matters to us.

We Listen to Your Preaching Expecting Inspiration

“When asked to list the elements of the church service “most likely to have an impact on my spiritual journey,” the number one answer from listeners was “the sermon.” Preachers did not predict their listeners would answer that way! Said a listener from a coastal state, “I like good music and my church friends, but I come on Sunday hoping for inspiration from the sermon, inspiration to encourage my spiritual growth.”

“When asked to give advice to pastors, another wrote, “Recognize the power of your words.” The role of inspiration in preaching is often overlooked by pastors who may be focusing on explanation and exposition. Please hear the affirmation of your role as a leader of a community of Christ-followers who are seeking spiritual growth through the inspiration present in your preaching. Perhaps you thought their silence suggested they were not responding. Think again.

We Look to Your Preaching for Spiritual Leadership

“We can download daily devotionals and upload viral videos, but where do we gather to hear a community leader speak with us about important issues? In the United States, in 2013, that place is still the church. One listener admits, “I can get better presentation from television preaching, but I want to hear this person I know, this person who knows me, this leader in our community of believers. . . . I really believe God speaks through the pastor to us.”

“Though some analysts predict that a few podcasting superpreachers will soon proclaim to a great global pew, right now most Christ-followers are seeking spiritual direction from the public spoken words of their pastors. Your physical presence in the congregation creates the opportunity for relationship with the listening community. The credibility emerging from that relational connection is a critical contributor to the potential power of your preaching. Listeners expect spiritual direction from your preaching.

We Rely on Your Preaching for Spiritual Content

“Preaching is unique among sources of advice. Listeners are clear that they want biblically based content in sermons. One dissatisfied listener complained, “At our church, we’re encouraged to be nice, be kind, have a positive attitude. How is that different from everybody else? What does it have to do with the Bible or God?”

“In less than the split second it took to push the Enter key just now, a Web search for spiritual growth help provided 52,800,000 links for me to browse. And yet, listeners find unique value in sermon content. They keep coming back to church. Why? They are seeking spiritual content from your preaching; quite specifically, they want to hear from God.

“If you are a preacher who sometimes wonders what parishioners are expecting, please hear this crucial response from your previously silent listeners: We are listening to you for spiritual content, which we have determined is a priority for us, listening to hear God’s voice through you, listening for something we don’t hear or view or download anywhere else.

We Listen to Your Preaching Expecting Long-Lasting Impact

“Even listeners who say a particular sermon merely reminded them of something they already knew resolve to “think about” the content during the week. Now that’s determination! Listener optimism about the value of preaching is reflected in another significant response: a vast majority of the thirty thousand plus listeners participating in this research thus far anticipate that sermons—regardless of topic or preacher—are likely to affect their spiritual journeys “in lasting ways.”

“Even when the pastor hasn’t used inspirational language, hasn’t included ideas for implementation, or hasn’t even asked for change, listeners are still committed to contemplating the content, because they perceive there is potential for spiritual growth to occur. And many who didn’t find content that might lead to spiritual life-change this week still say, “I am motivated to come back to hear more sermons.”

“We listeners crave your spiritual leadership. Overwhelmed? Doubting your impact? God has a well-established pattern of calling inadequate people to monumental tasks, speaking through them in spite of their deficiencies or failures. I heard one of you preach about that just last Sunday.

“Believing in the potential power of your preaching can begin a radical transformation process. Yes, attention spans are short. Yes, biblical literacy is lower than it used to be.Yes, solidified deposits of individualism and materialism may be barriers to your preaching about New Testament Christ-following communities. But preaching can make a difference. A significant difference. And it’s not just your listeners who have such grand expectations for the impact of preaching. The Message paraphrase of 1 Corinthians1:21 puts it like this:

“Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

Preaching Matters

“Affirming that preaching matters is itself transformational. If you actually believe that those minutes you will spend communicating with your congregation next Sunday have the potential to change lives, you may approach the pulpit and your prayer life and your sermon preparation a little differently from the way you did last week, when you wondered if those spoken words of yours were evaporating. Preaching, and all related tasks, may move up on your priority list.

“The spoken act of preaching remains the predominant mode of communicating God’s Word to God’s people. Next weekend, next month, and probably next year, you will continue to speak face to face with believers who want to grow spiritually. As a person called to a spiritual leadership role, your commitments to studying Scripture and deepening your faith are both critical to pending transformation in your congregations and communities. What else is needed?

“In a recent address to academics who study learning, Georgetown University’s Associate Provost for Institutional Renewal Randy Bass provided a challenge appropriate for both scholars and preachers. He described a visit to the Cape Cod ceramics studio of acclaimed potter Joan Lederman. Joan began decades ago to work with mud discarded from an oceanography institute in her Woods Hole, Massachusetts, community. As Randy (carefully!) examined a piece of her pottery created with sediment from the floors of all seven oceans, he asked her to describe how she deepens her learning, continuing to grow as an artist. Working at her wheel, Joan described a moment-by-moment, heightened awareness of how the mud responds to her touch. That encounter inspired Bass to embrace a similar scrutiny for his work, and to declare that intense inspection of what we do as we do it is necessary for deep learning.

“For as long as you continue to speak for God publicly—to preach or teach or proclaim—a close, authentic examination of your sermon communication through reflective practice is needed. Challenge yourself, prayerfully—for your calling to preach is high and holy.”
______________________________________

This article is excerpted and adapted from Preaching that Matters: Reflective Practices for Transforming Sermons by Lori J. Carrell. Copyright ©2013 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved. This book will be for sale at all preaching events sponsored and managed by the Academy of Preachers.

By the time the festival rolls around (January 2-5, 2014) more than 40 other businesses, congregations, denominations, institutions and organizations will join this effort to sponsor one of the most amazing events in American Christianity.

Some will advertise/exhibit/sponsor in order to recruit students; others to sell products and services; some to showcase and support their own young preachers; and a few simply to endorse the work of the Academy of Preachers.

Forty of these advertisers will set up exhibits and actually talk with these Young Preachers (and their mentors, teachers, parents, and friends—attendance is expected to top 600 this year, not counting PREACHAPALOOZA).

Want to be a part of the fifth National Festival of Young Preachers?

You can register to attend, of course; and all aspects of the festival are free and open to the public. We do charge for food, of course; and we sell a room package of three nights and 4 meals for about $350: not bad for a first class hotel at the center of a city.

Here is the link to the National Festival registration.

You can sign on to advertise and/or exhibit at the National Festival; or you can agree to host or sponsor part of the Festival: a workshop, a dinner, a break, a reception, the Gospel Slam or even PREACHAPALOOZA, even a worship service. We are looking for sponsors that will help us plan, staff, and lead these plenary events at the 2014 National Festival of Young Preachers.

Here is the link to the National Festival advertising and sponsorship information.

Our gathering in Indianapolis promises to be an inspirational and transformational event. Plan to be there, to promote your own institution or products, to play a prominent and public role in making it happen, and to help us “identify, network, support, and inspire young people in their call to gospel preaching.”

Here is the link to the Festival survey.

Young Preachers Survey 2013

This is a professionally designed and administered research tool, and all responses are strictly confidential. All responses go straight to the research center in Wisconsin where results are organized and tabulated anonymously.

Last year 79 of the 120 young preachers completed the survey. We hope to surpass that number this year. Even if you participated last year, we ask you to take the few minutes necessary to tell us what you think about your call to preach and your experience in Atlanta.

The information we gather from this survey enables us to plan better festivals, respond to the needs and preferences of young preachers, and assess the effectiveness of our work. In addition, it plays a powerful role in presenting our work to donors who provide so much of our funding.

We need your help, you who preached at the Festival in Atlanta . Click in the link above and complete the survey. Thanks much.