Preaching to the Dead in a Graveyard on Good Friday Night
Y’all know how it is…sometimes you just get so wound up you have to go to preach at a graveyard after midnight! Perfectly normal behavior. My soul was seriously so agitated and electrified by the witness of Justin Jones & Justin Pearson last night, I got dressed and preached a Good Friday sermon to a captive audience at Brick Chapel Cemetery. If y’all don’t amen me, the owls and wild dogs already did.
I’m not trying to do something gimmicky or clever. Where I come from when you hear good preaching, you stand up and let the preacher know they are blessing you. Yesterday we all got to bear witness. I don’t claim to be a great preacher, but I know it when I hear it.
Bonus: on the road to Emmaus, the not yet revealed resurrected One explained how his death fit into “what the prophets had spoken.” I know we have a crisis of authority, where many of you don’t know who to believe/what voices to trust. My philosophy here is simple: I listen to the what the prophets have spoken. I’m not listening to the pundits. I’m not listening to the commentators. I’m listening to the prophets.
Hear me out: America has one primary prophetic tradition that has consistently provided a counter witness capable of transforming culture. I’m not saying it’s the only one. It’s the primary one-one that continues to speak a word that can wake the dead. It starts with “black” and ends with “church.” I’m not interested in philosophy lectures from Jordan Peterson when the strategist who shaped MLK Rev. Jim Lawson is still alive. I’m not interested in following that rabbit hole of videos out of morbid curiosity so long as there’s a Cornel West talk or @otismossiii sermon I haven’t heard. I wish 60 Minutes spent more time on Fannie Lou Hamer than Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I know the sound of God when I hear it, and I listen when I hear that sound. I’ve heard your guy, and they didn’t speak a word that made dry bones dance. The difference between these prophets and the others is that when they all show up on Mt. Carmel and they cry out—fire falls.
The story God tells about you, with Joel Everson
I don’t know quite what to tell you about this, since we had not felt anything or said anything quite like what we felt and said before. What I can say, is that the story God is telling about you, may be very different from the story they tell about you. And if they can’t tell the truth about the woman in John 4, WELL…also: hear us freak out at our real-time encouragement from John P. Kee :)
a real-time first take review of U2's new "Songs of Surrender!"
U2. Songs of Surrender. With our good friends Stella and our brother from TN, George Dickel.
grace also to you, John MacArthur
MEAAAANNN...by God, GENE!!! On this Zeitcast, we are talking about how people can think they are culture-free, but everybody else is shaped by "the culture," inglorious ways of defining the "glory of God," how it's possible to take Revelation literally but not the Sermon on the Mount (!?), the relationship between Jesus and Paul, "the world," "the flesh," and Shusaku Endo's epic novel, Silence. WOOOOO!!!
speaking, on speaking
Do you speak--to any size crowd, behind a podium, or behind a screen? Our daughter Kaitlyn is competing for Miss Teen Oklahoma, so I've been talking to her about speaking--which got me thinking more broadly about the handful of things I most deeply believe about public speaking: as art, as magic, as an opportunity to break something human inside of someone else. Whatever kind of speaking you do or are interested in doing, I hope you find something helpful here! Why for me it's all about relaxing into the moment, avoiding over-hyping yourself to the point of over-shooting the landing, why being hyper aware of your surroundings generally trumps even great content, being vulnerable without over-sharing, and my current mantra: VARY YOUR TONE!
Who is TRULY marginalized? (also, do you have to be married to know what it really means to be loved? Do you need to be a sheep to know God as good shepherd?)
Does theology exist to set boundaries and parameters for how we think/speak about God--or blow them up?
when the house is swept
What is the difference between finding Jesus, losing religion, finding crystals or tarot cards, or coming into money? Apparently sometimes...not all that much.
growing deeper across difference: an interfaith conversation with Imam Ahmed Alamine, Rabbi Bruce Pfeffer, & Rev. Dr. Maureen Knudsen Langdoc
It does seem like a bit of missed opportunity not to just call this "a rabbi, an imam, and two pastors walk into a bar," even though we weren't in a bar! I am so excited to introduce you to my wonderful spiritual friends and colleagues, and I love the vulnerability at the heart of this conversation--where we all talk about something unique our tradition brings to the table...but also something we have struggled with within our own respective traditions!
the one where I tell everything I really think about Scripture interpretation
Okay maybe not all that hot, but spicy for me?! Why I think Christians oftentimes overstate the case in making the first testament sound incomplete, when in fact everything we need (from mercy and justice to death and resurrection) was all THERE even before Jesus…and also how strange it is to hear people wrangle with the “problematic” things in the Bible—who love Game of Thrones? It’s all in how you read, and it is illiteracy perhaps rather than any texts that is ultimately killing us.
The Criminal Injustice System: On Death, Faith, & Black History in America, Pt. 2, with CeCe Jones Davis and Antoinette Jones
Can you hear the sound of God? We sure did at the historic Mendenhall lecture, in which Rev. CeCe Jones Davis and Antoinette Jones tell the story not only of Julius Jones, but a universal story--the Christ story. From Gobin United Methodist Church, and the campus of DePauw University
The Criminal Injustice System: on death, faith, and black history, pt. 1--with Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III and Shane Claiborne
In this historic Mendenhall lecture, from the campus of DePauw University and Gobin United Methodist Church, our favorite preacher in America, Rev. Otis Moss III and author/activist Shane Claiborne come together to bring a unique narrative of the kind of faith that leads to death—and the broader faith story/history that leads to life. With full lectures from each of these amazing guests and a Q and A after, prepare yourself for a feast on this one!
In this historic Mendenhall lecture, from the campus of DePauw University and Gobin United Methodist Church, our favorite preacher in America, Rev. Otis Moss III and author/activist Shane Claiborne come together to bring a unique narrative of the kind of faith that leads to death—and the broader faith story/history that leads to life. With full lectures from each of these amazing guests and a Q and A after, prepare yourself for a feast on this one!