When Jesus assures the woman who’d suffered 12 years from a flow of blood that “your faith has made you well,” he was stating a truth that applies to people of faith today as well, according to the Rev. Drew Rick-Miller.
Rick-Miller, project co-director for Science for the Church, led a webinar last week for the Synod of the Covenant on how faith and faith practices contribute to people’s well-being.
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.
Whatever Covid stage churches find themselves in — post-pandemic, a return to in-person worship, a re-evaluation of what hybrid worship looks like, whatever the case — “we need to be attentive to the way our sermons are being offered to people,” the Rev. Dr. Peter Henry said Wednesday during the monthly “Equipping Preachers” webinar offered by the Synod of the Covenant.
Forgiving those who have hurt us — even when it’s excruciating. Keeping our promises — even when it’s more difficult than we ever expected. These challenges that Jesus ties together in his Sermon on the Mount (take time to read Matthew 5:21–37 now) came together on a trip last October to New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, where the Synod of the Southwest invited executives to meet almost 20 Native American congregations.
Fresh from preaching their way through Advent, preachers in the Synod of the Covenant turned their attention Wednesday to the next great season on the Christian calendar: Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 22.
The Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, Dean at the Chapel at Duke University and an associate professor at the Duke Divinity School, used the account of the Valley of Dry Bones found in Ezekiel 37:1-14 last week to remind preachers that sermons about resurrection must first encounter death in a real way.
The Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies is a consortium of three universities — the Universitas Gadjah Mada (a non-confessional state-owned university), Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga (a state-owned Islamic university) and Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana (a private Christian university) — all located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
For clergy and others called on to proclaim God’s word and organize meaningful worship during Advent and into Christmas Day — which falls on a Sunday this year — it may feel like Emmanuel can’t come soon enough.
With the goal to help preachers explore biblical texts rather than explain them during their sermons, the Rev. Dr. Sally A. Brown, the Elizabeth M. Engle Professor of Preaching and Worship Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary, was the guest Wednesday on the Synod of the Covenant’s Equipping Preachers series.
On Wednesday, the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Wagner offered up the Rx that pastors preaching and leading congregations might well need the most during this time of trauma: practical advice from someone who’s been there, and who’s clearly researched and thought deeply about what trauma can do to individuals and faith communities.
