New Book Released

My new book, I Refuse to Preach a Boring Sermon: Engaging the 21st Century Listener, was released yesterday by Pilgrim Press. The book is available from them - please call their customer service staff at 800.537.3394. You may order online at www.uccresources.com. The book will also be available on Amazon but there is a glitch with it right now that they are ironing out.

About the book --

Preaching is the centerpiece of worship, meant to inspire, empower, and engage. Preachers, with the best intentions, have preached sermons that did not connect with the audience, left the listener uninspired, confused, or simply bored. I Refuse to Preach a Boring Sermon: Engaging the 21st Century Listener encourages preachers to be creative, to take risks and to adapt to tough realities. From imagery to technology, Wiseman offers new techniques that will enable any preacher to creatively energize their sermons.

Here is what others are saying about the book --

“Among pastors these is a commitment to speak the Gospel in a way that engages worship participants with holy imagination that changes the way they see everything in life.   This is a non-negotiable.  It is required of us. It is, as Wiseman reminds us here, in our hands!" -- Paul Nixon, author of I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church!

 “Wiseman knows what it takes to preach to the network generation, and she encourages preachers to create sermons that are dynamic, energized, imaginative, and connected. I Refuse to Preach a Boring Sermon is the perfect “go-to” resource for the postmodern preacher.”  -- John S. McClure, Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship, Vanderbilt Divinity School

“If churches are riddled with bored-again Christians suffering from a semiotic breakdown, this resource is filled with practical approaches and creative angles that will wake up the preacher, and move the sleepiest congregation from bored to death to born to life." -- Leonard Sweet, best-selling author and chief contributor to sermons.com

 “Finally, someone confronts the problem of boring sermons head-on.  While Wiseman attacks the underlying causes of boring preaching, she also succeeds in loading every page with up-to-date, workable, ideas. Paying attention to what is here will make preaching truly fun again, for preacher and hearer alike.” -- Joseph M. Webb, author of Preaching Without Notes

I hope you get a lot out of this book - as I wrote it with preachers and church folks in mind.

Best wishes --

Karyn

Women- We Need to Tell Our Stories

I grew up in Texas, which is an extremely oral culture.  We tell stories.  We tell little stories about the people who used to live in the house on the corner or the football game when we won the state championship.  And we tell BIG stories about our history – about the battle at the Alamo; about being a country before being a state; and about Texas legends like Travis, Austin, Crockett, and others.  Telling stories in my culture is vital.  It is as much a part of Texans as breathing.

I also grew up in a story telling household.  We heard stories about ancestors who fought in the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression as some of my relatives call it), my dad juggling a watermelon and dropping it all over the kitchen floor as a kid, and an intriguing story from my Great Aunt Edna about the little people who lived in the moss outside her window. 

These stories are a part of me because they are part of my story.  My life story.  The story of me.  It is an important story because it is my story.  And to honor it – I have to tell my story.  A huge part of my story is my faith in God, my being a follower of Jesus, my devotion to my vocation, my growing up in Texas, and my love of family.  Telling the story of me and my faith journey is essential. 

I teach my students to honor their stories.  I teach them to be proud of their journey – their life journey and their faith journey.  And I teach my preaching students to tell the Gospel story in profound, personal, and relevant ways.  Telling stories is important in the life of the church.  The story of the Hebrew people makes up the Old Testament, the story of Jesus is told in the Gospels, and the story of the early church is recounted in the Epistles.  These stories are important to read, hear, and respond to.  They are the stories of our faith.

Yesterday, I spent time with a group of women attending the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia’s Women’s Day event.  We talked about the stories of women from the Bible – Eve, Esther, Rachel, Leah, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Salome, Mary Magdalene, Dorcas, the Samaritan Woman at the Well, Priscilla, Huldah, the Woman with the Issue of Blood, Mary and Martha, and others.  It was a powerful time of conversation.

We also talked about the importance of honoring these stories and the women’s own stories in the life of the church.  Some of these stories are told in the church on a regular basis – in worship, in preaching, in study, and in communal gatherings.  But unfortunately many are not.  Women’s stories are often either omitted or told only to forward the story of the male characters in the story.  At the very least women get their stories told on Women’s Sunday or Mother’s Day.  Some churches are much better than this – thank goodness – but some are not.

Today, we also hear women’s place in society and their rights to make decisions about their own lives being bandied about as political power plays.  Whether you agree or not with the topics of debate – the way men in power are talking about women without asking women to participate in the decisions is repugnant. Women are being silences in many of these discussions.  We ought to be able to tell our own stories and have a role in the decisions that affect our own lives.

We have to tell our stories.  We have to tell the stories of women in our lives.  We have to tell the stories of women in our faith journeys.  We have to tell the stories of the women of the Bible and women who have and are leading the church.

Women’ stories are important.   ‎A friend shared the following quote from Muriel Rukeyser on my Facebook wall today - "What if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."

Our stories are the stories that would split open the world.  Our stories are the stories of the world – the stories of the church – the stories of us. 

Tell them – often and everywhere.  Tell them.