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

Where’s Your Ethical Line?

We saw the movie Prisoners this past weekend and I squirmed in my seat more than once. The movie is a tense psychological thriller about the lengths a father will go to when his daughter and her friend go missing while walking one day. The tension is palpable throughout the movie and the premise is one of my worst nightmares as a parent.

When I was in high school, our band director and his family were on vacation in Colorado. Their teen son went on a walk to go to a nearby store and was never seen or heard from again. I remember all of the drama when he first went missing. It was a tragic story that caused many parents in our West Texas community to watch their children a little more closely.

As a parent, it would be an unimaginable nightmare to not know where your child is. Once or twice, my son failed to get home on time or answer his phone for an extended time period and for just a bit I felt panicked. It was an overreaction but real for me for a bit. I cannot imagine having a child go missing and not have any idea where they were. And it happens … too often for too many parents.

And that is the premise of the movie – parents dealing with a missing child.

But the other piece of the movie is the question of how far a parent will go to find that child. The movie asks, “What would you be willing to do – even beyond the law – to get answers in that search? Would you be willing to harm another human being? Would you step over that line if you thought it would bring your child home?” There are many morality issues in this film that push the viewer to the extreme. As I sat watching, I could not help wondering what I would do if my own child was missing.

Our band director spent thousands of dollars to set up a phone system that followed them everywhere they went – in the late 1970s. They went back and forth to Colorado for months searching for their missing son. They continued to search for years. Their lives were changed forever. And they never got any answers as to what happened to him.

In the movie, the dad clearly crosses a moral and ethical line (even the trailer gives that much away). And the viewer can’t help but wonder how far they would go in similar circumstances. I, too, began to wonder where my line is.

Truthfully, I have a pretty high doctrine of humanity. That means I am one of those people who expect the best out of people. I assume folks will do the right thing and that they will be their best selves. I got this doctrine from my parents – so I blame them.

Sometimes it means I get disappointed by the failures or behavior of others – and myself. But I would rather err on the side of trusting others and expecting their best than the alternative.

So as I sat there in the movie, I knew to the core of my being that I have a fairly high moral compass and would struggle to ever justify harming another human being – even to get information about my own missing child.

I was raised in a home with faithful parents. I was taught from an early age to “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31) I would not hurt another human being to get information about my own child … at least that’s what I think.

I believe that there are limits – ethical limits – that bind us as humans one to the other and should keep us from harming others for our own purposes. I’m an idealist – I know that. There is evil done to others for personal, selfish, and ridiculous reasons daily. I love my son but my faith leads me to only do unto others what I would have them do to me.

I watch over my son the best ways I can. And I pray for his safety. I teach him to be aware of his circumstances as he navigates a major metropolitan city on his own. I protect him the best ways I can. But he is a young man who needs to venture out and be his own person. And we have taught him well. Beyond that I have no idea what else to do.

Would I harm others to protect him? Wow – that’s a hard one. But if someone attacked him and I was standing nearby I think my “Momma Bear” would probably come raging to the surface.

Would I harm others to get information if he went missing? Lord, I hope not. I really don’t think so.

Will I do everything to teach him to protect himself and be the best he can be? Absolutely.

My faith teaches me to pray for those who are missing and for their families who miss them each and every day. And to pray for their safe return.

The best I can do is to be the best parent I can be and sometimes that is really hard … but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Trading Powerpoint for Play-doh

Reblogged from The Wabash Center's Blog

12 Surprises When Lecturing Less

(and Teaching more!) 

Karyn L. Wiseman is the Associate Professor of Homiletics at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

One of my goals is to be as creative as I can be – in my preaching and teaching. I have not always thought that I was creative, but I have come to appreciate my creativity more in the last few years. However, it’s often very hard to convince others of their creativity. Most people, in my experience, when asked if they are creative, quickly answer, “No.” A few years ago I ran across Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Through it I was reminded that we are ALL created by the Divine Creator to be creative.

Many of my preaching students answer that creativity question with a big NO, as well. But preaching requires creativity – in crafting a sermon, finding images and metaphors, and presenting the sermon in an engaging and creative manner. Getting students to acknowledge that reality, come to own it, and embrace their creativity has meant trying something new for me as a professor.

My preaching classes every semester have a “Play-doh Day” when we look at a number of preaching texts and then spend time playing with them to find images and metaphors for preaching. We start by having a conversation for about 20 minutes of a 2 hour class session about creativity and I use a few sections from Cameron’s book as conversation starters. And then I break out the crayons, colored paper, play-doh, and other crafting supplies and the students begin to work on expressing their creativity around those ideas.

They pick an idea from the text and find a concrete image or metaphor to use in the exercise. Then they have time to create something with Play-doh or crayons that expresses that. I try to create a relaxed environment for this activity by playing music and letting students work casually on their creative expressions. Many students have created some very good art work – stick figures are ok and affirmed – and have found ideas that others in the room never would have thought of. But not everyone finds their groove.

A big piece of the learning is moving around the room as students describe and show their artwork. Teaching with crayons and Play-doh is an amazing way to teach without lecturing but some will still balk at owning their creativity. But it’s a start.