{"id":131655,"date":"2024-10-03T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=131655"},"modified":"2024-10-03T18:58:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T22:58:40","slug":"church-times-barbara-brown-taylor-on-how-to-make-your-sermons-come-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=131655","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Barbara Brown Taylor on how to make your sermons come alive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Show, don\u2019t tell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is one of the first things any writing instructor tells her students. There you are trying to be Ernest Hemingway with your short, spare prose. \u201cThe woman is tired,\u201d you write, going straight for the bottom line, but why should your readers believe you? You have told them something you apparently know about the woman, but you have not given them a chance to make up their own minds. You have kept the details entirely to yourself, so that their only choice is whether to believe you or not. Jesus is Lord. God is love. The gospel is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShow them,\u201d your teacher says. \u201cDon\u2019t tell them the woman is tired.&nbsp;<em>Show<\/em>&nbsp;them how tired she is.\u201d This is much harder. Finding a way to help people see takes more time than telling them what&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>&nbsp;see. How do you know the woman is tired? What is it about her gait, her posture, her face, her breath that says \u201ctired\u201d to you? If you can find the right words, you may be able to help people name their own tiredness on their way to seeing just how tired this woman is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe woman looked as if she had been moving rocks all day, as if everything she had touched since the moment she got up had been heavy, hard, and grey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/2024\/09\/wesley-is-fire-now-methodist-turn\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How to make your sermons come alive <br><br>Routines, deviations, and other writerly tips, according to Barbara Brown Taylor<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cuqiZYAPsL\">https:\/\/t.co\/cuqiZYAPsL<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/1834823640988139547?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 14, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Show, don\u2019t tell This is one of the first things any writing instructor tells her students. There you are trying to be Ernest Hemingway with your short, spare prose. \u201cThe woman is tired,\u201d you write, going straight for the bottom<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=131655\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,184,439,169,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","category-parish-ministry","category-preaching-homiletics","category-theology-scripture","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131655"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131660,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131655\/revisions\/131660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}