Occasionally I will hear or see or read people in other disciplines of either art or communication or sports and think to myself: “That’s the way I’d like to preach …”
So here are five.
One. I’d like to preach like Jason Isbell writes songs. Personal, confessional, and wry all at once. I’ve often said that his songs arrive at the intersection of recovery and poetry and this latest is a prime example. “It gets easier but it never gets easy.”
Two. I’d like to preach like Jerry Seinfeld does humor. He makes you see what you’d long ago ceased to notice, and does so in a way that makes you realize the absurdity in much of what you do.
Three. I’d like to preach like Jess Walter writes fiction. Walter got a shout out in Simplify The Message and for good reason: he has a marvelous attention to detail that he then translates into beautifully into language. My favorite is that he calls traffic at 2:30 a.m. “the flow of desperation.” Anything good ever happen to you while on the road at that hour?
Four. I’d like to preach like Colin Cowherd does radio. Some people tire of his opinions, but I admire his candor. More than that, he makes connections between the world of sport and the larger world of politics, art, and science that always have me nodding and saying, “Yes! That’s exactly what it’s like!” My prayer is that a good sermon makes those same kinds of connections in the minds and memories of hearers.
Five. I’d like to preach like Roger Federer plays tennis. The more effortless it looks, the more effort it took.