Attending Festival of Homiletics

On May 13-16, I attended the Festival of Homiletics in Pittsburgh. This is an annual preaching conference organized by Karoline Lewis and other staff at Luther seminary. The conference takes place in a different city every year.  Last year it was in Minneapolis; next year it will be in Atlanta.

I attended the Festival twenty years ago in Washington DC. At the time the opportunity to hear preachers and go to Washington was too good to pass up. I remember the conference because I watched the Timberwolves beat Sacramento to enter the Western Conference Finals just as this year the Timberwolves were playing Denver while I was at the conference. I’m not sure what it says about me that I remember what happened by the sporting events that were happening.

The format of the conference is very simple. Participants listen to sermons and lectures about preaching. This year I listened to fifteen sermons and lectures over the course of four days. If you like to listen to sermons this is the place to be.

Many other people joined me. I don’t have a specific number, but I would guess about 800 people attended from across the country. Many others watched online. The lineup of speakers was excellent. My favorite speakers were Brian Mc Laren, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Amy Butler, and Otis Moss.

I would go almost anywhere to listen to Brian McLaren speak. He just came out with a new book, “Life After Doom.” At the Festival he gave a lecture entitled “You have permission.” He then gave a listing of items regarding permission for the preachers assembled. He told us that we have permission not to be good at everything; we have permission to declare an emergency when we are in an emergency; we have permission to fall back on love when faith and hope fail. He closed by sharing that we have permission to take the long view. 

He later shared a detailed lecture about preaching from the connected self that unfortunately wasn’t included on the video tab. One of the highlights he shared was a slide that said that Jesus didn't come to give us an abundant job. We don't want the pink circle of our job to fill up too much of our life.

I enjoyed Grace Ji-Sun Kim's sermon and am looking forward to reading, "When God became White."

Amy Butler, previously pastor at Riverside Church in New York City and now pastor of Community Church of Honolulu in Hawaii. She contrasted the stories that preachers are compelled to tell compared to the stories that a person would find in a Hallmark movie. The narrative in a Hallmark movie are soothing but not enough for preachers. She talked about how each of us is in the middle of a story where we don’t know the conclusion. As preachers we don’t have to explain what happens. Instead we have to hold up the beauty and show what is possible.

I tried to do this in my sermon on Huldah yesterday. The sermon can be found here: May 26, 2024, Worship Service (vimeo.com). It’s part of a series I’m sharing on “Women of Faith.” After sharing a context of what was happening to Josiah and Judah, I talked about how Josiah sent five men to contact Huldah, a woman, to learn what was going to happen. Huldah claimed her gifts as a nevi’im, a prophet. Each of us is called to claim our own gifts and share them with passion—just as Huldah. And the reality that a woman could preach to five men sent by a male king is significant given that Chain of Lakes is the only church in the north part of Blaine where a woman could consistently tell stories about God from the pulpit. We don’t know the end of the story of what will happen when we use our gifts and empower women to preach. But life will change for the better.

I especially enjoyed spending time in Pittsburgh. I hadn’t been there since being a very young boy. The urban core is beautiful. I took the advice of the organizers of the festival and didn’t rent a car. I guess doing Ubers was supposed to work. But this didn’t work for me. I ended up driving all over Pittsburgh and the suburbs. I loved the views.

The venues of the conference were beautiful. Just spending time in the ginormous sanctuary of East Liberty Presbyterian Church was almost worth the trip. Calvary Episcopal was also beautiful. I had never spent time at Pittsburgh Seminary and am glad I had the opportunity.

I applaud the organizers of Festival of Homiletics for what they have been able to create. It is not insignificant that approximately 800 people, mostly preachers, would attend. Excellent!

Two suggestions for changes. I think the conference could adapt. It’s the same conference that I attended twenty years ago—listen to a lot of really good preachers. I’m not convinced that model lifts up the preaching in the people who attend. I’m not convinced that the preaching of 800 people will be better in six months because we heard a lot of good sermons.

Second, I’d like to see more workshops on the technical parts of preaching. Give us a three step lecture series on how to be effective in visual communication. Share lectures from pastors who preach forty times a year about what their weekly routine looks like. Have more pastors preach. I enjoy hearing sermons from seminary professors, but I have more respect for pastors who are grinding it out every week. I’d like to hear more from them. And finally give us more technical stuff about theme preaching. It still seems (and I could be wrong) that it’s the third rail of the Festival of Homiletics to suggest that someone wouldn’t be a lectionary preacher. I’m not. I don’t plan to be. I’d like more resources to help people, like me, who are theme or topical preachers.

I’m glad I went. Unless the conference changes, I probably won’t go in the next five years. I continue to hope that the preaching in the church will lead people to a deeper personal relationship with God and that people will be inspired and given the tools to change the world.