More Than Hearing

We are glad to have you with us, and we hope your holiday has been a time of refreshment for you! Now it is time to get back into the swing of preaching and worship planning. (Ah, Mom, just five more minutes!) Jeremiah’s oracle to the people in Babylon about God bringing them home forms the basis for the show’s title this week, and the John passage tells of the Word making a home among us. There has been a lot of homecoming in the past two weeks – you may have been on the road or in the air yourself. While we may not always be with our biological families, every Sunday we are with our spiritual families, and in a way, every Sunday we are Going Home.

… in Ephesians

… in Jeremiah

… in John

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! And if you are one of the lucky ones who gets to lead worship on the Sunday after Christmas, we wish you would listen to this episode! We have some ideas for you on the lectionary texts du jour.

For the Advent 3 reading from Zephaniah 3, we suggested altering a hymn to fit the image of God exulting over the people with loud singing. Here’s what David came up with. It’s a reverse on “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee.”

Joyful, joyful, I adore thee, child of God seen from above.

All my heart unfolds before thee, pouring out my wealth of love.

I’m so happy when you’re with me in eternal holy peace.

I exalt in your salvation, and my joy shall never cease!

We took part in an interfaith prayer vigil in Leesburg, VA, December 17, 2015. It isn’t really connected to our work here, except that with the candles and public professions of faith it was a way for a couple hundred people to shine some love and peace in the community at large, like some of the Advent texts call forth from God and God’s folk.

Here’s a link to an article about the event, just for your personal edification.

Welcome to More Than Hearing! This is a podcast that encourages preachers and worship leaders to use Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences for sermon preparation and worship leadership. (If you are not familiar with this theory, click the link on the top of this page for more information.) Today, we will cover the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the fourth week in Advent, Year C.

We’ve added links to the texts so you can read along and also to our worksheets for each text. These worksheets include the text and our thoughts for each one, some of which make it to the show and some that don’t. Should we call it “Bonus material?” You tell us!

Periodically, we will highlight a particular intelligence or “smart” for some more in depth analysis. This week, the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel lesson inspired us to talk more about music smart. We use music regularly in our worship, but how often do we dare venture outside the range of preferences we have established? We understand that “worship wars” have been fought over what style of music is used in worship, so this may be a delicate subject for some of you. However, Scripture has such rich depth that a wider expression of music warrants a bit of experimenting from time to time. We have a HUGE list of links down below that you can use to spark some ideas for using the Magnificat in worship.

Micah:

Poetry Soup

The Dick van Dyke Show

Hebrews:

Jacob Myers

Luke:

John Piper’s quote

Miriam’s Song by Debbie Friedman

Hannah’s Song of Praise – Max Stern

Magnificat in G minor – Antonio Vivaldi

Wild Goose Publications – John L. Bell

ancient Hebrew psalms – Suzanne Haik Vantoura

So that’s a lot of information to hand over! Again, use what looks interesting. We hope that as you listen to the podcast and read the show notes, the Spirit will give you a spark and lead you to an invigorating and meaningful experience. Thank you for spending some time with us.

Blessings on you and your ministry!!

Greetings! We’re so glad you have joined us here at More Than Hearing! Whether you have been with us from the beginning (a whopping three weeks ago) or are just now finding us, we are so pleased you are here. This podcast covers the third week in Advent for the Lectionary Year C.

We have sermon illustration ideas for the four passages and some fun options for the special effects. Sermon illustrations are – sermon illustrations!! Ideas you can use to speak about a particular text in a way that engages your congregation’s imagination. Special effects are ideas for props or experiences you can do with your congregation that include having them move about, spend time in silent reflection, turn to neighbors and share stories, have a guest speaker talk about their expertise, even break out newsprint and markers and draw graphs and mathematical equations.

This week, we are adding a feature at the end of the podcast called “Feedback Loop” where David and I will talk about using either an illustration or a special effect and how it went. This week, we talk about the triumphs, trials, and tribulations of Chia Pets. Ufda.

The lessons for the week are:

These commentaries particularly inspired us:

Thank you for spending some time with us. David and I love to “talk shop” about the Bible and theology, and we hope that some of that energy floats through WiFi and opens a door or window for your reflections. We provide a LOT of stuff each week, so consider this a kind of smorgasbord; use what appeals to you and leave the brussels sprouts for someone who likes that kind of thing.

Blessings on you as you lead and are led through Advent!

Molly

Hello again!! We are glad you are back or are joining us here at More Than Hearing for the first time!  We are moving our way through Advent Year C with some illustrations and “special effects” for the Lectionary readings.

We spend some time this week defining what we are attempting to do with this podcast, as well as giving some insight into illustrations and special effects. We are also introducing a new element that we are calling “Smart of the Week” where we go into more detail about one of the intelligences, in this case the Visual or Eye Smart, so listen for that! As you will see, the second week of Advent includes themes of purification, light, love, and a changing balance of power.

The lessons for the week are:

Verses from Malachi are used to great effect in Handel’s Messiah and if you are fortunate enough to have a willing choir or soloist, this would be a terrific way to incorporate the Old Testament lesson with Music Smart.

We mentioned some commentaries on the Luke 3 passage that shaped our discussion and promised you links in case you want to read them, so here they are:

We have added a blank worksheet template (pdf) to the Resources page just like the ones we use each week. It is a pretty direct and simple way to keep your ideas together. You should be able to download it and use it for your own preparation. Let us know how it works for you.

Thanks again for stopping by! Keep listening!

Welcome to the first podcast of More Than Hearing! David and I are pleased you have come by and hope you will return often. We decided to begin this project in order to open up possibilities for preaching and worship leadership using Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. For more information about it, click the link at the top of the page.

We will incorporate the various “smarts” from this theory to help you prepare sermons using the Revised Common Lectionary as a starting point. This podcast covers the selections for the First Sunday in Advent, Year C. We identified some themes across the readings, including:

We did not use visual or verbal smarts because these get used pretty much all the time. That is not to say we won’t ever use them, but we are specifically attempting to put the seven other smarts to work for us.

We identified three music smart elements for use in Jeremiah, the Psalm, and Luke. We either didn’t include them in the show or just mentioned them briefly, so here they are.

Please post any questions or comments below and click on the RSS feed to subscribe! Thanks for coming by, we’ll see you next week!

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