Overview

Preaching is an art, but not all preachers are artists. I hate to say it, but you know that it's true-it's rare to hear a really great sermon. What's even more rare is to hear really great sermons week after week after week. But it does happen every now and then, and these days it's happening in a Presbyterian church in a small New Jersey town. I know this church because I used to stand in its pulpit, week after week. I went there as a young, inexperienced pastor and a newly-single mother of two small children. I was also the first installed minister of the church who happened to be a woman. Now, some twenty-five years later, this same church has welcomed another first-the first installed minister who happens to be openly gay. It gives me particular pleasure, then, to introduce William Stell's book of sermons from his first year in ministry. First of all, they're great sermons. Second, William's identity as a gay Christian informs his preaching in profound ways. Third, these sermons cut to the heart of the faith and speak gospel truth. Wise beyond his years, William Stell possesses a narrative gift. He has an ear for story-his story, God's story, and our story. He tells us about the contours of his own life, but these sermons aren't all about him. In fact, he's never the hero; rather, he shares anecdotes from his journey so he can show us what God has shown him. He bears witness to wonders he has seen and enables us to see them, too. Here's another thing about William Stell: he knows us. He gets how we crave simple answers. He knows we hold grudges. He understands that we often miss the point of Scripture because our readings are too literal, or too narrow, or too fearful. He names the difficult questions that come along with being people of faith, and gently but confidently leads us to answers we can hold on to. He has a deep sense of the sacred in the midst of the ordinary, which means he has a sacramental way about him, in worship and in the world. He is attentive to what God is up to when we're not looking, and he calls us to be watchful along with him. William's own journey toward inclusion and openness helps to shape our own. In these pages you will hear about his being the only white boy in an all-black Baptist church in Texas; how his encounters with a wide range of Christians enabled him to embrace his own sexuality; how God uses surprising people in unexpected ways to open his own eyes to what it means to love God and follow Jesus and trust in the Holy Spirit along the way. In hearing how God has led him, we are also led to new realizations about ourselves, the world, and what God is doing about it all. Read these sermons. Read them because William Stell is a new, queer voice in the church. Read them because he is helping to carve a new path for people of faith. Most of all, read them because this child of God knows how to preach, and we are the richer for it. Thanks be to God. Kimberly Bracken Long Cambridge, Maryland December 20, 2017

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9781946478627

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