Preaching Quote of the Week

"We do not make sermons out of air: our creations, poor or brilliant as they may be, are always variations on someone else's theme.  The main melody is always a given, and even when we launch into our own bold improvisations we are limited to a scale of eight notes.  Our words are not ends in themselves; they exist to serve other words, which means that we never work alone.  Sitting all by ourselves in our rooms with bitten pencils in our hands, we compose our sermons in partnership with all those who have done so before us.  Together we explore the parameters of our common faith, testing the truth of one another's discoveries and holding each other accountable so that what we offer those who listen to us will not aim to dazzle but to nourish them."

Barbara Brown Taylor,Preaching Life (Boston: Cowley, 1993), 81.