Welcome to this curriculum and to this journey with some of the bravest and most honest people I’ve ever met – the psalmists. Their longing for God is deterred by neither friend nor foe. Regardless of the obstacle, their eyes are firmly fixed on God.

 

What is this curriculum designed to do?

The spiritual DNA of ancient and modern worshippers finds spiritual common ground in the Psalms. Their ancient stories and experiences run through our own current spiritual narratives. This curriculum will pull together our disparate journeys. Together, we are honest that life isn’t easy. Together, we are honest that life with God is confusing and frustrating.Through a simple, guided meditation practice, you will explore your own inner thoughts and feelings and find places of overlap between yourself and these ancient poets.

 

• Mindfulness meditation will help you know yourself

• Psalm Study Material will help you know the psalmists.

 

Put together, this combination of meditation and study will help you see similarities and connections between yourself and the psalmist that you can bring to your sermons, making them personally and spiritually relevant for you and for your hearers.

 

What are the goals and outcomes? This four-to-six-week program is designed to help preachers offer a sermon series on the Psalms by partnering the psalms with a formal meditation practice. The goal is to equip preachers to preach the psalms with more imagination, frequency, and with more personal and spiritual relevance by:

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• allowing preachers to identify places of overlap and connecting points between the inner life and experiences of the psalmists and the inner life and experiences of the preacher.

• allowing preachers to develop creative ways to bridge the gap between the contexts of the psalmists and the contexts of the preachers.

• facilitating an exploration of alternative language that will awaken and re-spiritualize the psalms for the preacher and her or his congregation.

• allowing preachers to turn more creatively and comfortably to the psalms as a primary text for preaching.

• introducing preachers/pastors to the spiritual and personal value of a mindfulness meditation practice.

 

In this curriculum, the psalmists become your teachers, guides, shamans and travel companions. They have walked where you have walked and gone to spiritual and emotional places you, too, may have gone. May your journey together bring you closer to God, closer to your neighbor, and closer to those to whom you have been called to preach and to serve.