The Bridge for Early Career Preachers "Preachercast"
The Bridge for Early Career Preachers "Preachercast"
Season 2, Episode 11: Rev. Julia Seymour
This month we sit down with Rev. Julia Seymour, pastor of Big Timber Lutheran Church in Big Timber, MT.
Rev. Seymour is a contributing author to The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for Struggle and There's a Woman in the Pulpit.
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Welcome everyone to the Bridge for Early Career Preachers Preacher Cast. The mission of the Bridge for Early Career Preachers is to provide resources, continuing education, and a supportive community for those who are moving from aspiring to active preaching ministries. PreacherCast is intended to profile preachers to hear their stories, to ask good questions, and to hear good reflection on preaching. We want to engage with preachers as they think about their own identity, reflect on their experiences, uh, rather than handing down tips and tricks, uh, and preaching wisdom from on high. am one of your hosts, Dr. Rich Volz. I serve as associate professor of preaching and worship at Union Presbyterian Seminary, and I'm based on our Richmond, Virginia campus. I'm also the director of the bridge for early career preachers, and I'm here with my co host as always, Rev. Mandy England Cole, who serves as our associate, program associate. Mandy, say hi, introduce yourself.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:everyone. I'm the program associate helping rich, um, run this great program of the bridge for early career preachers. And I'm also a former pastor and preaching coach. Currently supporting the work of the church by supporting preachers
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:Welcome, Mandy. Always great to see you. really delighted to welcome today the Reverend Julia Seymour. Julia serves as the pastor of Big Timber Lutheran Church in Big Timber, Montana, and has served there since 2018. After receiving her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in 2007, she served her internship at Gloria Day Lutheran in Anchorage, Alaska. Welcome, Julia. She was then called to Lutheran Church of Hope, also in Anchorage, and served that congregation for 10 years before coming to Big Timber Lutheran. Pastor Seymour grew up in North Carolina, which means that she is good people, uh, for us on this show as native North Carolinians. and has an ecumenical background, having been christened in an Assembly of God congregation, baptized in a Southern Baptist congregation, and confirmed in a congregation of the Episcopal Church USA. Pastor Seymour graduated from Meredith College in 2002 with a double major B. A. in Psychology and Religion, and so she's doubling up on her friends because Mandy is also a graduate of Meredith
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:go angels.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:After graduation, she worked for the summer in New York City, helping with Lutheran Disaster Responses Trauma Relief Day Camps in the wake of the 9 11 tragedy. that work, she moved to Nome, Alaska and served as the Deputy News Director for KNOM Radio for two years. Pastor Julie is also a writer. She has contributed to several volumes of the Abingdon Preaching Annual. As well as essays and prayers to the book, There's a Woman in the Pulpit. Christian clergywomen share their hard days, holy moments, and the healing power of humor. And thematic psalms to the book, The Words of Her Mouth, Psalms for the Struggle. We'll link both of those in our show notes. She writes regularly for Gather Magazine, including the 2017 Bible study on the Apostles Creed, and writes the Amen column for the conclusion of each issue of the Gather Magazine. Pastor Julia is involved in the Big Timber Ministerial Association, as well as text study and clergy support groups of the Montana Synod of the ELCA. Having said all of that, Julia, welcome to The Preacher Cast. We're really grateful that you're going to spend some time with us for the next few
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:Thank you for inviting me and for having me.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:Yeah, absolutely. So we always dive in this way. Julia, if you could tell us about how long you've been preaching, uh, we said a little bit about that in your bio, but if you could flesh that out a little bit and then tell us a little bit about your current preaching context. Uh, Montana is probably different in some ways, I'm assuming. So tell us a little bit more about, uh, about how long you've been preaching and, and where you are currently.
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:memories of preaching are when I was a child and I would play church and I think for many children Playing church involves getting dressed up and pretending you're going but we had one of those toll Laundry hampers with a lid and to me it made a perfect pulpit to line up my stuffed animals and then to explain bible stories to them from the bible. So I feel that I've had a long and storied preaching career, um, from when I had a highly alert stuffed audience, which is sometimes better than the live audience because they don't always look as alert as you might like them to be. Um, but having grown up in the Southern Baptist tradition, I understood that was the thing that I could play, but I didn't see it exhibited in the church where I was growing up. There were not women pastors. My many types of denominations, and so we stayed in several types of churches
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Uh,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:to the Episcopal Church USA where there was a woman rector and when my mother was spending some time rediscovering her Judaism when I was in my early teens, we also attended a synagogue with a woman rabbi.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:mama's word.
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:at that critical time in my life, right around the confirmation age, 12, 13, 14, I saw two women leaders in two different contexts, things. and it really helped me to have this concept in the back of my mind that this was a thing that was open to me as well. Montana
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:One,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:horse of a different color and they want to be a horse of a different color.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Um,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:this
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:um,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:the States where. There is just a lot, a lot more land than people. And even in the concentrated urban areas, the people live here because they're interested in the land. So there's a lot of external activity. A lot of hiking, a lot of fishing, a lot of boating,
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:provided
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:running, all kinds of things. Almost everyone in Montana, uh, if In whatever capacity they can likes to be outside. And so there are a lot of political tensions here, is many states, the cities
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:the um,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:to be bluer and rural areas tend to be redder. the um, But because there's so much space between them,
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:I,
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:that amount of land is both a physical and a psychological or social divide. And so it. Can be interesting to be in a place where people the verbally say how much they value individualism, And also with their actions show how much they will show up working a community if someone's in pain, or if someone has a need, and so they understand the value of community, but on the whole, that tend to was to demonstrate that they can stand on their own two feet. we're so it's an interesting place to both point to the beauty of God's self revelation in creation and also to say, but that's not all there is to being a faithful person is enjoying creation, nor Is that the tell us the end of our faithfulness to be able to just recite the Bible, but there's a unity and a community formed by what we enjoy and how we care for each other. And that's, you know, What can easily be defined as sort of Montana spirit, but part of what I'm and other clergy in Montana are called to do is help people who live that spirit and embrace it in a secular way, understand. Okay. and awe and care for neighbor........
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Our next question, we've really kind of talked about, so I'm going to phrase, or maybe interject a slightly different bend of the question, um, you've really walked us nicely through how you realized you wanted to preach, how you were given permission to claim it. Um, I'm wondering about when you were playing preaching as a child and to your stuffed animals, how you think that prepared you for preaching? How that birthed something in you? How did that playing preacher play into your identity as preacher?
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:For my stuffed animals, and then in my time as, um, church camp counselor, and then what carries through now, I think, in my preaching voice is a sense of teaching. One thing that's really important to me, Is not taking for granted that we're all in the same place of understanding. And for me, that feels difficult sometimes because in the congregation I'm in, there are people we like to joke whose butts have been polishing the same cue their whole life. And even. Though the revised common lectionary is sort of new in terms of church history, in my mind, I think, oh, well, you heard this passage every three years or very frequently for ages and ages, what do I say that's new? And the reality is, we're never stepping into the river from the same place. joining us today. unpack what we think is familiar to say, We all know what we're thinking about when we hear this. We don't all understand the nuances of the Ethiopian eunuch. We don't all walk around in our head with the difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We don't all remember the three different Marys and the Martha and which John goes where. And, Feel and those things. I think one of my favorite things to do, which I'm not going to stand up and demonstrate now, is years and years ago when I was preaching on Job, that end section of Job, and I used my robe just to demonstrate what it meant to gird up your loins. And there was a man, how old was he? Probably 92 or 93 and he said I've heard that phrase my whole life and no one's ever just showed me what it meant and so I think with my stuffed animals and then with campers and then On all the way through the years that I've been doing this now proclamation can't Do what it needs to do. If we don't understand the words and the pictures and the concepts that we're proclaiming the unity that we hope for. And the unity, Okay. the way the through line through those early playing church days to the present is A teaching voice and a heart for teaching so that the spirit might be able to use what I'm doing to bring a deeper and better understanding to the people of God.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:That's really helpful. And I just want to reflect back to you two things. First is that I love that you're not making assumptions about listeners, about what they, what they know and what they don't know, despite how long they may have been polishing the pew. I think that's a kind of respect toward listeners, um, that that's really important. And not just because we quote unquote live in an age of biblical illiteracy, right? Um, but because, you know, Uh, you want everybody to be on the same page and playing on the same field as it were, um, with respect to the sermon. And then I think the second thing I'll say is, um, I watched your most recent sermon and I would just want to affirm like that that's part of what you were doing in that sermon. So you were talking about atonement and ransom and like, there's a lot to unpack around that. And you did a really, uh, Lovely job in my estimation of kind of pacing and walking your way through some of those terms and helping people understand them so that there's quite a bit in thebeings of this application, and we're going to be considering a few new elements in the world of HE. And so uh, First is The literary encyclopedia of Ancient Ancient Metaphysics. Allright, it's going to start with the Hexagraph.
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:Thank you. I think one of the things that I've really learned, particularly here, so in a second call, when I have had a little bit more time and a little bit more on the ground learning under my belt, under my cincture, what would we say? Um, but, uh, that there's not just, okay, do we all understand? But when I come to it, and I tell people this, there's not anything that I know that you can't know. So, I don't, I don't need to keep the concept of the Q Source. I don't need to talk about it all the time, um, but it's not a secret. So I, I talk about Matthew and Mark and Luke having their note cards of the stories they want, want to include and kind of laying them out. And we know that those. Stories don't come from the notes that they took, but from what they heard in their interviews. And there are other people who are doing the same thing. And they have a couple of their note cards too. It doesn't have to be complicated where they're not going to have a test on it, but there's nothing I know that everyone else can't know. It doesn't mean everyone all the time. It doesn't always mean the sermon is the place to share it, but there's, I like to think of myself as, uh, In my own work, valuing the Sermon on the Plain more than the Sermon on the Mount.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:You've Okay.
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:I would say to my preaching, earlier version of my preaching self, Self, you don't write like you talk. Um, I've been a writer for a long time, and I still write, but my writing reflects the fact that I'm a reader. And so sometimes in writing, I have the sin of all longtime readers, which is I will use a word in writing because I know that it goes there and I know what it means that I would never actually verbally say. the, The, the word, the, G N O M Y like the noun form of ignominious. Um, I know what that word means. I can use it in writing. I understand what it means when I'm reading it. The one time I put it in a sermon because it is dif, it is not a mellifluous word. It does not roll off the tongue. Uh, going along preaching and looking up from my manuscript and this word came and it stuttered my sermon to a halt. And if that sermon had been an essay, it would have been fine, but it was not. Good verbal delivery, and I think that can be difficult because I do not believe in my heart at all that the goal for everyone is to preach off manuscript. worked beautiful manuscript preachers, there are people who don't use a manuscript and should, as versa. I think. You need to preach the way that's comfortable for you and is comfortable for the people who are observing you and hearing you and receptive to your word. different from wish that I could tell my earlier self, the written sermons are fine, but you don't write like you talk. You, you need to kind of look through this. And even when I'm reading my own writing, I know what the words mean.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:started with
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:And
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:and
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:think
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:to
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:me,
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:a
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:I became a better preacher
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:what
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:when I left manuscripts
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:about today.
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:because that was a better thing for me to do, but when I stepped away from what I had written and then explained what I had written because I wasn't tied to my writing vocabulary.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:If any of my current or former students are listening in on this, they're going to groan because they, they learn a mantra in every intro to preaching class, which is right for the ear, right for the ear, right for the ear. And I hope I sear it into their brains. And is exactly what you're saying that. Whether you. Find yourself tied to a manuscript or not. The idea is that, that we, we communicate differently orally than we do in writing. And I think that's such a important lesson that many of us learn the hard way. As
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:Well, and I, I don't think I would have done well If I had tried to start without a manuscript, I think my nerves and the amount for it for a long time is I like to joke, the Greek doesn't change most of the most of the theological explication doesn't change. You might occasionally be like, you know what? Let's see what's happened in Galatians recently, not much, but you know, it, it's worth looking. So I don't think my flaw was in writing in a manuscript. I think for me, the flaw was in preaching from the manuscript, using the manuscript to support my preaching and what I would do differently if I knew what I knew now, but went back is I probably would still write a manuscript because particularly when I started out as my internship. Ship congregation. There were a couple of people who were hard of hearing and really needed the written word. So I couldn't, I couldn't have left it, but what I would tell myself then what I would whisper in my ear is write it earlier and don't memorize it. Distill for, for conversation to teach it, um, present it. Um, but you don't, You don't write the way that you talk.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Julia, we fundamentally believe that every preacher should be able to read the Bible. Growing, should be working on something in their preaching, um, and leaning into freshness and growth. And we're wondering what something you're working on right now is, what's, what's the growing edge for you in your preaching?
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:The current growing edge for me, I would say of the last six months, is to not really spend a lot of time thinking about my on ramp. So, I feel very strongly, um, probably obnoxiously strongly about not starting with a joke. I don't mind having a sense of humor, but for me, particularly if your joke is unrelated to anything else that's in the sermon, you have to, to me, that means you sacrificed the text for your need to feel comfortable. So I don't, um, or your nerves and you think other people have nerves for you and you want to settle them. We don't sacrifice the text or anything. So I have long not really been a joker, but I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking about. How do I open the sermon and how do I come back around and use the story or the illustration at the end to close it? And sometimes that's really important. And sometimes that really comes easily, but I have spent time really trying to think of something when the thing that I could have done was just boom, start with the text. So the, the thing that Rich mentioned earlier, the text from a couple Sundays ago where the phrase ransom. Of many or ransom for many non the gospel reading. So, I might have spent a lot of time If I may ago, two years ago, add, the some point last year, trying to think about how do I ease people into this? And instead, very all right, here's what we have today. When we hear ransom, we think of ransom. Kidnapping. That is not what the people to whom Mark was speaking would have thought of. What would they have heard? And I think it's important for me right now to pay attention to how I'm letting. The text, do the lifting, the text is the thing. The text should do the work. That's what the spirit wants to use, and the lifting up of the text and the highlighting of a few things in there. Not every sermon needs to be long. Not every sermon has to be a whole home run. If you can get people to first or second base with the spirit, or excuse me, if you can get people. To first or second base with the text, the spirit will bring them on around the basis that doesn't have to be my work. And to me, part of paying attention and being aware of that is kind of a sermon cold open.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:There is such wisdom in those last couple of sentences that you said. Thank you for dropping that. I hope that people will like, rewind, listen to that again, rewind, listen to that again, because it's good.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:All right, Julia, tell us about your strangest or funniest preaching moment. Something, uh, that you still cannot believe or something that makes you laugh every time you think about it, what you got, everybody's got at
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:Well, when that question first showed up on that outline of things, you had me think about, I thought of a couple of things that happened with a lot of people, you know, Children's sermon moments, the time when someone falls asleep and stops snoring. In my case, the snorer make sleep apnea, is so it would be you'll notice and we would all look, Asian American but I think the one thing is years and years ago when I was still in Anchorage and we were, we were in the tester part of the narrative lectionary, a reading was on. in a very much. and when he would cut columns out of the written scripture that was presented to him, the scroll, and throw them in the fire. of And so I had this huge metal bowl, we stainless steel, and I put in the bottom of that bowl, uh, like three cotton balls, uh, uh, that I had run through the Vaseline thing. So they essentially had petroleum on them. I got a fire going. So And then I had printed off Bible verses that I had stuck in the Bible. to said, it's easy for us to judge Jehoiakim for doing this, We but we all have verses we would want to throw in the fire. And I said, if you want to rescue any of these verses, raise your hand and it won't go in. that And so will ones about slavery. I did the Levite's concubine, willing to for the sake of myself. I said, it'd make my life easier if we didn't have So this in here about women remaining silent. And so I put them all in and people were watching it and made a really good point and nothing happened. The fire went, we were all good. There was no danger. But later, all that I heard about in that sermon was how afraid people were that the sleeves of my robe Silence. And so that told me, like, I had practiced, I knew where my body was, but they were so distracted. Silence. big, or when you're doing something different or demonstrative, you need to remove anything. Silence. doesn't look right to your people so that they can pay attention to what you're saying and what you're doing. Because almost all of them couldn't remember the essence of what I'd said because they were so afraid I was going to catch myself on fire. And literally all I needed to do was take my robe off and it would have been fine. It never occurred to me people would be terrified that I was going to need to stop drop and roll.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:That's great.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:What is something that you weren't taught that you've adopted into your preaching practice that's become vital to your preaching?
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:I think the thing that's difficult is I don't actually think that the way that I preach came from any preaching class that I took, which is probably not what my preaching professor would want to hear. The preaching class that I took and the preaching, see. for public speaking and useful for understanding myself presentation, but ultimately how I learned to preach Silence. Silence. Silence. people. And I think the essence of a preaching class Is important in the whole context of seminary in the understanding. it. been drawn to a vocation where you are going to need to love God's people in a very specific way, even when they don't love you back. And. The things that you're going to need to do in that vocation are going to be shaped by their own needs. Not the needs of people you imagined when you were learning how to do this. Not the needs of people who you served in a different space. But the people where you are, who are in front of you, the needs that they have. And I think that what I was taught gave me skills, but what I have learned Silence.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:uh, seminary preaching classes, but just to acknowledge that a lot of our real learning comes from doing, um, the work of preaching Changes and shifts from context to context. And as we grow and as we move, as we change, as we learn, as we grow. so I really appreciate. I think I hear you saying that with some risk and vulnerability. Um, but I appreciate the way that you frame that. Um, is really helpful. Uh, I think for, at least for me to hear
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Bye
julia-seymour--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_110808:I think the most important thing for any of us to hear is that for me, God does not want or need me to be Moses or Jesus or Peter or Paul or Lydia or Priscilla or Aquila or my, uh, Teaching professor or any of the pastors who came before me. If God desired for me to be any of those people or to preach like any of those people then I would, and I don't, I'm who I am and I preach the way that I preach and it works for me and for the people I'm privileged to serve in God's church. And I think the most important thing I would want people to hear is, is Don't look to other preachers and try to think, how can I be more like them? Really seek the skills and the time and the grounding and the effort to be ever more fully you, to lean on the themes and the skills. and the ways of presentation that come easily to you. It's always good to stretch and grow and keep moving, but we all have those sort of magnets of themes and ways of presentation and ways of being that are magnets because they're our core. And I think pay attention to the how the spirit wants to use your core, yours, not anybody else's.
mandy--she-her-_1_10-28-2024_130808:Silence. Silence.
rich_1_10-28-2024_130808:Friends, we would refer you to our website, edu slash bridge and to our social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook. bridge for early career preachers is funded by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowments compelling preaching initiative. You can find out more about that initiative and other grant programs just like us at org. We will be back next month with another episode. And so until next time, we would encourage you to preach faithfully, to preach boldly, to be ever more your own preaching self, and to know that we are here for you in these early years of preaching. Take care.