Stories from Cold Springs
This is a storytelling podcast that celebrates the creativity in everything from the mundane to the extraordinary. Creativity knows no bounds, and Stories from Cold Springs nurtures the story in all of us.
Listening to the host, J Stephen Beam, makes you want to grab a cup of sweet tea and join him on a wrap-around porch in Mississippi. The hours feel like minutes and you can't wait for the next visit (episode).
Stories from Cold Springs
Farm Prone & Pulpit Ready - David Sellers
Send us your Christmas Stories
Ever wonder how a Sunday sermon lands so close to home, it feels like it was written just for you? Methodist minister David Sellers takes us inside that mysterious, surprisingly creative, and sacred process in this warm and insightful episode of Stories from Cold Springs.
From his humble beginnings as a “surprise baby” in Mississippi to his hard-earned nickname “farm prone” (you’ll see why), Sellers shares a life shaped by calling, community, and quiet transformation. Whether he’s preaching to a packed sanctuary or a rural church where dogs join their dairy farmer owner in the last pew, Sellers brings humor, honesty, and a deep sense of purpose to his work.
At the heart of this episode is the sermon itself—how it’s built, breathed into, and brought to life. Sellers breaks down his weekly rhythm, from Monday’s scripture study to Sunday’s delivery. He shares how dyslexia shaped his process (spoiler: he dictates while walking outdoors), and why the best moments in ministry often come when you think you’ve missed the mark—only to have someone say, “That was exactly what I needed.”
Whether you're curious about spiritual leadership, the creative process, or simply love a good Southern story, this episode reveals that ministry isn’t just about preaching—it’s about listening, living, and loving people where they are.
WE WANT YOUR STORIES! Have a country or small town-themed true story for us? Please send it to our producer at hillary@hillkane.com. Put SFCS-Holiday in the subject line. By submitting your story, you are permitting us to read it on air. Please let us know if you prefer us to use your name or a pseudonym/alias. If we get enough stories, we can have a " Stories from Our Listeners episode!!
Links to Stephen's incredible novels:
Free audio post-production by Alphoniccom. Hello everybody and welcome to Stories from Cold Springs, a place where we talk about creativity and storytelling. I'm your host, j Stephen Beam. Today's guest is an exciting one, but before we kick it off with him, let me take the time to let you know that I am a novelist with two books out there that can be found on the various internet platforms and at your favorite bookstores. Please support your local independent bookstores. These guys work on a thin margin and could use your help. You also can go to my website at jstephenbeamcom to learn more. Our guest today is, among other things, a Methodist minister and podcaster. We'll get into his podcasting career a little bit later. First, let me introduce David Sellers. David, it's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for inviting me. Tell us something of yourself, for example. Where did you grow up, what were the conditions like there and set us to get you to where you are today?
David Sellers:That's quite the journey. We'll begin with where I grew up. I was born here in Hattiesburg at the old Methodist Hospital, and then my parents were here for a remaining year before my father was moved job-wise to Tupelo, mississippi. Up until fifth grade year I was in Tupelo, mississippi, and my parents decided to begin I'm a surprise baby. So my mother was told 10 years before me she would never be able to have children again. And 10 years later she went back to the same doctor and said you're wrong. He goes, I can't be. Oh, I'm wrong. So you're a miracle baby. Right, I'm the surprise. And then my grandfather told my mother you can't grow up alone. So they tried and then had another one sister below me, but then I have a brother that's 18 years older than I am and so there's a couple more in between. So we moved to Chupalo. The fifth grade moved to Richeton, mississippi.
David Sellers:My parents wanted to build a place where they grew up. I went from city concrete. There's a small putt-putt place right behind our house, almost that. I would earn extra money by going into the other yards where all the golf balls were and finding them and bringing them back then to farm life. That was a challenge because my father grew up on a farm but I had not until that point. So some people are accident prone. I was what I call farm prone. If it was going to break, it was whenever I touched it, so a fence, a tractor, a mower or whatever.
J Stephen Beam:You say Tupelo. I grew up near there and my books I sat near that community Also, our paths did not cross each other, but I spent some time in Richland Mississippi myself. Never heard of Richland Mississippi and I was looking for a teaching job. Soon after I graduated from college. Richland had an opening so I went down there and interviewed and got the job, stayed there four years. A lovely little town with lovely people. Yes, it's quite different from Tupelo. So there you were. You graduated from Richland, is that right?
David Sellers:Graduated from Richland High School, I was actually on my way out of state. So I had a scholarship for the Oklahoma Sooners, not for football or wrestling, that's what they're known for, but to play in the band. What instrument? Marching, percussion, tom snare, you name it and then concert everything from timpani, xylophone, marimba, whatever else they needed. However, that beginning part of the summer my father decided to finally have his hip surgery and asked if I would go to Jones Junior College. At the time my mother was teaching there as well so that I could take care of the farm while he was recovering from a hip replacement. And this is 88 now, so they were still kind of fresh on the market.
David Sellers:I dropped out of Oklahoma, joined Jones and loved it. In fact wouldn't have traded for the world. In fact if I could have I would have finished a four-year degree there. I loved Jones so much. Great experience with the band we played for the halftime for the Saints game. We marched in Macy's. I mean, we were at that time Jones band was the Maroon Typhoon was everywhere. But from there moved over to Southern for a little while.
David Sellers:Southern would be University of Southern Mississippi. Golden Eagle Only marched for one semester because at that time you had to be a music major and even then scholarships were not that much, so I dropped out of the band. At that time I was doing some early youth ministry as well as doing some chaplain work with Roger Flowers at the Methodist Hospital, which currently now is Wesley Hospital here and then with the Wesley Foundation, but dropped out because I took on a job as a local pastor, even though my DS probably, which stands for district superintendent they kind of supervise a lot of the pastors and probably should have told me your school is part of your ministry as well. And finishing that, it helped me to slow down a little bit and during that time I met my wife. They encouraged me to go back to school, so I went to William Carey.
J Stephen Beam:Where is that located?
David Sellers:Right here in Hattiesburg, mississippi, and then from there jumped ship to Atlanta, georgia, to Candler School of Theology, which is actually at Emory University. Loved my experience in ministry there in Atlanta, the greater area in Conyers in Georgia. From there then back to Mississippi.
J Stephen Beam:Let's talk a little bit about Hattiesburg. So our listeners who may not be familiar with it, hattiesburg is around 50,000 souls here and the metro area is around 175. For our listeners who may be from Illinois or New York, whatever, they probably scoff at that. But for Mississippi, hattiesburg is the fifth largest town and metro area in the state. So we obviously are a rural state, which I think David would attest to this. We love it, but it may sound odd to some folks from other places. You came back here to this area and you became a working pastor. Tell us some about that, how that works. Do you get placed as somebody's assistant so you can learn the trade or have a church right away and saddle with all those responsibilities and you just jump in headfirst.
David Sellers:Right right and saddled with all those responsibilities and you just jump in headfirst Right, right, and I took an opposite route, you might say, than some. So my work first began in youth ministry and then as a local licensed pastor, which in the United Methodist Church. These are lay people who are given enough training to take a very small rural church anywhere from. Some will have as few as six to eight people to as many as 30 or 50. So much smaller churches. You're given enough training and then enough time to be bivocational, which at that time I was a manager of Blockbuster Video. This is the time when we still had VHS and DVDs at the same time there. So my movie trivia is way up there, but it's bivocational. So you're working and you're also appointed a church by the district superintendent and then kind of blessed by the bishop within the United Methodist Church with the expectation that after a few years you'll begin working your way towards seminary.
David Sellers:The Methodist Church is a big supporter of education. They have a longer route if you're never able to go to a full-time seminary, which is called course of study. I did not start that because I jumped right back into undergraduate and then went off to seminary, which is called Course of Study. I did not start that, because I jumped right back into undergraduate and then went off to seminary, which is a master's divinity degree.
J Stephen Beam:In Atlanta.
David Sellers:Right at Emory and Candler loves to place you your first year in a ministry setting, and so I was a chaplain to a transitional senior adult living facility and it's one of those that, depending on if you're fully independent, you're on the higher floors. It was located in downtown Atlanta and Buckhead area. If you were from, I think, floor 20 on up to 60, you could be fully, functioning fully and everything was around your community. But I was chaplain to those. And then from 20 to 10, you needed a little bit more assistance. Then from 10 to 2, you need a lot of assistance in that living space.
David Sellers:Then my second semester did some work at Grady Memorial Hospital, which is a major trauma hospital in downtown Atlanta, and then my second year a friend of mine from Mississippi asked if I wanted to preach at the church that he was serving. Little did I know he was interviewing me or they were interviewing me. And so the next week I had a call from a district superintendent in Georgia that says, hey, would you like to take an appointment for your final two years of seminary?
J Stephen Beam:So your friend from Mississippi had a church there in Georgia.
David Sellers:Right, right, and before I'd left, Mississippi had three churches. Then they appointed me to one church and then leaving from there to Georgia as a chaplain, and then finally one church in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in the back country of Lawrenceville, and so I felt at home A lot of both. There's enough concrete but enough rural area, and even one church member who was a dairy farmer and wanted almost stayed, to be honest, in Atlanta. I loved it. My wife not so much, because she was used to driving in small country roads around Mississippi and did not like the interstate. In fact she never. The whole four years we were five years we were there never drove on the interstate once. So she made me drive on the interstate. But I wanted my children to grow up. At that time my parents were getting much older and me coming along when they were in their 40s. We wanted my children to know their grandparents, and so that's why we moved back to Mississippi.
J Stephen Beam:So how many people were in that first church that you had?
David Sellers:First church was in Wayne County and I had a retired pastor that had four churches who asked me just to preach at one and before the end of three months he had me preaching at three and he had one church.
J Stephen Beam:He sounds like a pretty smart guy Really smart.
David Sellers:So Big Rock, boyle's Chapel and Hebron. At Big Rock I would say we had at most 12 people from three families and one gentleman who rode from the woods in a golf cart and his dogs would ride on the golf cart and actually come in church and sit on the back pew.
J Stephen Beam:Did they sing along with the hymn?
David Sellers:No, they did not. When I was in Lawrenceville, georgia, I had one church and we went from. While I was there we had about 60 people and before I left we had 120, and we're doing two services and ran a child care through there. So I had kind of come I was like senior pastor level on an up-and-coming, growing community around me. Within a five-mile radius there were four subdivisions each with 120 homes being built within them, and so a place that was just ripe for growth.
David Sellers:But I felt a pull to it's time to come back to Mississippi. I'm glad I did too, so, cause my each of my children got to know their grandparents a little before they passed and had interesting experience. So then I went from senior pastor level, then stepping down to associate, and that's why I said I did the reverse. Most people start associate and then go on to be a senior pastor somewhere. I've currently been an associate pastor at the congregation that I'm at for close to 20 years, which is unheard of in the United Methodist Church. There was one other person who had more years than me and he's retiring this conference and so and half of it about 10 of those years at Parkway Heights United Methodist Church, I've been bivocational as well. So half of my time I felt a pull to take a position as a spiritual director of a treatment center it's Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services and so I am part-time at Parkway and full-time at Pine Grove.
J Stephen Beam:I'm always amazed at pastors. Would you just kind of go over the usual duties of a pastor of a church? Let's say, let's start with a church that doesn't have an associate, like the first churches you started in. What are the duties of that position?
David Sellers:Ultimately, you're tasked with the care of those who are in the congregation and at least within our denomination.
David Sellers:The bishop that I came up under was impressed upon us that you're appointed to that church as pastor, not just for that church but also for the care of the souls in that community.
David Sellers:So it meant that, yes, you're supposed to be inside the four walls of the church but also outside as much as possible. So typically work week would entail studying and coming up with lesson plans for teaching. So at the smaller congregation I was doing Wednesday night Bible study as well as sometimes during Sunday school. Then you have teaching and preparing to preach for Sunday mornings time, and that varies depending on how the length of the sermon and some other factors with it. Then hospital visitations, home visitations for folks that are shut in, meetings surrounding the life of the church, everything from church repairs to supporting youth missions or things of that nature. On top of that do you have any weddings, funerals, spiritual direction, counseling, and so the hours can get quite a few if you're not careful, especially amongst more so with a rural church than a larger church. I would say there's still a lot of stuff you could do in a larger church, but it's more focused in one particular area.
J Stephen Beam:Because there's more than one pastor there.
David Sellers:Correct A number of associates or a number of people that are retired and helping out in that capacity. In fact, there's a book that guides us within the United Methodist Church, called the Book of Discipline, and it lists 180 duties. I'm a little sly because I've learned some tricks from those pastors who've gone ahead of me and for my first meeting with the church I opened it to those 180 different selections and I said choose five that you value at this church and that's what those five. You can then hold me accountable to see how well I'm up to those five, and I'll also say if there's one that I really feel that's not my gift, then we will discuss that. But otherwise then I'll come up with a couple of things from the congregation so that we can meet and then hold each other accountable. How well are we doing? Not as a way to fuss at, but a way to cheer the winds and, if we have some missteps, to look at them and redirect them.
J Stephen Beam:In that way, and I don't know how much you know about other denominations. I would think, at least in a rural state such as ours, that the deuters are probably pretty similar for all the denominations.
David Sellers:Correct. Correct, they probably don't have a book where they wrote them all down, but you know that Aunt Bessie on the front row has her five things that she expects from the pastor, and Uncle Jack that's on the back row has his maybe 15 or 20 things that he expects.
J Stephen Beam:Yes, I've been in several churches where there are quite a few vocal members there who had no problem in explaining how they thought things ought to run in the church. I'm particularly interested at least for the purposes of this podcast in creativity and I've always had an interest in how preachers put together their sermons. I know that the church I grew up in was a very fundamentalist Baptist church and I'm not sure that at least back then and this is many years ago now that there was any kind of theme. To me it seemed like there was a sermon every Sunday and in my church, a lot of hellfire and brimstone, but there was always Bible verses. Scripture was referred to Today, and I will just say that I've been a member of the Methodist Church for many years and, as a matter of fact, david has been my pastor in the past. So we go a long way back and I know that there are themes.
J Stephen Beam:Many times in the Methodist Church One sermon leads to another one. All that aside, you may have to incorporate that into your answer. I'm interested. Here's the week ahead of you, it's Monday, you have to preach the following Sunday and you have all these other duties. Take that pastor in a small church that has all those other duties you mentioned. But every pastor has duties, even in a focused way in the larger churches. So you have to do all those. How do you carve out time? Where do your ideas come from? What is your goal when you put together a sermon?
David Sellers:when you put together a sermon, I'll start with because I'm currently in two very different roles, I'll start with both an overview. So, for example, when I was at and preaching on the schedule both at Parkway and when I had my own church, we used something called the Revised Common Lectionary. And so, in a brief nutshell, you know, years and years and years ago, a group of people kind of looked at the seasons of the church year, you know, for example, christmas and leading on into Lent and Easter and Pentecost, and looked at sets of scripture. And if you follow this lectionary, which are readings from the Old Testament, a Psalter, something from one of Paul's letters, and then one of the gospel readings Matthew, mark, luke or John In three years, three-year cycle, each labeled A, b or C, you'll have covered every major section of the Bible. And so, as regular pastor of a church, it was so easy to follow that, instead of follow what, I chose to preach, because it forced me to look at passages I normally wouldn't preach or would go. That's going to be a struggle to preach that, so I'm going to skip that. It forced me, also in a rhythm of the church here, to look at things, for example, during the season leading up to Advent they call it ordinary time, but this is a lot of times with Jesus's teachings and it gives you time to take in one of the letters of Paul and steep down and just take those for the next month or two months.
David Sellers:To me, I found it much easier also than a sermon series, because a sermon series I would sometimes find myself getting interested in the topic more so than the Scripture, because that is one of my top things when I approach Scripture what is the core message that is being revealed in the Scripture that's for these people in this space. So it changes, for example, if I'm preaching it to a congregation as if I'm preaching it to a group, maybe at, let's say, at a treatment center or a retreat somewhere or at someone else's church, and so that's always part of that where I found myself sometimes in a sermon series, going more to the topic and not delving into the Scripture as much. The other setting that I am as working at a treatment center, I do tend to look at topics that they are wrestling with specifically and I can rotate those topics because we know that they're leaving within one to three months that they're there, so I can do specific topics on forgiveness or looking at finding joy again, or linking up the 12 steps with their faith?
J Stephen Beam:Made me think about something that I hadn't thought about before we started this In the behavioral health aspect of what you do. Just briefly, what are some of the disease concerns that you have to deal with in that, especially in light of your counseling with them?
David Sellers:Just about every major addiction that we deal with there, everything from drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, gambling addictions, sex addictions, which that one is. Sometimes people go their minds race to the worst of the worst, but it could be anything from relationship issues to even pornography, to you name it. Then, also part of the treatment center is that process of dealing with people who experience deep bouts of depression or anxiety.
J Stephen Beam:So do you do sermons with that group of folks, or do you just one-on-one counsel them?
David Sellers:So my typical role there is I will do groups on group spiritual direction, which sometimes teaches people different spiritual practices. However, it also looks at you know where, within their own sense of spirituality, are things that they're wrestling with, especially in light of. It's not necessarily the addiction itself, but what is the trauma that led to the addiction or the trauma they experienced as they were addicted to something. And then I will also offer like a weekly moment of gathering. That's optional, it's not required. So that way you have some people who are of differing faiths or no faith at all, and some of those will check it out as well, but that way it's not forced upon them, but it is a message that is linked to the Christian faith.
J Stephen Beam:Well, back to preparing your sermon. You've kind of given us an overview and you have some guidance that you can follow, and you've said that sometimes the topic gains your interest more than the scriptural basis of it. I'm sure there's always intertwined. I don't mean to belittle that. So it's Monday Kind of got us through that week of preparing your sermon. I know you study and I'm sure you meditate about how you want to present this, about how you want to present this and you want to be creative so that your listeners will gain something from it. And there are always going to be those who fall asleep, but that's the nature of the beast for any speaker.
David Sellers:And that's the beauty of this is that's how I know really that God's speaking through me at times, because there are moments I've stepped down from speaking, think that's the worst message I've ever given. Nobody will like it. I'm surprised I don't see pitchforks and lit torches at the back ready to run me out, and somebody will greet me at the back, going this moved me or this connected with me or this really spoke to me, and I'm like, wow, that definitely was not me. So Monday typically begins with reading scripture many different translations, just so that you can get it into your head. Sometimes I'll search out original text as well for deeper meanings or word associations. I will not just read the small text from the lectionary, but what happened before? What happened afterwards? Where does it fall in the whole of that particular book of the Bible? Is it connected to any other parts of the Bible? And then I'll spend some time in kind of a mindfulness meditation. It's called Lectio Divina, properly Lectio. It's a process of just listening and experiencing that scripture. If anything comes up for me, I'll make a journaling about it and just let it sit.
David Sellers:So Tuesday is that process of now going on that I've funneled through from Monday. Here's one direction or one. Here's where I believe the theme is heading, or the what's that essence, what's the nugget, what's the gospel part? You know whatever, however you want to frame it. But here's where I need to land and make sure that people hear and I take that and then finally go to the commentaries some of the other authors who've written on it theologians, biblical scholars, you name it and delve and see if there's other connections I can pull from them. So Wednesday it's usually further down the line that I have to stop myself, because my temptation is immediately go to presenting the message, and that's a different creative process. In fact I'm really good at taking a finished product and presenting it most of the time better than some person who wrote it. So I have not just music background but theater background as well, and so in preaching class we're sometimes given other sermons and says, okay, how would you jazz it up? And my professor, immediately after the first week, knew never to get me to go first because no one would take second.
David Sellers:But Wednesday starts becoming the outline. A couple of starting places. Thursday is where I write the rough draft and because I am slightly slight trouble with dyslexia and some ability to focus when I start typing. I'm much better editing than I am typing it out, so I will hit the walking track or trail somewhere and speak it into my phone. In years past it was one of those little dictation devices and then put it into Dragon Natural Speaking on an old desktop. But now you can speak it right to your phone. It will translate it and it looks horrible from an editing standpoint, but at least everything's out there, you know, and I'll even pause page breaks. Here's another thought, here's this thought, and let it rest till that afternoon, or maybe even nighttime, thursday, to then start the editing process. Friday becomes a space where I just like to switch around just a little bit and then leave it alone, don't touch it, don't think about it, nothing. And then Saturday polish and move to the presentation part. And then Sunday is the yeah, jumping right in.
J Stephen Beam:Once you get that polished part on Saturday, do you give it then to yourself or in a room by yourself, or do you run through it a few times Mainly, I would think, in order. When I have to present something I do that so they don't have to refer to my notes. Very often it always bugs me when a preacher or anybody else reads it to me. So you do that process too, to kind of be very familiar with something. You can write something earlier in the week and then it'll be difficult if you just try to co-read it in front of somebody.
David Sellers:So yeah, depending on what the week has entailed, sometimes I don't have as much time to go over it as I would or it's one more editing process. So, for example, if I have had to meet with several people, if I have had a few more hospital visitations or last-minute people needing help or whatever else, but the aim is to then present it. Typically outside, the dog is not amused very much by it. And here's what I've found is, a lot of preachers will have a certain style with their sermon and I can break down. I guess it's the nature of the beast of writing sermons a lot. Now, I'm good at critiquing and every pastor doesn't Don't let them fool you that they don't in some way but every pastor has a certain kind of style of writing it out, and then presentation may sometimes be a little bit different, but style I'm, on the other hand. But here's where I was going with this. So everyone has a style. And then they have a voice. So the voice means you're comfortable and relaxed and you feel more a part of the message that you're delivering, whereas the style is what you've written down, if you would, and so I'm a little more creative in the process.
David Sellers:I know a lot of pastors that I know that find that style and stay with it. They don't change it. You know they're going to have three points in a prayer or they will have a long introduction, maybe a short body, and then they get to the meat of it and then they're gone. And others circle around. What's the Southern saying? Go around Jericho and before they finally land the plane and exit off. Some are great at beginning and don't worry about it and some are great at ending.
David Sellers:But I've always been a creative type to try to experiment something new, which helps me and hurts me. It helps me in that when it works, it works, it's great. But when it's too new or I try too much risk, it can be painful. I still match it up to my voice, but I like to try creatively different processes. Just to see, For those who know the Enneagram work, I'm a nine, so the nines are the ones that can see from many different angles. So depending on where you come from in life and where you are, I can be right there looking at it from your perspective and I know that when I deliver it you're not going to hit everybody. It may hit one time, it may hit more of the intellectuals or those who are just how's the weather? People or whatever. So every Sunday will be very different of who it hits and where they are. I know that as well.
J Stephen Beam:So you have it finished. You polished it. You get up there in front of these folks. Do you ever change anything on the fly in a sermon?
David Sellers:Oh, yes, yes, that's the other thing when I'm talking about with Stiles is some pastors write theirs on Friday, don't look at it all on Sunday, pick it up on Sunday and they do not change anything, period. They'll make a few changes afterwards to say here's how I'd have done it different, filed it or whatever. But I am always editing. Sometimes to a fault, my wife says stop it, end it, go, whereas if I'm sitting there and it's the time of prayer and someone's praying and suddenly it occurs to me nope, I need to move that illustration one paragraph before or after where it comes. Then I will do that on the fly.
David Sellers:Luckily, at Parkway we have two very distinct, two distinct but different services. So one is more contemporary, a little bit more relaxed. I can get away with kind of, you know, chasing a few airplanes here and there, whereas the other is more traditional, a little more formal. I feel that I need to make sure that I and maybe that could be my own anxiety is sticking to the script and make sure that it flows. Anxiety is sticking to the script.
J Stephen Beam:You know and make sure that it flows. So do you guys. You guys, pastors, you know you all file these away and come back to them a year from now.
David Sellers:Every pastor is a little different. I have a friend of mine who is, who is at a Pentecostal church in Chicago, but it's a little more. It's not as free-flowing Pentecostals down here and soon as he finishes with every sermon he tears it up. He feels that the Holy Spirit should lead him. Every time I have another pastor that he files them away every single and even does a review of it that Monday morning before he starts his process of the next sermon. Here's my process. It's for a lot of the education stuff that I do around Scripture. I will save that and sometimes save most of the sermon as well, because if I'm ever called last minute to preach for a church where the pastor may have had an emergency of their own, they couldn't preach.
David Sellers:I have a sermon that most likely has not been heard before. Or if it falls on that lectionary. I know I can change a couple of things if somebody has heard it, and particularly the illustrations. One of the pastors that I had as a youth director. He had three years of sermons and he repeated everything but he changed his illustrations every year, which I fussed at him. I said I don't know if I could get away with that.
J Stephen Beam:I've always wondered that Okay, you're a podcaster. Tell us a little bit about your podcast and how people can find it.
David Sellers:The podcast is called the Way this Day. It is. You can find we do have a website and which just links you to the recordings, and we are found on Facebook, which has the recordings and some of the prayers. It's a prayer podcast that is based on a Methodist way of looking at the Christian life as well as matched up to, if anyone's familiar with, the Daily Office from the Roman Catholic tradition or the Book of Common Prayer from the Episcopal or Lutheran traditions, and so what that means is the first part from a Wesley standpoint. It mentions a brief little introduction of either one of the Beatitudes the Lord's Prayer One of the Beatitudes the Lord's Prayer brief little focus on sometimes the church or the gifts of faith, you know, and every 30 days it repeats itself the same ones. So whether it's on generosity, next month, same one, same date. From the Methodist standpoint that should kind of steep us into being generous, you know. Focus on that, on the life of Christ. And then it follows, kind of the Book of Common Prayer daily office format.
David Sellers:There are scripture readings based on a daily lectionary in which you have, if you follow those readings for two years, you'll have hit every major portion of the Bible. So there's an Old Testament reading, there's one of the letters and there's one of the gospel readings and then I end with a prayer and the prayer are varied and vastly from prayer books I've collected over the years to from many different traditions Catholic, lutheran, episcopal, baptist, presbyterian, methodist, to even some irreverent which interestingly have gotten some of my most likes and feedback prayers. So these were prayer books I found in like local authors that have printed their own or printed a community, and I found them from Seattle to Louisiana to here in Mississippi.
J Stephen Beam:Well for your listeners out there. I hope you'll check out his podcast. David's a fascinating fellow. I've known him for many years. Let me remind you that I'm J Stephen Beam. My website is jstephenbeamcom. I have two novels that are out there right now. You can get them at any of the usual sites on the Internet, but I encourage and urge you to go to your local bookstore and support them. Join us next time for our next edition of Stories from Cold Springs, and thank you for listening, god bless.
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