More Than Hearing

Hey everyone! We know that many of you are adapting your worship services to online formats and we have some tips for how to move Multiple Intelligence Theory online! We are working from the Zoom platform; you may be using something different with other tools. That’s okay. We’re pretty sure what we suggest in this […]

Hey everyone! We’ve been swamped this week. A lot of new ways of doing ministry has kept us away from producing a show. We are re-posting our episode from three years ago for these texts. You can see our show notes and download our worksheets at this link. Our intention in the next week is […]

Hey all! We suspect you are listening to this podcast being careful to keep a social distance from others. The spread of COVID-19 has caught many of us unprepared and is stressing our resources and sense of security. Introverts the world over may be happy to stay away from people while extroverts are itching to […]

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the show! We have found ourselves a little pressed for time – again – and have decided to record the show live this week. That does not mean that you are hearing us as we record; it means, we did not spend a lot of time preparing each passage prior to […]

Hey all! Welcome! This picture reminds me of a story David tells about our daughter when she was about three. He was packing up to go on a trip – his bag was on the bed, and he was selecting clothing to put into it. Meredith was on the bed, and when David turned to […]

Greetings everyone! We attempt to find pictures that address the theme of each podcast and some weeks it is a lot easier than others. This time, it was like falling out of a tree, just like a well ripened fruit. The Gospel reading and the Genesis reading are about temptation. (Paul makes a connection between […]

Hey Everyone!! We are deep in the throes of planning a youth retreat and got caught up in all the preparations. We had intended to post a link to our episode from three years ago earlier this week and entirely forgot. [Now we’ve got it attached, though!] We do not have a show this week […]

Hi everyone! Welcome to More Than Hearing – at the beach! We’re at the beach for an annual retreat sponsored by our presbytery. You will notice the difference in two ways; we do not have as much material for illustrations and special effects, and the sound quality is going to be different than usual. My […]

Hi, everyone! Welcome back! We’re heading into the last month of Ordinary Time before Lent begins in March. The Lectionary will have us looking at the Sermon on the Mount for the next three weeks. We start this week with the Beatitudes. Also included in this week’s readings is Paul’s proclamation that God’s wisdom and […]

Welcome to the show! We’re glad to have you back with us or joining us for the first time. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, or so it is said. It dispels fear, “the blues”, rumors, and is an antidote to dishonesty. Light runs through the four passages for this Sunday in explicit and implicit ways. […]

Hey, welcome back! I really like the picture above. I love tulips, but we cannot have any around our house, because foraging four-legged critters love them, too! *chomp* We can see what color these will be, but they are not yet fully emerged. The passages for today contain within them elements that are emerging. In […]

Happy New Year! Yeah, okay, I said that on the first Sunday of Advent, but this time the calendar has turned over instead of the Lectionary year. We are back with a new installment of the show, and this week, we are working with the texts for Baptism of the Lord. Each of the Gospels […]

Hello everyone and Merry Christmas! Advent is behind us, and Christmas is almost here – who else is feeling the pressure to get everything left to be done DONE? As you finish your last minute tasks and prepare for your Christmas Eve services, take time to breathe and remember that God didn’t choose to send […]

Greetings and welcome! We are running very late this week due to a number of factors, so we decided to concentrate on only the Gospel passage for this Sunday. Matthew starts the story of Jesus’ nativity with the experience of his father, Joseph. We were struck by the ways that Matthew explicitly points to Jesus […]

Hey all!! A couple years ago, in our Year B Advent 3 episode, I used four or five versions of the hymn Gaudete to introduce the episode. I had never heard the song before and was so taken by all the different versions, I included links for each. (In that episode’s show notes, click the […]

And also with you! How many of you automatically said that when you read the title for the episode?

Happy Liturgical New Year!! We are heading into our fifth year of this podcast! After concentrating on two intelligences per week last year, we’ve decided to let the rest of them back in and include as many of the smarts as decide to show up. If you’ve been with us since the beginning, you are […]

Hey everyone! We’re at the end! Thank you for sticking with us through another Lectionary year and another Year C cycle. We tried something different by emphasizing only two smarts per week, and while we think it was a worthwhile endeavor, we are going to go back to finding illustrations and special effects for any […]

Hey everyone! Welcome to the last episode of Ordinary Time, Year C! Next week is Reign of Christ Sunday which simultaneously wraps up the year and welcomes in the next one. This week, we finish the long season begun in June with a psalm of praise, a fiery warning, encouragement to keep doing what is […]

Hello everyone! Welcome to the show notes! The end is in sight; we have one more Sunday in Ordinary Time, Christ the King Sunday, and then a whole new year of illustrations and special effects in Year A. Whew! This Sunday, the passages are all focused on the future. Job knows that the one who […]

Hey everyone! We’re back for another episode! We are also at the beach (again) doing a remote podcast (again)! This is the fourth time we’ve done a remote show this year. If nothing else, this is evidence that if you are thinking about doing a podcast but think you may need to be anchored to […]

Welcome back to the podcast! We’re so close to the end of the Year C cycle!! We’ve been batting around the thought to go back to the format we used for the first three years of the show’s existence. We’ve been both pleased and challenged this year to present illustrations and special effects for only […]

Welcome everyone! David tells the story that I once told him that I liked dancing with him because he “doesn’t give up.” He seems to think I was commenting on his ability; I was commenting on his willingness to actually get his butt out on the dance floor without having been lubricated by beer. Since […]

Hey all! Welcome to the podcast! This week, we have some stories about healing and a psalm of praise. Na’aman, a general for the king of Aram, is advised to seek out Elisha, a prophet in Samaria, for help with his leprosy. The Psalmist extols the Lord’s mighty deeds and Paul continues to encourage Timothy […]

Hey all, welcome to the podcast! We are getting close to the end of this liturgical year; Christ the King is coming! And also the day we celebrate that! Meanwhile, we have this week’s texts to examine. The Old Testament complimentary lesson is from Habakkuk. The prophet proclaims and complains that evil is afoot in […]

Hey Everyone! Welcome to More Than Hearing. We’re glad to have you join us for our weekly tour through the Revised Common Lectionary readings seen through the lens of Multiple Intelligence Theory. We are taking a wee detour from the usual show this week in an effort to jump ahead a bit. Three years ago, […]

Hey everyone! We’ve lost a couple days this week due to various real work and real world events staking time in our lives. We are doing an abbreviated show this week as a result. We can’t even point you back to our show three years ago, because we skipped it – due to real work […]

Hey everyone! We’re back with another show – and we think we have a good idea why we did not publish a show for this week’s lessons three years ago. They are hard! Each one of them contains within them a choice. For Deuteronomy, Moses sets before the people the choice of following God’s commands […]

Hey all! We’re back for another episode of Multiple Intelligence Theory illustrations and special effects. We looked back over our show three years ago and are a bit mystified as to why we do not have anything for Ordinary 22, 23, or 24. We put up a Feedback Loop episode in place of Ordinary 22 […]

Hey everyone! Welcome to the next episode! As I am working on the show notes, I’m also listening to a football game on television. I grew up in Colorado, and on Sundays in the fall, we would come home from church and eat the meal my mother had slow roasting in the oven while we […]

Hey everyone! Welcome to the show. How did it get to be that time when people are starting back to school again?! Even though we’re heading into a new academic year here in the U.S., there is still plenty of time left in our Liturgical year. Yet, the passages for this week all seem more […]

Hey everyone! Welcome to the show! I’ve heard it said that birds will rest on the thinnest branches even when they are blowing about in the wind, not because they trust that the branch will hold them but because they trust in their wings. All the passages for this week share the common theme of […]

Hey everyone! We’re back from two weeks of vacation and right in the middle of Vacation Bible School! Our timing is questionable. Yet, we are ready to go with some illustrations and special effects for Ecclesiastes 1-2, Psalm 49, Colossians 3, and Luke 12. Three years ago, we looked at the Epistle and Gospel lessons […]

Hello friends and colleagues! We are still on vacation and can’t get a new episode out for you, but we are not abandoning you. Here is our previous episode from Year C, Ordinary 17, from 2016! You can listen to it right here, but for the show notes, click on over to the original episode’s […]

Hello friends and colleagues! This week we are on vacation and can’t get a new episode out for you, but we have something almost as good. It’s our previous episode from Year C, Ordinary 16, from 2016! You can listen to it right here, but for the show notes, click on over to the original […]

Hey everyone! Welcome to the show! We have some fun illustrations and special effects to share with you this week. The Gospel passage is the very familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. Paul greets the Colossians with a lot of enthusiasm and the Psalmist is eager to be kept from shame and ridicule. In Deuteronomy, […]

Hey all! Welcome back! Summer is here, and everyone is gone – at least around our part of the world, anyway. Many people in our congregations are making their annual trek to the beach or the mountains. In two of the Scripture passages for this week, we have people going out and coming in. The […]

Hey everyone!! We are running late again this week. The requirements of ministry meant I was on the road quite a bit this week and once again unable to devote much attention to the podcast. We are hoping to get back to a more regular schedule for the show in the future. Meanwhile, David heard […]

Hey everyone! We are really late this week; I’ve had a series of pastoral calls that kept me on the road to various hospitals and nursing facilities. It ain’t over yet, either. David has also been drawn away a bit, as well. So we are doing a bit of an abbreviated show this week looking […]

Hey everyone! Welcome here and welcome back! Did anyone think of football when you saw the title above? I did, I will admit. However, Johnny U’s name is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable while the title is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. It is a Latin word that means […]

Greetings!! Welcome to More Than Hearing! This Sunday is The Big Day for the life of the church, and we are doing something different with the podcast this week in preparation for it. We decided to forego the usual format and instead talk about why we developed this show, how it has effected our own […]

Hey everyone! Welcome back, and for first time visitors, welcome here! If you have kids or grandkids, you may be familiar with the phrase “Power Up!” In the world of video games – and in particular Mario’s universe – a “power up” is a way for your character to find a boost of energy or […]

Movement happens in the texts for this week – some in more obvious ways than others. In the Acts passage, Paul and Timothy are trying to move the Gospel of Jesus to other parts of the world as directed by the Spirit of God. In John, a man is attempting to move into healing waters […]

Welcome! We’re glad you are here with us, and we hope you will find some ideas or at least inspiration from our podcast! The lessons for this week share a theme of “glory.” We see it repeated over and over in John’s Gospel as Jesus tells his disciples that he and God are connected. As […]

Greetings! Welcome to the show! On my drive to worship every Sunday, I pass a sign board for a Lutheran church. I don’t usually remember what is posted there, and it’s not because I’m driving too fast or are too distracted to see it. The saying doesn’t always connect with me – except for one […]

Four engineers get into a car heading for a conference. But, the car won’t start. Being engineers, they all have solutions to the problem befitting their areas of expertise. The Mechanical engineer says: It’s a broken starter. The Electrical engineer says: The battery is dead. The Chemical engineer says: No, we have impurities in the […]

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the show! Typically, the second Sunday after Easter is the day we all deal with Thomas’ doubt about the other disciples’ outrageous claim that Jesus had appeared to them. It’s a great story about our very human need for proof, especially when our hearts are involved. Remember, Thomas was ready […]

He is Risen, indeed! Welcome to the show! This is a special episode, because 1) we have never done a show for Easter before, and 2) we have decided to concentrate on the Gospel passage using all eight intelligences, and 3) we’re live! We’ve done a “live” show before, which for us means that we […]

Hey everyone! Welcome back to the site! We are barreling down on Holy Week – holy cow – and the passages for today all ask us to stop and consider value. In John’s passage, the question is obvious as Judas objects to Mary wasting expensive perfume to anoint Jesus’ feet. Jesus knows the value of […]

Greetings! Welcome back for previous listeners and welcome here for first time folks! We are more than halfway through Lent – and I’m still wearing a parka. Just sayin’. Last week’s passages centered around repentance and this week’s center around forgiveness. Forgiveness makes me think of the Don Henley song “The Heart of the Matter“ […]

Hey everyone! Welcome! We are about half way through Lent and while we are on the way to Jerusalem and the cross, there is still some journey ahead. We just got back from some time in Texas where we relied on David’s phone to get us to and fro on Austin’s highways and side streets. […]