Unplugged Preaching by Anne Turner
Reflections on Scripture, Preaching,
and Words that Matter
About Me
I was a preacher for over a decade when I found myself unexpectedly sitting in the pew again. I needed grace badly. I was surprised when I didn’t hear it. I realized that a lot of sermons I heard—and, I had to admit, a lot of the sermons I had preached—were not written for people who need grace. They were not written for people who were sad, or broken, or flawed. They had a lot of caveats and conditions.
This website is my answer. Here are the questions I wish had been asked and the promises I wish had been made. These are the sermons I wish I heard.
My preaching career began when I was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 2003. I have served at a number of parishes in Virginia and Massachusetts, and I’ve also worked at Virginia Theological Seminary, where I’ve had the joy of teaching preaching. I’m also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend to some wise women, a backpacker when I can get away, a skier, a birder, and a lover of Shakespearean theater and poetry.
Above all, I am a believer in grace. John Calvin posited “irresistible grace,” and I’m not quite sure I accept his optimistic idea that humans inevitably accept God’s overtures. But I do believe in unquestionable grace—the divine compassion that cannot be deterred or interrupted in its search to reach us all.