Friday, March 20, 2026

Ministry Matters - A surprising gift for the Great Fifty Days

You've been preparing for Easter since Ash Wednesday.

Maybe earlier, if we're honest.

You've planned Holy Week services, coordinated volunteers, written sermons that hold both grief and hope, and somehow tried to maintain your own spiritual life while leading everyone else's.

By Easter evening, you'll be depleted.

And then you face fifty more days of resurrection preaching.

What if this post-Easter season could be different?

What if the Great Fifty Days became a source of renewal rather than another marathon to survive?

Starting the Tuesday before Easter (during Holy Week), join author and pastor Jim Harnish for a 7-week journey through the often-neglected season between Easter and Pentecost.

"Great Days for Great Living" weaves together three strands:

→ The intimate resurrection stories - Mary at the tomb, Thomas's doubt, the Emmaus road, and the small, ordinary places where Jesus shows up

→ Harry Emerson Fosdick's WWII preaching - how a pastor preached hope during genuinely dangerous times

→ Your actual life in 2026 - political tensions, cultural anxiety, and the challenge of sustaining ministry when the world feels ghastly

This isn't another program to add to your exhaustion. It's a companion for the journey.

Each Tuesday during the Great Fifty Days brings a new reflection—about 1000 words, perfectly timed for your sermon prep for the following Sunday. You'll find:

  • Insights you can borrow for your own preaching that Sunday
  • Wisdom for your soul, not just techniques for your ministry
  • Hope that's real rather than manufactured

The series takes its title from a sermon Fosdick preached during World War II:

"This is certainly a ghastly time to be alive. Nevertheless, this is a great time to be alive, and alike the personal and the public issues of it depend on whether we see that."

Eighty years later, we still need that pastoral imagination—the ability to name what's ghastly while proclaiming what's great, to be present to people's real fears while pointing toward genuine hope.

Here's what's coming, Easter Sunday through Ascension Day:

Week 1 (Holy Week): A Ghastly and a Great Time to Be Alive
Mary weeps at an empty tomb.

Week 2No Dry-As-Dust Religion Will Do Now
Thomas and the gift of honest doubt 

Week 3Starting With Trouble and Ending with Hope
"We had hoped..." - the Emmaus Road journey 

Week 4Why Is God Silent While Evil Rages?
When God's power is quiet and evil is loud 

Week 5The Light That No Darkness Can Put Out
Enduring hope in dangerous times 

Week 6Taking Jesus Seriously
Discipleship vs. admiration 

Week 7Christianity Not A Form But A Force
Preparing for Pentecost power 

FOLLOW THE SERIES HERE

You're not alone in the Easter-to-Pentecost stretch.

The resurrection didn't end on Easter morning. Neither does our proclamation of it.

Let's walk these fifty days together.

Grace and peace,
The MinistryMatters Team
 

P.S. - Know a colleague who's dreading post-Easter preaching? Forward this email. We're all in this together.

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Ministry Matters - A surprising gift for the Great Fifty Days

You've been preparing for Easter since Ash Wednesday. Maybe earlier, if we're honest. You've planned Holy Week services, coordin...