I’ve preached sermons, taught classes, and led workshops and retreats for men, women, writers, young adults, college students, and teenagers. It is my preference when speaking to work collaboratively with local leadership so that I can learn about your community before presuming to speak to it. For that reason, I rarely preach exactly the same message twice.
Themes related to my books include embodied goodness, gender, vocation, missions, and cultivating virtue. I’m happy to work with you to build something that suits your needs, or to modify one of the topics listed here.
Here are some sample talks I’ve given.
For churches, retreats, and student chapels
The Art of Revision
Amy shows how to read your own past with compassion and tenderness. Re-visioning your life means seeing both beauty and damage in your past, and picking up the threads of beauty.
How Kindness Can Mend the World
Kindness isn’t the virtue of being a door-mat. Amy radically expands kindness, looking at the kinship we have with other Christians and with all created beings, and finding that this virtue is essential in our ecological moment.
Rejecting Purity Culture but Embracing Purity
The results are in: purity culture did more harm than good. Amy explains why, and helps us think about what purity really means.
Authentic Faith
What makes something real? Looking at the history of prayer in the Protestant church, Amy explains how to have authentic spiritual vitality.
Reimagining Evangelism
Is sharing a gospel tract really the best way to love your neighbor? Amy explains how curiosity and vulnerability must be key to the way we love our neighbors.
Don’t Save the World
Telling her own story of two years in Southeast Asia, Amy shares about the realities of persecution for Christians globally, the dangers of the savior complex, and the true vocation of every Christian.
Beloved, Strangers, and Kin: A Three Part Series
Beloved, We Are Beloved
As God’s children, we are beloved apart from our usefulness or our good works. Telling stories from her experience as a missionary in Southeast Asia, Amy shares how through her own failure and doubts, she came to fully grasp her identity as a Beloved child of God. Rather than finding an identity in how useful one is to God, Amy encourages listeners to rest in their status as Beloved.Beloved, We Are Strangers
As God’s children, we are strangers welcoming strangers. Radical hospitality is integral to our identity. Looking at the stories of Abraham and of Ruth, Amy finds that God’s people have always known what it means to be strangers in need of hospitality. Hospitality was fundamental to the way of life God planned for God’s people. “You shall not oppress a stranger,” the law given to Moses commanded. “You know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). The Israelites’ experience of vulnerability was key to their welcome of others.Beloved, We Are Kin
As God’s children, we are kin with all who follow Christ. Our notion of family must expand. Living life with those who are different from you is not easy, but it is blessed. As we take a deeper look at the story of Lydia, we find that we are called to go “beyond the gates” in seeking to connect with our “kin.”
Academic/Classroom Lectures
The Missionary Myth: Expectations, Reality, and the Power of Stories
This interactive session looks at the history of the missionary narrative in America and the dangers of the missionary myth.
The Short Term Trip, and Imagining Other Ways of Doing Missions
This interactive session looks at the history of the “short-term mission trip” and suggests some useful ways to re-think our mission practices.
For writers
How to Be Harrowing
In this session, we will deconstruct the myth that the best personal writing is born out of dramatic or traumatic experiences. Solo acts of sensational disclosure might get the most clicks and page views, but you don’t have to have a “harrowing” story in order to construct a compelling essay. Here we’ll look at strategies for writing powerfully about ordinary life.