Speaker

Jessica makes sense of complexity in ways that are engaging and accessible for all audiences, challenging them to find renewed faith, joy, and wonder in their own experiences

Speaker

Jessica makes sense of complexity in ways that are engaging and accessible for all audiences, challenging them to find renewed faith, joy, and wonder in their own experiences

Possible Speaking Topics Include:

Literary Exegesis of the Bible

How can we read the Bible in a way that enlivens the stories and characters such that they seem real and relevant? Using modern fiction, TV, and film as a lens Jessica helps people rediscover the narrative power of the Bible.

Creation and the Image of God

What does it mean to really be human? To live well? How do we care for the world well? What is good work? And what does all that mean for our everyday lives? Drawing on her research on ideas of land, place, and people in the Hebrew Bible, Jessica unpacks who we are meant to be and how we can inhabit the cosmos and our communities in authentic and constructive ways.

The Character of Jesus

Resurrecting Jesus from the fog of familiarity and pious expectation is hard. Drawing on her extensive research on popular construction of Jesus, Jessica helps people rediscover the man at the heart of the Gospels.

Stories that Shape the World

The stories we tell shape our desires, so they inevitably shape how we act, how we expect others to act, and the world we build together. Through her research on narrative and popular culture, Jessica helps us see how understanding the stories that have shaped us—and becoming thoughtful creators and consumers of stories—is the most powerful tool we have to change the world.

Raising Christian Kids

Raising kids into a robust and generous life of faith is a concern for every Christian parent. Jessica brings together theories of identity formation and resistant community practice to help parents understand the role their own faith journey plays in shaping their children and their children’s children.

Living the Liturgical Year

The Christian tradition has great riches to shape the human person toward a love for God and the world. But too many Christians are unfamiliar with their heritage. With a playful mix of whimsey and practicality, Jessica helps modern people recover the wealth of formative practices that foster a robust, generous faith for the modern world.