Spirituality

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? Six Stories. Seventeen Years. The Spiritual Journeys of American Millennials.

​Here’s some information on a special interfaith screening and reception of the documentary WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW?, at the Mill Valley Festival on October 6th at 2 PM and October 9th at 7pm.

What happens to your spiritual and religious beliefs over time? Seventeen years after the 2002 documentary WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE? in which six diverse American teenagers shared their spiritual struggles and aspirations, we revisit them to reveal how their beliefs have changed. In this new “before and after” film WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? a Catholic, Pagan, Jew, Muslim, Lakota and Buddhist offer their deeply personal faith journeys, life challenges, and evolving ideas about higher powers, life purpose, the nature of suffering, religious intolerance and death. They do so against the backdrop of a society in flux and amidst growing religious polarization and disengagement.

Designed to be a stand alone film, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? is an invaluable addition to any discussion on religious diversity and millennial spirituality in America.

2019. Director & Producer Sarah Feinbloom. Producer Alex Regalado. 68 minutes. English.

How Holy Week maps the transformative journey

Religion, and the spirituality that keeps it fresh, holds the power to transform our lives.  Take Holy Week, for example.  Holy week is an ancient practice of soul-care.  It is, at its core, a mapping of the human journey—from our grand entrance, through ups and downs of our lives, into suffering, death, and final transformation.  Holy Week aims to teach us to walk our journey with courage and hope, no matter what may come our way.  Holy Week is a crash course in being human, and being human well. 

I don’t know where else we can go to school ourselves in what it means to live well.  There are, of course, classes and books and teachers—many of them quite good and helpful.  But over the course of my life and ministry, I’ve come to more fully appreciate this ancient practice as some of the best soul-care available, some of the best teaching on living and dying well that we can find anywhere.  What’s more, it’s an annual ritual that we do together.  Over and over, in the course of a life, we come to this annual renewal of our understanding and practice of what it takes to live well.

So I write to invite you into Holy Week.  I invite you into all of it, all eight days.  Here’s a little map for your journey:

How can I be happy?

We all pursue happiness, but it remains so elusive.  Yet happiness is so basic to human yearning.

How can I be happy?

How can happiness pervade my life, lifting me from my preoccupations and from the grumbling that seems to go on inside my head, dragging me down?

Is there something I can do, a simple spiritual practice, available to all, that can open me up to happiness?

David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar testifies that happiness is born from gratitude.

Here is an inspiring lesson in slowing down, looking where you’re going, and above all, being grateful.


My newest book is out!

Ordinary Preacher/Extraordinary Gospel: A Daily Guide for Wise, Empowered Preachers.

Packed with stories not just about preaching but about my amazing gospel-congregation--the ordinary people around me who live out the gospel in such amazing ways.  

This book is not just for preachers but everyone who cares about living out the gospel.  

People listen to lots of sermons.  Here's a book that'll help ordinary Christians understand what it's all about and how they can live in such a way that they are preachers too.  

"This book is filled with courage and discernment . . . Empowering." --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

"Neufeld-Erdman writes wisely of the daily disciplines necessary to sustain the art and practice of preaching." --Debra Dean Murphy, author of Teaching That Transforms

Spread the word.  

The book is a fully revised, updated version of my 2007 book (Countdown to Sunday), with new chapters too.