Jan. 28, 2023
I am a big fan of the desert mothers and fathers of the early church. They are not perfect, but they do offer up a type of wisdom for us today that I believe worth our time. The problem is that these stories are not always accessible. Since September 27, 2022, I have been offering these stories on the Instagram/Facebook platforms, called "Peddling Preacher”
Below are the some of the most recent postings of these little videos:
Peddle 1
Genesis of #PeddlingPreacher
Since 2014 I have been ensnared by the stories and "sayings" of the desert mothers and fathers (ammas and abbas). For the past few years, I have been in a doctoral program that is exploring a model of pastoral leadership inspired by these abbas/ammas. I think that these different stories or "sayings" are remarkable and are very practical to our spiritual formation. For the past couple of years, I have thought it might be fun to have a podcast where I just tell a "saying" and then unpack it so it could be understood. Each episode would have been less than 10 minutes. However, I don't have the skill set to create a podcast at regular intervals and I never could find a partner who would join me on a podcast.
In August 2021 I was able to purchase an e-bike and I was riding it to my son's cross-country meet. When I arrived at the meet, my father-in-law jokingly called me the "pedaling preacher." It was funny and I started to share that joke with others.
Peddle 4
After about a year of having the e-bike and riding to work and around town, I cannot recall where the idea came from that I should make videos as the "pedaling preacher" and put them online. I thought that it was a silly idea because I could not think of any content that would be worth sharing. Then the sayings came to mind, and I said if I were to make videos it would just be me telling those stories. I never did anything after that.
Then one day, Rev. Lauren Christenberry (an associate on staff at Keller UMC) said, "If you are not going to create that social media account as the pedaling preacher, I will." I thought she was joking.
Peddling 7
Two weeks later, I came into the office and Lauren said, "I did it. You are the 'peddling preacher' on Instagram. So now you have no excuses."
When I logged in the first time to the Instagram account, I messed it all up and Lauren had to fix it the next day. It was after it was all fixed that I realized that the account was set up as "peddling preacher" not "pedaling preacher." This was not a big deal, but I chose not to change it because I had such a hard time on day one. So, the idea is that I am a “UMC preacher gearing up to peddle stories of Jesus while pedaling an e-bike."
Click here to view all Peddling Preacher posts.
The Rev. Jason Valendy serves as senior pastor of Keller United Methodist Church in Keller, Texas. This post is republished with permission from his blog, JasonValendy.net. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via his blog.