Press release for media

ANNOUNCING A NEW CONTEST . . .
30 Sermons You’d Never Hear in Church
January 2008

Winnipeg, Canada ––THE PEWS ARE FILLED, THE PREACHER is out of town and the pulpit is all yours. You step up to the old wooden bulwark.

Everyone is quiet.

You’ve been rehearsing this in your mind for years. You pause, steady your voice, let a slight smirk spread across your lips, and begin. . . .

Geez magazine is inviting submissions for its 2008 sermon and photo contests.

“There’s a lot of untapped creativity on the fringes of faith,” said Geez editor Will Braun. “We want to create a platform for sermons you’d probably never hear in church and photos that capture our motto of holy mischief in an age of fast faith.”

The contests are open to anyone with an urge to pound the pulpit: doomsday pastors, caring prophets, evangelists of the social gospel, bona-fide preachers who need to let loose, ranting atheists, and wily Buddhists.

“People outside Christendom probably have some of the most helpful ideas about what the Christian church should or shouldn’t be about in our world,” said Braun, emphasizing the desire for a diversity of contributors.

Top prize for the best sermonizer and photographer is $500 each, with second and third place winners getting $400 and $300 respectively.

The winners, as well as a selection of others, will appear in the summer 2008 issue of Geez. The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2008. The entry fee is $33, which includes a one year subscription.

Submissions can be sent to contest[at]geezmagazine.org or Geez Contest, 264 Home St., Winnipeg MB R3G 1X3, Canada. Full contest details are at www.geezmagazine.org.

Geez is a quarterly magazine of spirit and social action. It is aimed at over-churched, out-churched and unchurchable souls on the North American fringes of faith. In its two years of existence it has been nominated for three Utne Independent Press Awards and won Magazine of the Year at Canada’s Western Magazine Awards.

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Contact: Aiden Enns, Publisher, aiden[at]geezmagazine.org, 204 772-9610

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