Recently Published!
Jesus stories, those told by him and those about him, are typically interpreted two-dimensionally. However, Jesus was a Rabbi, teacher, and as a teacher, he would have valued a multi-layered approach to interpreting parables he told and the stories told about him. What if we treated these stories and parables creatively - three-dimensionally? That is the lens Rob uses to view the Jesus stories selected for this new and timely book. Ultimately, this book is less about the stories themselves and more about faith and grace, about God’s amazing and complete love for all people.
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Imponderable ...
with Rob Gieselmann
Anne Lamott on Rob's newest book: "I love Rob's work -- his writing, voice, depth, insight, and welcome."
This book was written to encourage readers who feel disenfranchised from both mainline and evangelical churches--most often because of hierarchy and/or dogma--and to help them experience God anew, as Divine Mystery and perfect love. Broadly, this hopeful story is one of faith, told in order to share about a God who can be experienced as full of unfathomable grace and love for all. Early in his life, Rob experienced God and Christianity through a charismatic experience of being born again, but over time, that experience morphed into a stilted and predictable, if legalistic, relationship. After some struggle, including the struggle over his own sexuality, Rob encountered God a second time, freeing him from any quid pro quo understanding of God's nature. Although Rob is the pivotal character in his own story, this book is really about the mystery of God and the hope of love.
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You can order this book from Amazon.com or Bookshop.org:​​​​
Devotional Sermons: Lent to Easter
Sermons offered during Lent can be challenging, addressing difficult topics that touch deeply on our relationship to God: failure, renewal, death, mortality and hidden hope. This simple volume takes the reader devotionally through Lent and into the resurrection hope of Easter by considering these topics head-on. This simple volume is offered to help pilgrims walk through the challenges of Lent in a more meaningful way. Published by Parson's Press. Parson's Press uses the proceeds of all purchases to provide food and shelter to those in need.
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In "A Walk through the Churchyard," Episcopal priest Rob Gieselmann explores stories of death, and the beautiful yet painful intimacy associated with these stories, in a way that brings sense to his own wife's, Laura's, premature death that left him as a single father of two young children. The intent of this little book is to demystify death, and to offer a Christian spiritual sense of the event of death. In our society, people do not like to talk about death, but Rob hits death straight-on, refusing to temper its sharp edges or hide from its dark grip.
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"I am so grateful when emotionally gifted and highly intelligent people like Rob Gieselmann share their intimate experiences and understanding of death, from a Christian perspective. His work so diminishes one's sense of being alone and lost in this most private of all human realms." - Anne Lamott, author of "Traveling Mercies: Some thoughts on Faith"
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More Sermons: Easter into Pentecost!
Sermons offered from Easter through the middle of Pentecost offer hope and insight into our relationships with God, one another, and the wider world. This installment of sermons are devotional, designed to help Christians who are seeking a different way to consider their faith. Published by Parson's Press. Parson's Press uses the proceeds of purchases to provide food and shelter to those in need.
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​This is the book nobody will like. The Episcopal Church has gone crazy. We've become pigs who roll around in our own mud, and when we've finished rolling here, we roll there. Perhaps we eat a little spiritual food and then wallow back to the mud. We talk about God, mention Jesus like he's our best friend, but we act exactly like he said not to act. We are exactly who he said not to be. In this book the author employs Scripture to demonstrate that both Jesus and Paul would favor unity over division, and that the Holy Eucharist is the ultimate act of Christian unity. This book shows that, in the end, unity facilitated by love in Christ should be our goal, not righteousness. Division may be our destiny, but it is not God's will.
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Also Recently Published!
Do the words of Jesus seem harsh to you? Judgmental? Confusing? Is it possible to understand the stories he told in a different way? Did did Jesus really expect people to sell all their possessions, or to hate their fathers and mothers? Or is it possible that both Jesus and the gospel writers were using literary devices to weave a variety of meanings into the fabric of Jesus’ life and the stories he told? On the surface, the stories appear to mean one thing, but beneath the surface surprises lurk! In this book, Rob presents twelve parables, stories, and actions of Jesus to re-view them in the light of irony.