Self-Aware Moves — shapes and examples
For your morning. Self-awareness is not a tone you put on — it's honesty about where you stand. These are shapes drawn from preachers in the corpus who do it well. Each example links to voilib so you can hit play and hear the moment fresh.
Note: Don't imitate any phrasing. Notice the SHAPE of the move. Then bring your own voice to it.
Self-aware moves — shapes and examples
Self-awareness is not a tone you put on — it's honesty about where you stand. These are shapes drawn from preachers in the corpus who do it well. Each example links to voilib so you can hit play and hear the moment fresh. The voice they each find is theirs; the shape is portable.
Note: Don't imitate any phrasing. Notice the SHAPE of the move. Then bring your own voice to it.
1. "Preaching to myself first"
Announcing, before the message lands, that the preacher needs it. Names the prayer/posture under the words.
Why it works: Disarms the pulpit-as-authority dynamic. The room hears: this isn't theory; he's still under it. Self-aware preachers do this often, almost casually — small admission, big trust shift.
I felt like I needed to say it to myself first — which by the way I just want to confess it came through a lot of pride.
Bridgetown — Genesis: The Bloodline of Evil @ 40:02 ▶ Play in voilib
It's also very hard for me to really, truly believe that, to let it sink into my depths — and it's been challenging me for a few weeks now as I've been preparing for this.
Bridgetown — Unforced Rhythms of Grace: Generosity @ 33:13 ▶ Play in voilib
I would encourage you to preach the gospel to yourself. That God in Christ is on your side.
Bridgetown — Genesis - Fall @ 24:10 ▶ Play in voilib
2. "Easier said than done"
Refusing to soften the gap between what gets prayed and what gets lived. Naming the difficulty without immediately resolving it.
Why it works: When a preacher says "this is hard" and DOESN'T immediately offer the solution, the room can breathe. The Tyler-shape: name what's hard, then say sometimes the most honest thing we can do is pray we're willing.
That sounds a lot more like 'forgive me for how I have sinned and help me to never do it again.' That's the prayer we pray, that's repentance. That that is actually easier said than done.
Bridgetown — 7 Letters: Sardis @ 13:06 ▶ Play in voilib
This isn't for people to feel sorry for me because I promise you I'm okay. But I think if we're going to get real about forgiveness, we need to talk about real things because people have been through real things.
Handlebar — 16. Facing Unforgiveness @ 13:18 ▶ Play in voilib
We even then can think of forgiveness as this thing that I, it's like, again, a thing that I do… in this time. And then it's done.
Being Known Podcast — S11E15: Forgive Seventy Times Seven @ 38:14 ▶ Play in voilib
3. "Willing to be willing"
When even saying "I want to forgive" is too much, the honest version goes one level up the meta — "I want to want to." Treated as common-domain spiritual wisdom from AA culture.
Why it works: Tyler's move you remembered. The 12-step culture has long held that forgiveness/surrender often requires a staircase: I cannot honestly say I forgive; I can honestly say I am willing to forgive; I can honestly say I am willing to be willing. Each step IS its own honest prayer. Use the phrase without sourcing — it's common-domain.
AA Big Book and 12-step writings repeatedly use the language of "willingness" as a precondition for change. Step 6 — "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character" — names readiness ITSELF as the work.
Repentance, confession, humbleness, confessing my own pride… am I willing to seek forgiveness and reconciliation?
The Familiar Stranger Podcast — Practicing the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit (Maxie Dunnam) @ 26:10 ▶ Play in voilib
4. "I am part of the forgiven"
Locating yourself inside the same company you're addressing. Not above it, not separate from it. The preacher's "we" is honest about including himself.
Why it works: The opposite of "you all need to forgive each other." It's "I myself am part of the forgiven, and I myself need to keep extending what I have received." Restores the preacher to the room.
My life has been full of shortcomings where I have morally failed to do right by other people in my life… I myself am part of the forgiven.
BibleProject — What Forgiveness Is and Isn't (Lord's Prayer Pt 4) @ 33:38 ▶ Play in voilib
I screwed up again, and so I'll confess and I'll take the bread and the cup and I'll tell friends please pray for me and try harder, and then like that goes on for a while and then it doesn't change.
Tim Mackie — I am who I am Pt 10: Born of the Spirit @ 50:00 ▶ Play in voilib
When I recognize God's forgiveness of me, this is the immediate outcome — all of a sudden I rediscover the humanity… I've completely forgotten what it even means to be a Christian in the first place.
Tim Mackie — Forgiveness — Matthew Pt 26 @ 51:14 ▶ Play in voilib
5. The "I get on my knees" moment
Telling the room about a specific moment when you didn't have it. Locating weakness in time and place — not as posture, as memory.
Why it works: Specific beats general. "I struggle with this" is abstract; "I was about to walk on stage and I didn't know what to say so I got on my knees" is a story. Stories carry vulnerability without performing it.
I need to get off the stage and I get on my knees and I'm thinking the pastor's not here. Lord, please lead me.
Handlebar — A Move of the Spirit (Hayley Braun) @ 23:06 ▶ Play in voilib
I was so insecure to stand before people again and in those places that is where I have been…
Handlebar — 05. Dealing with Insecurity @ 17:40 ▶ Play in voilib
Now in my office hours going through a faith struggle, my first thing is to want to say like, well, let's fix it and get you a YouTube video.
Bridgetown — Deconstruction & Doubt with A.J. Swoboda @ 19:06 ▶ Play in voilib
6. "This is not theory; this is my life right now"
Collapsing the distance between what is being said and what is happening to the speaker AS he says it.
Why it works: The most honest version of preaching. The preacher names that this is not abstract — this is the very thing he is in the middle of, today. The room cannot lean back into "interesting sermon"; they have to lean in toward "real-time confession."
Confession is just revealing the truth of where I am — not who I am, it's not all I am, but it's just where I've been. The hiding for me at a profound level started…
Practicing the Way — Community 03: Overcoming Shame @ 37:10 ▶ Play in voilib
He's coming after you and he is relentless. So I would just say to you as a brother — this is too good to hold yourself together. It's too good to put off for another day.
Bridgetown — God Made Known @ 43:45 ▶ Play in voilib
7. The inverse confession
Naming the OPPOSITE of what would be expected. "I struggle with this because I AM the prodigal" or "because I am NOT the prodigal." The unexpected angle.
Why it works: When the room expects one direction and the preacher takes the other, attention sharpens. The honesty becomes visible because you are not making the expected move.
Never prodigal-like, and struggled immensely with that. It's not hard for me to move towards a spirit of false martyrdom when needed — you know, especially in my time. I've given you everything, I'm a pastor…
Bridgetown — Grace and God's Generous Justice @ 25:59 ▶ Play in voilib A preacher confessing the OPPOSITE problem — that he was never the prodigal and so struggles with self-righteousness. Mirror-image of your testimony.
Your specific self-aware angle
The thing you said in chat:
"I haven't struggled so much with forgiving others because I'm usually the one giving people the opportunity to forgive me because of what I've done."
This is one of the most powerful self-aware moves available to you tonight. It does five things at once:
- Inverts the expected confession. Most preachers preparing this kind of meditation would build toward "I struggle with forgiving someone who hurt me." You're preparing the opposite: "I'm usually on the other side. This is unfamiliar territory for me." The inversion catches the room sideways.
- Establishes the testimony WITHOUT NAMING IT. No alcohol. No jail. No UCCS. Just one oblique sentence that signals a complicated past — and the room fills in their own pasts.
- Honors your hard-won gift. You actually have unusual fluency in being-forgiven. That's a kind of expertise. Most people in the room have not had the experience of being forgiven for the size of thing you've been forgiven for. Your voice on the receiving end is credible in a way most preachers' isn't.
- Makes the reconciliation move cost you. Because if you're usually the receiver, then extending toward someone who has hurt you is the harder direction for you specifically. Naming that is honest about why this confession has weight.
- Frees the room to laugh, recognize, breathe. "Usually on the other side" is something most rooms recognize — almost everyone is more used to one direction than the other. The room laughs and they're with you.
The shape your own opening could take
(Sketch only — your own voice goes in it. Do not use this verbatim.)
I'm not the guy who has spent a lifetime forgiving people who have hurt me. I'm usually the one being forgiven. You know who you are — thank you. So this week, when I had to do the work of reaching toward someone who has hurt me, the unfamiliar muscles… [your voice from here]. *
The Tyler-shaped move for you, distilled: name what's hard about this particular move for you specifically. Don't claim it's hard in general. Claim it's hard for you because of who you've been. That's the inversion. That's the gift.
Mackie's "screwed up again" and the cycle
Worth re-reading on its own. Tim Mackie naming his own cycle — confess, take the bread and cup, ask for prayer, try harder, doesn't change — is a master class in not-pretending. He doesn't end with a breakthrough. He just names the cycle. The room sits with the not-yet alongside him, which is its own kind of formation.
I screwed up again, and so I'll confess and I'll take the bread and the cup and I'll tell friends please pray for me and try harder, and then like that goes on for a while and then it doesn't change… I'm trying to be honest, and so if I've done that to some of you, I'm sorry. And here's why I do it.
Tim Mackie — Exploring My Strange Bible: I am who I am Pt 10: Born of the Spirit @ 50:00 ▶ Play in voilib
A reminder for the morning
Self-awareness fails when it becomes its own performance. The discipline: notice where in your meditation a self-aware admission would do real work — and resist adding one anywhere it wouldn't. Not every paragraph needs an "if I'm honest." If the whole meditation rides one well-placed inversion (the "usually the one being forgiven" line), that's enough.