31 July 2026. – Lourens Bosman kicks back and quotes someone who once warned him: If it’s not on paper, it’s vapour. 

He is talking to us, a small group at the end of a 3 day writing and communication bootcamp, not as a kind of ‘sage on the stage’, but rather as someone modelling the content of his message: the value of what he calls embodied speech. Saying something with your whole chest, might be a way to paraphrase his message to us as writers who often get tripped up in overly cautious phrases, passive voice, tentative intros, cliches that hedge and hide our true intention – from ourselves and our readers.  

Bosman is a retired minister and church leader in the Dutch Reformed Church now serving what he calls micro congregations in Zimbabwe and the west of Pretoria. He also reads a lot. And retains a lot. When he makes a comment like “remember, a small church is not a failed big church,” it isn’t a throw-away line, it’s published thought leadership on practical theology that’s been metabolised and lived in his personal and professional life. 

Bosman directed us from vapour to paper and from “it has been said” to “I believe” not to create a cult of strident opinionistas but to reinforce the need for clear thought coupled with clear writing.  

Write, get published, let people hear your voice, was his advice to the seven participants who took up the challenge of the Kerkbode Writers Retreat held between 28-30 July at the Andrew Murray Centre for Spirituality in Wellington in the Western Cape.

Picture: Riata Nel