In this important book, Webb makes two central claims. First, that effective preaching without a manuscript is not a matter of talent as much as it is a matter of preparation. Preachers can learn the practices and disciplines that make it possible to deliver articulate, thoughtfully crafted sermons, not from a written page, but as a natural, spontaneous act of oral communication. Throughout the book, the author offers specific examples including a transcript of a sermon preached without manuscript or notes. Second, that the payoff of learning to preach without a manuscript is nothing less than sermons that more effectively and engagingly give witness to the good news.

"The book is a follow-up to Eslinger's earlier A New Hearing, the standard text on the varieties of homiletical method since its publication in 1987."--BOOK JACKET.

Like Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, Taylor emphasizes the holy dimensions of ordinary life and describes the essentials of faith with insight and humor, touching on the vocations, imagination, worship, sacraments, ministry and the Bible as they relate to the life of faith.

Preaching is a way of life that can be beautiful and good; however, It can also be anxious, self-focused, and destructive. Preachers and teachers of preaching need a holistic view of preaching that not only paints the way to good preaching, but also to good living. They need a comprehensive practical theology of preaching that combines the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ with the ‘how’ and 'whom’ of preaching. Practicing the Preaching Life unites Christian practices, contextual virtues, and the best of homiletical pedagogy to pave the way to a beautiful preaching life. Preaching is best learned as a formative Christian practice embedded within a web of other Christian practices that form a way of life from which great sermons emerge. Therefore, preaching requires not only a way of speaking well, but also a way of living well. This embedded nature of preaching requires the enrollment of Christian practices in the formation of the preacher and the pursuit of contextual virtues for preaching that avoid cultural relativism on the one hand and cultural imperialism on the other. These requirements lead to a new vision for the preaching classroom, the rhythms of the preaching life, and the definition of what it means to be a good preacher.

Preaching the Story explains why the attentiveness of your congregation rises when you become a sacred storyteller. It explores why communication is more effective when your sermons are no longer lectures but stories. In fact, it explains how to deliver your entire sermon in story form.

This is a newly revised edition of one of the standard introductory preaching textbooks on the market today. Beginning with a solid theological basis, veteran preacher and best-selling author Thomas G. Long offers a practical, step-by-step guide to writing a sermon. Long centers his approach around the biblical concept of witness. To be a preacher, Long posits, is to be a witness to God's work in the worldone who sees before speaking, one whose task is to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what is seen." This updated edition freshens up language and anecdotes, contains an extensive new analysis of the use of multimedia and its impact on preaching, and adds a completely new chapter on plagiarism in preaching. Included for the first time are four complete sermons, with Long's commentary and analysis. The sermons were written and originally preached by Barbara Brown Taylor, Cleophus J. LaRue. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, and Edmund Steimle. With this third edition, The Witness of Preaching reaffirms itself as the essential resource for seminary students as well as new and experienced preachers.

Preaching is not as simple as it may appear. The preacher today is confronted with a dizzying array of homiletic methods and approaches, each holding important insights into how to proclaim the Good News. While pastors wish to learn from these different ways of preaching, they often do not know where to begin (Who are the best representatives of a given approach? How do the different methods relate to one another? How has the preaching scene changed in recent years?). In The Web of Preaching, Richard Eslinger addresses these and other questions about contemporary approaches to preaching. Surveying the most important current theories of preaching, he argues that no homiletic method can be understood on its own. The different schools of thought on preaching all intersect at such common points as Scripture, narrative, and the role of preaching in worship. A strength in one compensates for a weakness in another, and seen together they form one comprehensive "web of preaching." This book is a follow-up to Eslinger's earlier A New Hearing, which has been a standard text in preaching courses since its publication in 1987.

This in-depth study on preaching to second generation Korean Americans, the first of its kind, is based on empirical and ethnographic fieldwork. Matthew D. Kim conducted surveys and semi-structured qualitative interviews with Korean American pastors and second generation young adult respondents in three geographic regions of the United States: the Midwest, the West Coast, and the East Coast. His primary conceptual framework employs social psychologists Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius' theory of possible selves to facilitate the process of congregational exegesis in the second generation Korean American church context. This book offers a new contextual homiletic model that enables Korean American preachers to engage in deeper levels of ethnic and cultural analysis in their sermonic preparation. Simultaneously, the author reconstructs conventional preaching roles of Korean American preachers and second generation listeners so that they may co-creatively imagine new possible selves that radically advance Christian mission and practice in the world. This book will serve as a primary or secondary source for upper-level undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate courses on preaching, communication studies, ethnic and racial studies, cross-cultural ministry, or social psychology.

You can teach the craft, but you must first form the heart. Many preachers want to preach better, but they don't always know how to go about improving, and most books on preaching focus on the mechanics of the craft. But preaching involves more than the steps from a text to a sermon, because every time a preacher stands up to preach, their character shines through—for better or for worse. In The Heart of the Preacher, Rick Reed focuses on the personal heart preparation required before any preacher is ready to preach. He explores issues preachers often wrestle with—like discouragement, insecurity, and pride. He then offers practices to fight these challenges and form a heart that carries the fruit of the Spirit into the pulpit. It takes more than a good speaker to preach. It takes a Spirit-filled person. This book will help you check your heart and cultivate the most important aspect of preaching: your character.