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The preacher's weekly assignment is brutally repetitive: Fill the blank page by Sunday, at least twice a month, if not, even more. This book offers a biblical, theological and empirical grounding to support the preacher's self-reflective, listening, and sermonizing practices in order for the preacher to be aware of his/her spirituality of listening and discernment.
Listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. But it is more than that: listening is a way of life. Adam McHugh places listening at the heart of our spirituality, our relationships and our mission. Heed the call to the listening life, and hear what God is doing in you and the world.
While growing churches dot our urban centers and country landscapes, church-goers and students today are actually less likely to maintain a Christian worldview than in the past. In fact, the majority of society does not even believe in objective truth. A minister out of touch with this culture is like an uninformed missionary trying to teach in a foreign country. To communicate God's Word effectively in the twenty-first century, teachers need to know how to connect with and confront an audience of postmodern listeners. In Preaching to a Postmodern World, Johnston shows pastors, seminary students, professors, lay teachers, and church leaders can reach the present age without selling out to it. The book discusses how to: • distinguish between modernism and postmodernism • understand postmodern worldviews • change the style of preaching without compromising the substance • take advantage of new opportunities provided by the cultural shift • show an inattentive society the relevance of God's truth The author's keen insights into contemporary pop and media culture also help equip speakers to address today's listeners with clarity and relevance.
The sense of hearing was particularly important in the ancient world when the majority of people were illiterate. Rhetoric has been given attention in this context, but listening has been virtually ignored. This book deals with the practical and theological issues which listening to an incorporeal, unknowable God raised for early Christians.
When the authors of this book set about analyzing the data and reporting the findings of their extensive study on how laity hear sermons, they thought they would be sharing what listeners reported helps them enter into the meaning of a sermon and what prevents them from hearing what the preacher is saying. In a way, Believing in Preaching accomplishes this. But the surprising revelation of the study was the remarkable diversity with respect to how people listen to sermons. From the Channels of Listening series.
The Bible teaches that listeners must partner with the preacher so that the Word of God accomplishes its intended purpose of transforming their life. Expository Listening is designed to equip you not only to understand what true, biblical preaching sounds like, but also how to receive it, and ultimately, what to do about it. --from publisher description.
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.
Attention, all preachers. This book is for you. Especially if you are not content with your preaching style or with the results you are getting now. I recommend an extemporaneous and conversational style. It doubled the membership in the last church I served. Read it, try it, be willing to be challenged and changed. Let it make your preaching new. Let it bring your preaching the pizazz and zest it will need to fascinate your listeners and bring them back to be mesmerized again and again.
What if preachers were as contagiously joyful in their preaching as Louis Armstrong was in his playing and singing? As rich in their sermonic renderings as Sarah Vaughan was in her musical vocals? As honest about heartache as Billie Holiday was every time she sang about the blues of life? As alluringly clear as the angelic voice of Ella Fitzgerald? As tenaciously uninhibited in the action of creating as Duke Ellington? Of course, this is too much to ask of people, even those called by God. However, it is not too much to ask this question: Can preaching be enhanced through the metaphor of jazz? Can an understanding of the inner dynamics of jazz--its particular forms, rules, and styles--inform one's practice of preaching as well? Can jazz's simultaneous structure and spontaneity help preachers better understand their own art? The answer to these questions, says Jones, is an unqualified yes. He explains how one can dramatically improve one's preaching through understanding and applying key elements of the musical art form known as jazz. No musical background is necessary; all examples are well explained and tied in with preaching. The key elements include innovation (what one commentator refers to as "the experimental disposition of jazz"), improvisation, rhythm, call and response, honesty about heartaches, and delight. After discussing the reality and role of each of these elements in jazz, and how they can be important for preaching as well, each chapter concludes with five exercises for applying the jazz element to preaching preparation and performance. Drawing on a deep love of jazz and enlivening the discussion with insights drawn from the realities of African American preaching, Jones introduces readers to rich and rewarding possibilities for constructing and delivering the sermon.
In this cutting-edge homiletical study, Marianne Gaarden offers new perspectives for understanding how listeners create meaning when hearing a sermon. Drawing on sociological, psychological, and other empirical research, Gaarden presents the notion of the Third Room of Preaching, the place where the preacher's words and the listener's prior experiences come together to create a surplus of meaning outside of both the preacher's intent and the listener's frame of reference. The preacher cannot control the production of meaning but must surrender to the process, giving up the role of creator of meaning in order to become a vessel and a tool for meaning's creation. Gaarden's insights challenge conventional understandings of preaching and invite homileticians to reflect on the implications for the sermon as an act of communication. The book includes an appendix that helps to facilitate the Third Room model in homiletics classes.