Preaching as Poetry
Preaching as Poetry

Author: Paul Scott Wilson

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Published: 2014-08-19

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1426796242

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It is tempting for preachers in this digital age of plurality and diversity to offer quick sound bites and PowerPoint-style presentations. These tend to invite a yes or no response, as in mathematical equations. But if we are to reach Christians across the theological spectrumandinvite non-Christians to seriously consider our faith, we must take a different approach. What is needed is greater attention to poetry and images meant to communicate the beauty of the faith and the wonder and mystery of God in everyday life. We must communicate the unity of our message of faith, the divine as truth, and justice and healing as expressions of God. Preaching as poetry (theopoetic preaching) allows for the bold imagery of scripture and the gentle invitation of art. Sermons can no longer always be neatly tied up, perfectly linear, with complete answers to every question. In Preaching as Poetry Paul Scott Wilson teaches why this new approach is necessary today, and demonstrates with multiple examples how it works in real sermons. He skillfully guides the reader to incorporate the classical values of beauty, goodness and truth in every sermon, and in ways that connect with congregants and listeners today.

Wonder Reborn
Wonder Reborn

Author: Thomas Troeger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-07-27

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0199774498

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This book explores an issue at the nerve of the long term health of all churches: how godly wonder can be reborn through renewed attention to the place of beauty in preaching and worship. The book opens with an exploration of the theological and cultural difficulties of defining beauty. It traces the church's historical ambivalence about beauty and art and describes how, in our own day, the concept of beauty has been commercialized and degraded. Troeger develops a theologically informed aesthetic that provides a counter-cultural vision of beauty flowing from the love of God. The book demonstrates how preachers can reclaim the place of beauty in preaching and worship. Chapter two employs the concept of midrash to mine the history of congregational song as a resource for sermons. Chapter three introduces methods from musicology for creating sermons on instrumental and choral works and for integrating word and music more effectively. Chapter four explores how the close relationship between poetry and prayer can stir the homiletical imagination. Each of these chapters includes a selection of the author's sermons illustrating how preachers can use these varied art forms to open a congregation to the beauty of God. A final chapter recounts the responses of congregation members to whom the sermons were delivered. It uses the insights gained from those experiences to affirm how the human heart hungers for a vision of wonder and beauty that empowers people to live more faithfully in the world.

Reading for Preaching
Reading for Preaching

Author: Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2013-11-30

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 0802870775

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In Reading for Preaching Cornelius Plantinga makes a striking claim: preachers who read widely will most likely become better preachers. Plantinga -- himself a master preacher -- shows how a wide reading program can benefit preachers. First, he says, good reading generates delight, and the preacher who enters the world of delight goes with God. Good reading can also help tune the preacher's ear for language -- his or her primary tool. General reading can enlarge the preacher's sympathies for people and situations that she or he had previously known nothing about. And, above all, the preacher who reads widely has the chance to become wise. This beautifully written book will benefit not just preachers but anyone interested in the wisdom to be derived from reading. Works that Plantinga interacts with in the book include The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario Silence, by Shusaku Endo "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy "Narcissus Leaves the Pool" by Joseph Epstein Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo . . . and many more!

Resources for Preaching and Worship - Year B
Resources for Preaching and Worship - Year B

Author: Hannah Ward

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 2002-01-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780664224776

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This is the first of a three-volume lectionary resource that weaves together a rich tapestry of quotations, meditations, poems, and prayers by classic and contemporary spiritual writers. Each volume links with the lectionary readings for Sundays and for important festival days such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. Anyone who is concerned with preaching on Sunday, or leading study groups or prayer groups during the course of the week, can find here something to feed personal reflection, to stimulate ideas for sermon themes, and to provide stories and poems as well as prayers that in some way relate to the biblical readings for the day concerned.

Finally Comes the Poet
Finally Comes the Poet

Author: Walter Brueggemann

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9781451419610

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The Christian gospel, says Brueggemann, is too easily preached and heard. Too often technical reason and excessive religious certitude reduce the gospel to coercive, debilitating pietisms that mask the text's meaning and freeze the hearers heart. With skill and imagination, Brueggemann demonstrates how the preacher can engage in daring speech?differently voiced and therefore differently heard. This speech, as suggested by the Bible itself, is "poetic" speech, enabling the preacher to forge communion in the midst of alienation, bring healing out of guilt, and empower the hearer for "missional imagination." As an alternative to theological/homiletical discourse that is moralistic, pietistic or scholastic, Brueggemann proposes preaching that is artistic, poetic, and dramatic. The basis for the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, Finally Comes the Poet is a unique and transforming guide for powerful preaching.

God's Trombones
God's Trombones

Author: James Weldon Johnson

Publisher: Penguin Group

Published: 1927

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13:

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The inspirational sermons of the old Negro preachers are set down as poetry in this collection -- a classic for more than forty years, frequently dramatized, recorded, and anthologized. Mr. Johnson tells in his preface of hearing these same themes treated by famous preachers in his youth; some of the sermons are still current, and like the spirituals they have taken a significant place in black folk art. In transmuting their essence into original and moving poetry, the author has also ensured the survival of a great oral tradition. Book jacket.

The Pastor as Minor Poet
The Pastor as Minor Poet

Author: M. Craig Barnes

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2008-12-30

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 0802829627

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Today s pastors often expected to be multitasking marvels who can make their churches "successful" are understandably confused about their role. Craig Barnes contends that the true calling of a pastor is to assist others in becoming fully alive in Christ to be a "minor poet." The pastor absorbs the wisdom of major poets the biblical poets as well as the church s theological poets and distills its essence for parishioners. / The Pastor as Minor Poet calls pastors to continually search for a deeper, truer understanding of what they see both in the text of Scripture and in the text of their parishioners' lives. Discerning the subtexts beneath these texts reveals the core truths that allow pastors to preach the heart of the Word and to understand the hearts of the people to whom they minister. Written with a seasoned pastor s depth of understanding and a poet's sensibility and sensitivity, this book will minister to and inspire pastors everywhere.

Preaching with Empathy
Preaching with Empathy

Author: Lenny Luchetti

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 1501841734

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Preachers can find help from many resources to get the text right, the structure right, and the delivery right. Preaching with Empathy aims to help preachers and homiletics students learn to deeply understand and love their listeners, in order to get preaching right. Preachers who profess a love for God, Scripture, and preaching, but who lack loving empathy for the listener, betray their three professed loves and limit their fruitfulness in ministry. This book teaches how to practice preaching in new ways, incorporating a heightened awareness and empathy for the people in the preacher’s community. Author Lenny Luchetti provides immediately useful tools, all based on the foundations of scripture, theology, history, and social awareness. Readers will learn to embody Christ for their congregations, as they empathically love God and humanity. This book is part of the successful Artistry in Preaching series, edited by Paul Scott Wilson. Other books in the series include Preaching as Poetry: Beauty, Goodness and Truth in Every Sermon, by Paul Scott Wilson; Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons that Matter, by Scott Hoezee; and Preaching in Pictures: Using Images for Sermons that Connect, by Peter Jonker.

Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric
Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric

Author: Siegfried Wenzel

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1400854148

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The Middle English lyric is intimately related to late medieval preaching, not only because many lyrical poems have been preserved in sermon manuscripts, but also because preaching furnished a unique opportunity to create and utilize poems. Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric explores this relationship in detail. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Poetry of Faith
The Poetry of Faith

Author: Stephen F. Dill

Publisher: NewSouth Books

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1603062785

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The ministry of the Rev. Stephen F. Dill was forged in the turbulent civil rights years when he stood for social justice and spoke against racial segregation. In this collection of sermons--many from his 20 years as pastor of Dauphin Way United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama--Dill reflects on the implications of his faith for the lives of individuals and for the life of the world. Robin Wilson, one of Dill's successors at Dauphin Way, praises "the bold humility" of his message, and author Frye Gaillard, in the book's introduction, offers this description of Dill and his sermons: "Almost inevitably, the poetry of his preaching caught the quick of my imagination and quietly, inevitably made me think." Appropriately, the publication of The Poetry of Faith coincides with the 100th anniversary of Dauphin Way. But these challenging and reassuring sermons resonate far beyond those walls. As Methodist educator Gorman Houston put it, this is the Christian faith at its finest, for Stephen Dill has always been "one of those ministers ... able to see the church as it should be and not as it was."