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.


Preaching to People in Pain

Preaching to People in Pain

Author: Matthew D. Kim

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2021-05-18

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1493430866

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Offering an important corrective to a pain-averse culture that celebrates individualism and success, veteran preacher and teacher Matthew Kim encourages pastors to preach on the painful issues their congregations face. Through vulnerability and self-disclosure, pastors can help their congregants share their suffering in community for the purpose of healing and transformation. The book includes stories, shares relevant Scripture texts imparting biblical wisdom, and offers best practices for preaching on specific topics. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and a sample sermon.


Preaching in Pictures

Preaching in Pictures

Author: Peter Jonker

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1630884294

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The preachers’ words are meant to connect, to resonate with and influence hearers. Too often, sermons fall short. Preaching in Pictures: Using Images for Sermons that Connect shows how to choose, use, and illustrate a controlling image in every sermon. Readers learn how one effective image can cause the proclaimed word to sink in and transform the listener. Peter Jonker helps readers to build skill and confidence, with practical instruction, examples, and straightforward teaching. “Good preaching isn’t just the dissemination of information; it is a conduit of Spirit-empowered formation. Such formative preaching doesn’t convince the intellect; it captures the imagination. A controlling image has the power to do just this—to capture the imagination. Peter Jonker invites preachers to understand and to effectively use controlling images for formation of the hearer. This great book is erudite and accessible, theoretically grounded and yet intensely practical, complete with exercises. I’ll be pointing preachers to it from now on.” --James K.A. Smith, author of Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation “Preaching in Pictures opened eyes of my imagination. I can’t wait to write my next sermon.” --Heidi DeJonge Pastor, Westside Fellowship Christian Reformed Church, Kingston, Ontario “Peter Jonker offers preachers practical ways to connect the gospel in the hearts of listeners, with a wealth of helpful examples. This is a fresh and welcome perspective, just the book for preachers whose sermons have reached their shelf life and are in need of new energy.” --John Michael Rottman, Professor of Preaching Calvin Theological Seminary “Sane, balanced, assured--but also strikingly insightful--Peter Jonker's writing is a sheer gift to anyone interested in eventful preaching. Every page is worth pondering. Jonker writes with great verve and authority.” --Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Author of Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists


Bread of Life

Bread of Life

Author: Abigail Dodds

Publisher: Crossway Books

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9781433572470

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Abigail Dodds invites readers to ponder and celebrate God's spiritual and physical provision in Christ through the hands-on art of bread making.


Gospel Conversations

Gospel Conversations

Author: Robert W. Kellemen

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0310516161

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How does a person learn to counsel others with the truth of God’s Word? Bob Kellemen believes that the best way to learn counseling is by doing it—by giving and receiving biblical counseling in the context of real, raw Christian community. Gospel Conversations explores the four compass-points of biblical counseling: Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt.” Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope.” Reconciling: “It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven.” Guiding: “It’s Supernatural to Mature.” These four compass points combine to equip readers to develop twenty-two ministry relational competencies—the “how to” of caring like Christ. This book serves as a practical training manual that can be used for lab and small group interaction. Gospel Conversations is the second volume in The Equipping Biblical Counselors Series, a comprehensive relational training curriculum for the local church that provides a model for equipping God’s people to change lives with Christ’s changeless truth. This two-volume series weaves together comprehensive biblical insight with compassionate Christian engagement.


Day by Day with Charles Swindoll

Day by Day with Charles Swindoll

Author: Charles R. Swindoll

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Published: 2005-07-17

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1418566667

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A steaming cup of coffee, a heart-warming story, a poignant time of meditation and prayer in your favorite place of solitude. A few quiet moments alone with God?what a great way to begin . . . or end . . . your day. Now, Charles, Swindoll, the master communicator whose compelling stories and eye-opening insights have helped millions of people find and build meaningful relationships with God, brings you this moving collection of 365 daily devotionals. Based on the Bible and his best-selling classic, The Finishing Touch, this new book provides just what you need to open your heart to the Lord's love and leading every day. Your soul-strengthening journey through this volume can begin at any time during the year. And you will be drawn ever nearer to the heart of God through these brief encounters with Him as you study and worship Day by Day with Charles Swindoll.


Bread of Angels

Bread of Angels

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1561011428

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Bread of Angels contains twenty-nine sermons about God's providential care, as symbolized by the manna given to the Israelites as they made their way through the wilderness.


The Gospel People Don't Want to Hear

The Gospel People Don't Want to Hear

Author: Lisa Cressman

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1506456405

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Lisa Cressman, founder of Backstory Preaching, offers preachers tools to craft difficult sermon messages that can be heard. The gospel changes lives, but to do that it must first be heard. For it to be heard, people have to trust they are "seen" and their concerns and fears are acknowledged. They have to feel their perspectives are real, valid, and respected. Preachers have a difficult message to preach, a message many will not want to hear: new life always emerges from death. Cressman shows preachers how to craft sermons with the right tone and how to have the courage to say what you're called to say. Part 1 of the book provides the preparatory work needed before crafting those difficult sermon messages. Here the focus is on how preachers prepare themselves, build relationships of mutual trust with listeners, and understand and appropriately use authority and leadership to proclaim the gospel. Part 2 focuses on the sermon itself with suggestions on what to say and how to say it. The preacher will find new tools and sharpen existing ones to preach difficult messages with empathy, compassion, and skill.


Cultivating Empathy

Cultivating Empathy

Author: Nathan C. Walker

Publisher: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1558967745

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In this personal and emotionally honest exploration of conflict, the Reverend Nathan C. Walker introduces a creative and compassionate way to develop empathetic responses. He introduces the concept of the moral imagination--a vital character trait used by those who have the courage to project themselves into a conflict and understand all the perspectives, aware that understanding need not imply agreement. "Cultivating Empathy" presents a collection of essays about the author's wrestlings with personal and cultural conflicts and his commitment to stop "otherizing"--which occurs when we either demonize people or romanticize them. Walker's remedy for these kinds of projections is to employ the moral imagination as an everyday spiritual practice. He shows that through this approach, we can save ourselves from irresponsibly using our imaginations by cultivating genuine empathy for those we previously held in contempt. We can visualize ourselves playing various characters within a conflict and choose not to play a lead role in the drama. Throughout the book he endeavors to find connection with skinheads, murderers, homophobic preachers, privileged 1 percenters, and Monsanto executives. An online companion workbook will help readers to hone these skills through a variety of exercises.


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!