You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Where do our churches go from here? Church and Christian community look a lot different than they did before the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic, racial trauma, and economic uncertainty revealed difficult truths about the wounds we carry. The damage caused by trauma is deep and affects every part of our lives together. At the same time, the pandemic has upended or called into question many of our traditional ministry models. For those tasked with leading congregations through this disorienting new territory, the challenges are great indeed. Yet God’s people are amazingly resilient. In All Our Griefs to Bear, author Joni S. Sancken builds on her own trauma-aware background and engages leading sociologists and mental health professionals to name some of the largest issues that congregations now face and will face as we process the cascading trauma of our time. Chapters focus on practices such as lament, storytelling, and blessing to help leaders and church members to nurture resilience and compassion. We cannot go back to who we were before. But the church can experience new life and renewal in the wake of trauma as God’s healing and hope move through us into our world.
Where do our churches go from here? Church and Christian community look a lot different than they did before the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic, racial trauma, and economic uncertainty revealed difficult truths about the wounds we carry. The damage caused by trauma is deep and affects every part of our lives together. At the same time, the pandemic has upended or called into question many of our traditional ministry models. For those tasked with leading congregations through this disorienting new territory, the challenges are great indeed. Yet God’s people are amazingly resilient. In All Our Griefs to Bear, author Joni S. Sancken builds on her own trauma-aware background and engages leading sociologists and mental health professionals to name some of the largest issues that congregations now face and will face as we process the cascading trauma of our time. Chapters focus on practices such as lament, storytelling, and blessing to help leaders and church members to nurture resilience and compassion. We cannot go back to who we were before. But the church can experience new life and renewal in the wake of trauma as God’s healing and hope move through us into our world.
It has never been easy to preach about the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but difficulties today are particularly challenging. Hearers ask tough questions of the church and the Christian faith, and they are not satisfied by formulaic answers. People are often suspicious of doctrine and are attracted to a broad but vague or pluralistic spirituality rather than the classical claims of Christianity. In this climate, preachers often see preaching on the central events of the Christian story, the crucifixion and resurrection, as more of a problem than a possibility, more of a burden than a joy. They wonder not only how to preach the "old, old story" of cross and resurrection but whether they sh...
During times of deep trouble, God generates new and creative ways to break through the fear and pain to get to us even as we seek to get to God. Recent crises are unparalleled and world-changing. Life is a terminal condition. What we say on Sunday morning matters. Nothing is more important than communicating the power and presence of the living God, who for us and our broken dying world is strength, hope, healing, and salvation. And yet, the age-old challenge of how to name God in our world looms large. Amidst the immense challenges of preaching today, three preachers and teachers of preaching show a way forward by walking readers through a sermon-creation process for specific challenging circumstances that gets to God. This book demonstrates how preachers can proclaim God’s grace in our world today by building on the theological grammar and preaching method proposed by Paul Scott Wilson. Sancken, Powery, and Rottman lead by example, showing preachers how to contextualize a theologically rich approach to preaching, expand the horizon of ministry, and equip preachers with a vital practice, that of learning to look for and name God’s active presence in our world.
The focus of this volume is the practice of preaching as it is developed and performed in today’s revolutionary context of digital technology and social media. In the twentieth century, the Christian pulpit adopted and made good use of digital technology and social media, be it via television, radio, film, cassette, or CD-ROM. Now, the revolutionary nature of digital technology and social media in the twenty-first century demands an entirely new theological assessment, with methodological adoptive concerns in relation to the practice of preaching. In this volume, a group of global homileticians provides their unique insights to the following questions and more. What technologies do we have...
Many preachers and teachers of preaching talk about the gospel; few name it. Theologies of the Gospel in Context assembles a gifted group of homileticians who think that preachers need to be able to articulate the gospel not "in general," but in a certain time and place, in context. They consider what gospel sounds like for people under oppression, in capitalist economies, in neocolonial contexts, for survivors of trauma, and for disestablished mainline churches marred by racism. Preachers will appreciate these preacher/scholars' desire to articulate the gospel with clarity, especially since the term is so often left unexplained. Homileticians will see a new genre of doing their work as teachers and researchers in preaching: a vision that helps preaching see itself not just as an adjunct to exegesis or communication, but a place of doing theology. In these pages homiletics is more than technique, it is a truly theological discipline.
Effective Preaching: Bringing People into an Encounter with God is a practical collection of essays, featuring leading preachers, homilists and homily instructors. Compiled by Michael E. Connors, CSC, the Director of the John Marten Program in Homiletics and Liturgics at the University of Notre Dame, this imaginative book focuses entirely on the practical side of Catholic preaching. It will provide imaginative, hands-on, tested advice to help homilists develop preaching effectiveness, using techniques that will turn satisfactory preaching into exceptional preaching. This practical resource will be essential for priests, permanent deacons, seminarians in homiletics classes; retreat leaders, RCIA catechists; all who preach.
Recovering a neglected chapter of reception history, this unique volume gathers select writings by thirty-five nineteenth-century women on the stories of several women in Joshua and Judges, including Rahab, Deborah, Jael, and Delilah. (Back cover).
This is the final volume in a unique new commentary series that helps the preacher identify and reflect on the social implications of the biblical readings in the Revised Common Lectionary. The essays concentrate on the themes of social justice in the weekly texts and how those themes can be teachable moments for preaching social justice in the church. In addition to the lectionary days, there are essays for twenty-two "Holy Days of Justice," including Martin Luther King Day, Earth Day, World AIDS Day, and Children's Sabbath. These days are intended to enlarge the church's awareness of God's call for justice and of the many ways that call comes to the church and world today.
Teaching preaching, like preaching itself, is a noble endeavor. After nearly four decades of teaching, Richard Lischer has sent legions of preachers across the world to preach gospel. This volume pays tribute to his faith-filled life of preaching and teaching. The contributors, some of whom were taught by Lischer, have received many laurels themselves, so readers will find in these pages wisdom for preaching from many quarters. Some authors include sermons with helpful commentary about the preaching exercise; some offer essays to illuminate the task of sermon writing; all acknowledge the influence of Richard Lischer on their preaching and teaching endeavors.