In Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart, Donna Giver-Johnston teaches preachers how to communicate effectively--how to get away from their notes and make a more personal connection with their listeners. Grounded in a theology of the incarnation, she offers a step-by-step method for writing sermons with the fewest, most impactful and memorable words and delivered by heart to communicate a message that captures the ears and hearts of listeners.

By exploring the historical, theoretical, and practical elements of the tradition of testimony, Anna Carter Florence seeks in this much-anticipated book to establish the historical and contemporary validity of women's preaching and to introduce testimony to a new generation of preachers and teachers. She begins with the stories of three women whose preaching was often described as testimony: Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Sarah Osborn, and Jarena Lee. Then, she examines biblical and theological perspectives on testimony. Finally, she explores how testimony plays out in a preacher's life, offering constructive proposals for preaching as well as helpful guidelines, direction, and exercises.

It has been said that the day of the sermon is over. Kate Bruce argues that the day of the poorly conceived, ill prepared, dull, disconnected, boring, irrelevant, authoritarian, yawn-inducing, patronizing, pontificating, pointless and badly delivered sermon, is indeed over. Imagination can help to engage the hearer in a sermon which seeks to evoke rather than to inform. Imagination frames how we see the world and ourselves in it. As such it has a vital role in how preachers see the preaching task itself, which in turn affects how we go about the task. A theology of imagination is presented to demonstrate the central importance of imagination in the life of faith. Allied to this is an analysis of the sacramental nature of preaching and the role of imagination in enabling the ‘aha, now I get it’ moment of sacramental ‘seeing-as’. Connected to enabling new seeing, preaching in the lyrical voice is defined and discussed along with the importance of preachers shaping sermons for the ear.

Queering the Pulpit addresses the huge gap between the Queer community and the church by looking at the historical, cultural, theological, and biblical issues that too often marginalize the Queer community. After setting that contextual foundation the book addresses the "clobber passages" in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, which are the texts that have been used to bash Queer folx. Looking at these texts through new eyes is essential. Using a Queer-affirming process, the book turns to creating a new process for establishing a foundation and understanding the diverse context into which sermons are delivered and heard. Using a new "sexegetical" approach to crafting Queer-affirming sermons, the preacher will be better able to preach sermons that invite Queer folx, inspire other listeners to welcome all, and bring the listener to a deeper relationship with the Divine and hopefully their Queer siblings. If this book helps save one gay kid, one trans woman of color, or one couple exploring their faith and their Queer lives it will be worth everything it took to bring this book to reality.

Seventy-five years ago, renowned preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick asked in Harper's Magazine, "what's the matter with preaching?" Fosdick's question is even more relevant today, as both pastors and laity acknowledge the need for improvement in Sunday morning's sermons. And who better for pastors and students to learn from than those who already do it well? The contributors to this book are a some of the best and most thoughtful preachers in the church and classroom today. In their essays, they assess the state of preaching today, identify a variety of issues that challenge effective preaching, and offer helpful suggestions for what can be done to improve preaching. In the process, they help to define what effective preaching is.

The preacher's body is a tool for proclamation, a vehicle by which a sermon comes to life. Female preachers, engaged in a task not long their own, know well the added attention directed to their physicality. They can experience ordinary decisions about attire, accessories, hairstyles, and movement as complex, and occasionally precarious, choices around how to bring flesh to their sermons. They can also experience the extraordinary power of their bodies, when materiality weighs in on the message. McCullough explores the every-Sunday bodily decisions of contemporary female preachers, with an eye to uncovering the meanings about body, preaching, and God alive underneath. Ultimately, she argues for a renewed understanding of embodiment, in which one's living body, inescapably intertwined with her preaching, becomes the avenue for greater knowledge about how to preach and deeper insight into the faith professed.

Jago and Sally Lloyd-Jones, the creators of the bestselling Jesus Storybook Bible, present this second volume of gorgeous, simple-yet-profound thoughts on faith taken from their book, Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing.With included narration by award-winning actor David Suchet, this edition of sixteen thoughts (“God’s Rules” to “Acorn Power”) uses a conversational tone paired perfectly with the illustrations to look at profound spiritual truths—drawing insights from creation, history, science, the writings of great thinkers and preachers and writers, and more—to turn the reader’s eyes toward the God who loves them with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. Perfect for family devotions, bedtime, story time, or even as a companion to The Jesus Storybook Bible, this ebook edition with a read-along component gives you an opportunity to make your heart sing, no matter where you are. (Due to the limitations of digital file size, the complete ebook has been divided into volumes.)