Many clergy receive little training in the arts of preaching and it is assumed that they will learn by gaining experience. The renowned American preacher Herbert O’Driscoll suggests that congregations do not want to be given a map showing them how to get to the coast, they want to be drenched in the spray. Narrative preaching is a means of achieving such immediacy. By dramatic story-telling, it invites listeners into enter the text imaginatively and enables them to experience sermons as transformative events. This book aims to provide not just a theoretical introduction, but a resource that uses sermons in the narrative style to reflect on how to prepare and construct them and how to deliver them effectively in the context of worship.

Over a period of forty years, Ben Fisher collected stories illustrating the humor of the Southern Highlander. English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish immigrants to the Appalachian region of North Carolina brought with them a rugged individualism and a sense of humor and dignity which have been characteristic of the sturdy yeoman farmer. Most mountain preachers and many of the old time mountaineers had a real talent for telling stories. While the "tall tale" is a staple of mountain storytelling, more often the tales relate to something that happened, not something just dreamed up. Mountain humor, like all folk humor, typically arises out of a life situation. Fisher's work, edited by his wife Sally following his passing, relates many of the stories and tales that he had heard over the course of his life.

A Preachers Tales is a book about preachers who are unusual, sometimes eccentric people. Buchanan is one of them. In fact, a little bit of him is to be found in many, if not most of them. Buchanan is tolerant of all of them, and a few of them he even loves, or likes because they are so much like him. The prime redeeming feature in all of them is humor. Some of the things the preachers do and say are downright funny, but mostly the humor is subtle and only crops up after the reader has read and thought and reflected on what happened and what was told. Its not all humorous. Preaching is a serious business. The Preacher deals with a profound issue. He is holding Gods Hand with one hand and a mans hand with the other. What the preacher says and does may determine the course of human events because in some measure it reflects or communicates the mind and the saving grace of God. Behold here the Preacher Man at work and at play.

In 1650s England, a young Puritan maiden is on a mission to save the baby of her newly widowed preacher--whether her assistance is wanted or not. Always ready to help those in need, Elizabeth ignores John's protests of her aid. She's even willing to risk her lone marriage prospect to help the little family. Yet Elizabeth's new role as nanny takes a dangerous turn when John's boldness from the pulpit makes him a target of political and religious leaders. As the preacher's enemies become desperate to silence him, they draw Elizabeth into a deadly web of deception. Finding herself in more danger than she ever bargained for, she's more determined than ever to save the child--and man--she's come to love.

Dante is the son of the pastor of the largest church in Queens, NY. His overbearing mother feels that her son is destined to carry on the family tradition and replace his father as the church's spiritual leader, whether he likes it or not. But Dante has other ideas. He wants to be a music producer and songwriter. Brittany James is a bisexual stripper who doesn't care about anything except herself - until she runs into Dante and falls in love for the first time. When Dante is cornered into choosing between Brittany and his family, everyone is surprised at the results...

"Pastor Weiss [tells] the truth about what private life can be like for women who seek to publicly serve the Church." --Lynne Silva-Breen, MDiv, MA, LMFT, former ELCA Pastor "Anyone who daily searches for a genuine faith relationship will find benefit from this work." --Bruce G. Trethaway, MDiv "What are you?" the curious man asked Pastor Marjorie Weiss when he saw her walk by him in the church corridor while she was wearing her clerical collar. That question is indeed the heartbeat of her story. Until the 1970s, "pastor" had been a male-only profession. "What am I?" she asks throughout her journey. "What am I as I stand before a congregation weekly to deliver a sermon that will inspire and guide listeners to better understand themselves and God?" And what is she when that faith, so necessary to do her job, suddenly seems to vanish? What is she when her emotional life crumbles and anger rules her landscape? Can she be a pastor without God in her life? Weiss's deeply vulnerable, often humorous, memoir speaks to universal issues experienced by the religious and nonreligious alike. Many of her experiences may seem familiar while others border on the truly toxic. Can the pastor recover her faith? Or is it God from whom she needs to recover?