From Pew to Pulpit: A Beginner's Guide to Preaching - Softcover

Guthrie, Clifton F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687066603 ISBN 13: 9780687066605

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

A down-to-earth, practical introduction to the ins and outs of preaching for lay preachers, bivocational pastors, and others newly arrived in the pulpit. Recent years have seen a considerable increase in the amount of financial resources required to support a full-time pastor in the local congregation. In addition, large numbers of full-time, seminary trained clergy are retiring, without commensurate numbers of new clergy able to take their place. As a result of these trends, a large number of lay preachers and bivocational pastors have assumed the principal responsibility for filling the pulpit week by week in local churches. Most of these individuals, observes Clifton Guthrie, can draw on a wealth of life experiences, as well as strong intuitive skills in knowing what makes a good sermon, having listened to them much of their lives. What they often don't bring to the pulpit, however, is specific, detailed instruction in the how-tos of preaching. That is precisely what this brief, practical guide to preaching has to offer. Written with the needs of those for whom preaching is not their sole or primary occupation in mind, it begins by emphasizing what every preacher brings to the pulpit: an idea of what makes a sermon particularly moving or memorable to them. From there the book moves into short chapters on choosing an appropriate biblical text or sermon topic, learning how to listen to one's first impressions of what a text means, moving from text or topic to the sermon itself while keeping the listeners needs firmly in mind, making thorough and engaging use of stories in the sermon, and delivering with passion and conviction. The book concludes with helpful suggestions for resources, including Bibles, commentaries, other print resources and websites.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Clifton Guthrie is Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Studies at Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, Maine. He currently serves as the co-editor of Doxology: A Journal of Worship. Cliff has extensive teaching background at Candler School of Theology as well, having taught courses on systematic theology, preaching, United Methodist history, and worship and spirituality. His writing and editing credits include For All the Saints: A Calendar of Commemorations for United Methodists and numerous reviews and articles on the Christian calendar; pastoral care and practice, and worship issues. Cliff previously served as a local church pastor and youth minister and as an editor at the United Methodist Publishing House. He and his family reside in Bangor, Maine.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

From Pew to Pulpit

A Beginner's Guide to Preaching

By Clifton F. Guthrie

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2005 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-687-06660-5

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
1. Curious Callings, 
2. Preaching with Others, 
3. Choosing a Text or Subject, 
4. Hearing the Bible Again for the First Time, 
5. Working Up to Your Sermon, 
6. Focusing In on Your Message, 
7. Patterns and Forms, 
8. Crafting Your Message, 
9. Final Preparations, 
10. Giving Your Sermon, 
11. Feedback Loops, 
12. Words at the Door, 
Select Bibliography for New Preachers, 

CHAPTER 1

Curious Callings

Despite our tendency sometimes to think otherwise, there never was a day when all of God's preachers were imposing men with booming voices and unwavering confidence in their calling to ministry. Rather, both scripture and church history show us that preachers' bodies, natural abilities, and inner convictions vary widely. They come to the task with strength and frailty, certainty and doubt, talent and inadequacy. In other words, they are people like us. Yet the stereotypes continue to limit the power of the gospel in our churches and in ourselves. You new preachers who are blessed (or cursed) with unshaken confidence that God has called you to pulpit ministry need not read this chapter. The rest of us may benefit from a little review of the many and curious ways that God has called very ordinary people like you and me to preach.

Reluctant Prophets

The Bible is full of reluctant preachers. In fact, God would seem to specialize so much in speaking through hesitant people that it's almost wise to be downright suspicious of preachers-to-be who are champing at the bit. Moses worried himself sick at the burning bush: "But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'" (Exodus 4:1). Samuel was a small boy who heard voices in the night and was afraid to tell the old priest Eli about his dreams (1 Samuel 3:2-18). Isaiah's vision of God's holiness was so overwhelming that he wouldn't speak until his own sinful lips were made clean (Isaiah 6:1-8). Jonah was so reluctant a preacher that he hopped on a boat, tried to get others to drown him, and was swallowed by a fish. Even when his five-word sermon (in the Hebrew text) caused the whole city of Nineveh to repent, he went out and sulked (Jonah 4).

In the throes of sermon preparation you may be hit by a freight train of self-doubt: who am I to stand up and preach? However I got to this place, it must be a mistake. The people who invited me are going to wonder what in the world they were thinking!

It's called the Imposter Syndrome, the feeling of being unworthy of such a high calling, and it can be a wretched thing to experience. Your inner demon whispers that you don't know enough about the Bible, your spiritual life is a mess, your voice is squeaky—the reasons are legion and deeply personal. One student discovered the sermons of Barbara Brown Taylor and then almost refused to preach because she just knew she couldn't do it as well. Martin Luther aptly summed up the dread:

I would rather be stretched upon a wheel or carry stones than preach one sermon. For anyone who is in this office will always be plagued, and therefore I have often said that the damned devil and not a good man should be a preacher. But we're stuck with it now. ("Sermon on the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, 1531.")

We all have our inner demons and times that we feel unworthy to preach. If you are afraid, at least you are not alone. In fact, my experience is that new preachers who feel as Luther did turn out to be much better preachers than those who can't wait to climb into the pulpit because they grasp the significance of the calling and responsibility of the task. It is a good and biblical thing to be a reluctant prophet. But think carefully about what exactly it is that makes you reluctant. Your inner reluctances are matters you must pray over and work through. For some people, such reluctances turn out to be indications that they really do not belong in the pulpit. For others, they are signs of unrealistic images that they have about preachers, or some burden of self-criticism from which they must be healed. For still others, however, the sense of unworthiness comes from years of being told that the pulpit is a place reserved only for folks who are of a different gender, race, age, physical ability, class, or educational background than theirs. Even if you are never told explicitly that "people like you" should not preach, it may be that you have simply never seen a person like yourself in the pulpit and so have implicitly assumed that your voice was not welcomed. Here we are up against not just our inner demons, but against powers and principalities like racism, ableism, sexism, and homophobia that plague the history of the church. In this small book I cannot deal with all of these prejudices in relation to preaching other than to say that I believe that the Spirit is moving through the church to continue to break down the barriers that keep us from living fully and faithfully.

Yet because this is a book especially for new preachers, there are two groups I wish to address directly, folks who have often been barred from the pulpit: women and laity.

Women in the Pulpit

It is astounding that the birth of the church at Pentecost was marked by the promise that the Spirit would move both sons and daughters to prophesy (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28-29), and yet the church has resisted the Spirit's gift to women ever since. If you are a woman moving from the pew to the pulpit, you may experience a deep reluctance to preach that men will never know. Because for so many centuries women were forbidden to preach (and still are in many denominations), you may sense that your voice is less expected and welcome or carries less weight than that of men. Despite the fact that women make up 61 percent of all U.S. worshipers and more than one third of the students in seminaries, only about 12 percent of all U.S. clergy are women. In most denominations, we are only one or two generations removed from the pioneering women who were first ordained. In other places women have been only reluctantly received, if at all.

The resistances are profound. You may encounter folks who will compliment your preaching, but then say offhandedly, "You preach well, but I just can't get used to the sound of a woman preacher." You may be paid less for your efforts than men. You may be bumped off the schedule or given second billing or slighted in an introduction if you share a service with a man. Even if there are no remaining sexist attitudes in your congregation there can be other obstacles: the pulpit may be too tall or the sound system tuned for lower voices, the prayers and hymns still talk about "men" rather than "men and women," or just plain "people." God is addressed as Almighty Father so many times in our prayers that it seems like we believe this is God's official and only name. No wonder some of the women students I encounter confess that they face an inner struggle about whether they have a right to stand in the pulpit! In both subtle and explicit ways, even in liberal churches women are sent the message that they really don't belong.

Women can be ambivalent about preaching even when they are asked to do it precisely because the preaching office too often has been used to perpetuate patterns of authoritarianism. Refusing to stand towering over...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0687066603
• ISBN 13: 9780687066605
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 135
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland