Instead of being a dour task on the checklist, what if the process of homily prep renewed you? Instead of feeling insecure about your message, what if your skills made you confident to preach a consistently clear message of Good News, authentic to you, relevant to your listeners, holding their attention and inviting transformation? Backstory Preaching: Integrating Life, Spirituality, and Craft shows you how. By integrating your life and spirituality with the practical skills necessary for effective preaching, you can move beyond the boredom, stress, or insecurity of preaching so it is no longer you who preach but Christ who preaches in you. By connecting with God in the midst of your sermon prep, the Gospel will be spread deeper and further. God's joy-and yours-will be made complete.
"Preachers who pick up this book will sit down for a wide-ranging, free-wheeling, vividly focused conversation with a colleague-one who knows firsthand, and who names succinctly not just the "in's and out's," but the "up's and down's" of the vocation you share. With art and energy, Lisa Cressman has written not a textbook for preaching, but a spirituality of preaching-one pervaded with compassiona
David J. Schlafer, author of Your Way with God's Word
"Long ago, Aristotle said that one of the three key ingredients in an effective communication situation is ethos, the listener's perception of the character of the speaker. Lisa Cressman goes significantly farther by emphasizing that the character, the person, of the preacher is formative for preachers themselves. We prepare for preaching by becoming people whose life is shaped by the gospel so th
Ronald J. Allen, Professor of Preaching, and Gospels and Letters, Christian Theological Se
