Good News for the Hard of Hearing

Good News for the Hard of Hearing PDF

Author: Roger G. Talbott

Publisher: CSS Publishing

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 0788005065

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Jesus spoke to people whose "hearts have grown dull, and their ears hard of hearing" -- like today's churchgoers who think they know what the preacher is going to say before the sermon begins. These sermons use parable and paradox, narrative and humor, imagination and solid biblical scholarship to tell the good news people don't expect to hear. I hear best what I want to hear and I shut out the things I don't want to hear. I hear, "Great sermon, Pastor!" better than I hear, "I notice your hair is getting thinner"... I have no problem at all hearing the good news that I am forgiven. I have a really hard time hearing a parable that tells me I will suffer the tortures of the damned until I forgive. These sermons have been influenced by preachers who have gotten through to me despite my spiritual hearing impairment. Craddock, Buechner, and Lowry... David Buttrick... Harry Emerson Fosdick... (from author's Preface) Sermons in this book are based on lections for the middle third of the season after Pentecost. Sermon titles include: Prayer and Compassion Fatigue -- Matthew 14:13-21 Love Without Limits -- Matthew 15:10-28 Good News: Life Is Not Fair -- Matthew 20:1-16 Why Do We Ignore Warning Signs? -- Matthew 21:33-46 Roger Talbott is pastor of North Olmsted United Methodist Church in North Olmsted, Ohio. He has served congregations in Ohio and western New York. He earned his M.Div. degree from Colgate Rochester Divinity School and is currently enrolled in the D.Min. program at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan.

The Preacher as 'First Listener'

The Preacher as 'First Listener' PDF

Author: Filip De Cavel

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published:

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 3643912838

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The preacher's weekly assignment is brutally repetitive: Fill the blank page by Sunday, at least twice a month, if not, even more. This book offers a biblical, theological and empirical grounding to support the preacher's self-reflective, listening, and sermonizing practices in order for the preacher to be aware of his/her spirituality of listening and discernment.

The Touch of the Sacred

The Touch of the Sacred PDF

Author: Gerrit Immink

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2014-08-03

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0802869157

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All over the world Christian communities meet on Sunday morning for worship. But what really happens during a worship service? How do worshipers participate in the service? What does it mean to sing, pray, and celebrate the Lord's Supper together? What do worshipers do when they listen to a sermon? In The Touch of the Sacred Gerrit Immink offers thoughtful theological reflection on the religious practice of worship services in the Protestant tradition. He develops a theology of worship with a clear focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as he explores the meaning of worship, the mystery of Christ, the sacraments, prayer, and preaching. Ultimately, he says, something dynamic happens when a church congregation speaks and acts: it is touched by the sacred, by a very encounter with the living God.

Co-preaching

Co-preaching PDF

Author: Frida Mannerfelt

Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand

Published: 2023-05-04

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9188906213

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The purposes of this article-based thesis are to explore and understand preaching as a practice in general, and the practice of preaching in digital culture and spaces in particular. Informed by the practice theory of Theodore Schatzki, it presents the results of a cross-case analysis of four different case studies of the practice of preaching in digital culture and spaces in Swedish protestant churches. Based on the analysis, Frida Mannerfelt argues that the deep relationality of the practice of preaching involves not just humans and texts but also material arrangements and that this feature often is amplified in digital culture and spaces. While there were examples of a decrease, overall, there was an increase in interaction, negotiation, and interdependency. In light of this, Manner-felt contends that the practice of preaching in digital culture and spaces is characterized by co-preaching. Moreover, Mannerfelt argues that some of the implications of co-preaching are the enabling and encouragement of dialogue, imagination, and the priestly function of the priesthood of all believers, but also an increased vulnerability for the co-preachers involved.

Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth

Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth PDF

Author: Eduardus van der Borght

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-11-25

Total Pages: 937

ISBN-13: 900421884X

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Former colleagues and students honour Prof. Dr. A. van de Beek with contributions in this Festschrift on themes that have become central in his theology: christology, theology of Israel, eschatology, theology of the church, creation theology, and freedom of religion.

Preaching Promise withing the Paradoxes of Life

Preaching Promise withing the Paradoxes of Life PDF

Author: Len Hansen

Publisher: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA

Published: 2019-01-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1928314481

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Paradoxes have become characteristic of the world we live in - poverty and privilege, empire and oppression, migration and enclaveseeking, war and peace, justice and injustice, reconciliation and revenge. During the 2016 Societas Homiletica annual conference held in South Africa, these paradoxes served as a rediscovery of the calling of preachers to deliver the promise that lies within life's contradictions. A divine promise brought forth by the grace of God and the gospel of Christ - embodied in and through us by the Spirit of Christ. This promise may take many forms and calls for discernment and often interrupts the status quos in surprising, shocking ways. It is a promise that interrupts, in order to comfort.

Participation and Covenant

Participation and Covenant PDF

Author: Dick Moes

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2024-03-13

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13:

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In Participation and Covenant: Contours of a Theodramatic Theology, Moes develops a theological framework that has participation in the life of God in Christ through the Spirit as its integrative center. In doing so, he enters into conversation with covenant or federal theology, particularly as it has been presented by Michael Horton, in which the integrative center is the concept of the covenant. He argues that God's fundamental relationship with humanity does not entail a covenant ontology--a fundamentally legal and ethical relationship to God, as we find in Horton's presentation--but rather an ontology of participating in God's loving presence in Christ through the Holy Spirit. For this relationship we were created, and this participation is therefore natural to us. Accordingly, a theodramatic framework that incorporates a reframed understanding of divine-human covenants and that has participation in the life of God in Christ by the Spirit as its integrative center is better able to give direction for clearly communicating the gospel in our secular culture and for properly shaping our Christian identity and practice--in the face of the secularism that affects the church, too--than Horton's framework of covenant theology.

What’s Right with Preaching Today?

What’s Right with Preaching Today? PDF

Author: Mike Graves

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1498295029

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In 1928, when Riverside Church (NYC) pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick asked the question in Harpers Magazine, "What's the Matter with Preaching Today?" he did not know that one response to that question had just entered the world in Humboldt, Tennessee. Fred B. Craddock revolutionized preaching theory and practice by flipping pulpit logic from deductive to inductive--often called the preaching-as-storytelling revolution--and in so doing brought renewed interest and impact to the practice of preaching, effectively rescuing it from an often tedious and moralizing fate. With Fred, preaching was anything but boring. Rather, it was an exciting and enlightening ride that led to the renewal of faith. To honor Craddock's legacy, Mike Graves and Andre Resner invited ten leading voices in homiletics to identify something that is right about preaching today. In addition, they issued a call to a wide variety of people to contribute stories about Fred's impact on their lives and ministries. Twenty-seven remembrances of Fred are included here throughout the book. If you appreciate effective and engaging preaching--as either a preacher or listener--the essays and remembrances here will speak to you and provide encouragement about preaching's present and future. With contributions from: Ronald J. Allen Barbara K. Lundblad Alyce McKenzie Debra J. Mumford Luke Powery Andre Resner Richard Ward Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm Paul Scott Wilson

Dialogical Preaching

Dialogical Preaching PDF

Author: Marlene Ringgaard Lorensen, Ph.D.

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 3647624241

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"Dialogical Preaching - Bakhtin, Otherness and Homiletics" explores the genre of preaching in light of theories of dialogicity and carnivalization developed by Mikhail Bakhtin. The Bakhtinian approach to preaching evokes ways in which historical acts and embodied experiences are transcribed in literary genres. The theories of carnivalization manifest the dynamic, other-oriented, interaction between reflexive texts and embodied acts. Experiences of otherness and difference play a central role in human communication as well as in theological descriptions of the relationship between God and humans. One of the central aims of this book is to explore ways in which 'others', different from the designated preacher, influence contemporary preaching practices and in that sense can be seen as co-authors. As material for this investigation the book provides analyses of four theologians who have contributed significantly to contemporary homiletical developments, namely those of the American homileticians Charles Campbell, John S. McClure, and James H. Harris and the Danish Systematic Theologian, Svend Bjerg.The homiletical analyses lead to the thesis, that the dialogical encounter between author, and addressees, analyzer and analyzed, is one of the conditions of interpretation and communication rather than a disturbance. The communication theoretical and practical theological analyses are discussed in light of Kierkegaard`s, Barth`s and Jüngel's emphasis on the 'qualitative difference' between God and humans. These concluding reflections suggest ways in which inter-human otherness can function as a dynamically conjoining rather than mutually exclusive difference between God as the 'Wholly Other' and 'other-wise' humans.