Preaching by Ear
- Church Leadership & Ministry
- Preaching & Worship
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Published: 2021
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
According to Kenton Anderson, professor of homiletics at ACTS Seminaries of Trinity Western University, this volume represents "a powerful tool" because it offers a new (actually old) model of preaching. For centuries, preaching has been shaped from a literary standpoint (i.e., reading, writing, outlining, and displaying sermons), but a premodern method of oral preparation and delivery has largely been forgotten. Preaching by Ear hearkens back to an earlier era when sermons were rooted inside the preacher and moved out in a natural and powerful way.
Endorsements (4)
“This book comes like a tall glass of cold water on a hot day. For too long, we have been writing sermons, as if people were going to read them instead of listen to them. Dave McClellan believes that if our sermons are going to be heard, we need to speak them into being. He is right. This is an engaging book, entirely relevant to our present moment. I can’t wait to hear the preaching that results.”
“Sermons are delivered orally, so why should they be conceived and gestate in literacy? Using Augustine, Plato, Aristotle, and especially Quintilian, Preaching by Ear explores the art and science of orality. Homiletics owes much to classical rhetoric, and McClellan continues to show us why. He challenges us to live lives of curiosity and worship, study and pray ourselves deep into the text, ‘map’ (not outline) the sermon, practice aloud, and then step out in faith without the safety net (or is it a straightjacket?) of written notes. Written by a pastor and scholar, Preaching by Ear will inform and challenge you.”
“If we preach sermons for listening congregations, why prepare them for readers? But since the printing press, sermons have moved from memorable oral patterns to the forgettable patterns of the written word. Preaching by Ear invites pastors to prepare messages for auditoriums—the communication environment of people in church—and to engage listeners through premeditated (not pre-scripted) preaching. This volume revitalizes content-rich, Scriptural preaching by pastors for listeners like us through the principles of oral thought.”
“McClellan understands the embodied miracle of communication, in which speech reaches from the vocal chambers and mind of the speaker to the ear and interiority of the listener, heart speaking to heart. In the authenticity of his preaching life, he also knows the commitment of putting one’s whole life at the service of the Word. In his scholarship, Pastor McClellan has paid forward his understanding of the arts of rhetoric and his love of the preaching life to hundreds of preachers—and I am one of them. Like Cicero and Augustine, and with the clarity of seasoned insight, McClellan knows how to teach, to delight, to persuade.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem