Sally A. Brown

Blessed

Arts & Literature

“Whether read or performed, turned as single gems or taken as a single work, Neal's deft, dramatic pieces raise deep questions about Mary--the blessed but utterly human mother of Jesus. Drawn into these scenes, we cannot help wondering, as well, at the astonishing intersections of the divine life with our own.”

Embodied Hope

Preaching & Worship

“Miles invites preachers to a thoughtful reevaluation of hope in preaching, one that takes seriously cultural forces that persistently erode hope. . . . Her analysis of the array of everyday discursive tropes that induce despair is illuminating. . . . Sample sermons demonstrate how vivid speech that concretizes shalom, love, and justice in accessible ways can restore hopeful vision and fuels communities that embrace God-given wholeness.”

Ethical Approaches to Preaching

Preaching & Worship

“In a time when responsible, clear-headed Christian ethical praxis and reflection have never been more crucial, this is a book that belongs on every preacher’s desk. . . . McClure devotes chapters to each of four distinctive approaches to Christian ethics in the pulpit: communicative ethics, ‘witness’ ethics, liberation ethics, and ‘hospitality’ ethics. . . . McClure not only lays out the primary theological/theoretical commitments and aims of a specific approach to ethical reflection, but proposes concrete practices for active ethical engagement beyond the church walls, as well as key homiletical strategies commensurate with the approach under discussion.”

For Every Matter under Heaven

Preaching & Worship

“This book will soon claim a place inches from the desktop of working preachers everywhere. Preachers--and those who teach them!--know how difficult it can be to preach fittingly for the varied life-situations, jarring or joyful, treated in this book's chapters. Inviting us to ask, What is going on?, Who is listening?, and Where is God?, Zink-Sawyer and Giver-Johnston trace theologically alert, sure-footed paths from situation to biblical text to pulpit, leading the way with pastoral wisdom and homiletical expertise.”

Learning to Speak of God

Preaching & Worship

“Mason Lee revisits one of homiletics’ oldest debates: how does preacherly virtue (or its lack) relate to the credibility of sermons? After reviewing with us the state of play, Lee expands the question itself: What virtue most crucially sustains theological integrity as we engage the web of interpretive practices that carry us to the pulpit? Lee’s surprising answer: patience. The path of patient curiosity Lee traces works to energize and liberate preachers, all the way to Sunday.”

Preaching and Music

Preaching & Worship

“In this wise and inspiring book, Williams—herself a pastor-preacher, as well as preaching professor and trained musicologist—invites preachers and church musicians to be creative allies, planning every worship service as a deliberate interweaving of sermon and song, guided by a clearly focused message. Chapter by chapter, we learn accessible strategies for creating a synergistic relationship between music and spoken word, enlisting preacher and worshipers as co-proclaimers of gospel news. Especially rich is Williams’s exploration of Africana worship traditions, where proclamation arises amid a soundscape of Spirit-energized dialogue between pulpit and pew. This is a book congregations must gift to each of their preachers, lay worship leaders, and musicians.”

Preaching on Social Suffering

Preaching & Worship

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Saving Power

Theology

“In a time when reports of violent death associated with religious zeal confront us on the front page of the paper almost daily, Christian theologians and preachers face no task more difficult than interpreting the saving significance of Jesus' own violent death. Peter Schmiechen goes straight to the heart of this challenge with theological clarity, critical rigor, historical depth, and ecclesial concern. He expands our interpretive range and vision, engaging along the way concerns raised about traditional atonement theories by feminist, womanist, and postcolonialist theologians. He also breaks fresh ground in examining the relationship between atonement theories and ecclesial life. The result is a book that no teacher of theology — and certainly no preaching pastor — should be without.”

The Journey and Promise of African American Preaching

Preaching & Worship

“Kenyatta Gilbert gives us in these pages both a remarkably broad historical view of the development of black preaching in North America and an incisive diagnosis of the challenges that preachers within and beyond the African American church must meet today. Reaching into the crucible of African American history and the preaching it evoked, Gilbert crafts a 'trivocal' approach to preaching that incorporates three distinctive accents of the black pulpit: the prophetic, sagely, and priestly voices. One can hardly imagine a better introduction—historical and theological, contextually alert and practical—to the deep wisdom to be discovered, or rediscovered, in African American preaching traditions. Any preacher, novice or veteran, will turn from these pages toward the pulpit to speak timely justice, relevant wisdom, and sustaining hope.”

The Peoples’ Sermon

Preaching & Worship

“In this wise and energizing book, homiletician Shauna K. Hannan does what she commends. Page by page, Hannan treats her readers as partners and collaborators in uncovering the hidden homiletical treasures of a collaborative approach to the preaching event. Hannan reframes that event so that, far from being a twenty-minute Sunday morning monologue, preaching becomes a Spirit-infused, collaborative practice. Week by week, congregation and preacher together mine that fertile matrix where biblical text, everyday experience, theological insight, and world events interact. And week on week, as one voice begins to proclaim, both preacher and congregation lean in, eager to hear what the Spirit has been saying not simply to the church but through it.”

Toward a Homiletical Theology of Promise

Preaching & Worship

“These final six essays of the Promise of Homiletical Theology series proceed from the central conviction that any hope worth preaching proceeds from the world-transforming, justice-making promises of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord of God’s new creation. Strikingly varied in their methodological approaches and rich in theological creativity, these writers urge hope-fueled preaching that is healing and prophetic, poetic and theologically discerning, accompanied by locally embodied, diverse, and hope-infused practices of worship and witness.”

Year D

Preaching & Worship

“Slemmons urges preachers to break out of the lectionary and bring to the pulpit difficult texts the Revised Common Lectionary studiously muffles--texts of judgment and penitence, Gospel conflict stories, apocalyptic material, and household codes. Further, with a disciplined Reformed vision and a pastor's longing for the church's renewal, Slemmons engages readers in a stimulating project of rethinking preaching and liturgy as both judgment and grace.”