Connect09

A question for all you preachers out there to encourage the rest of us:
“Which book on preaching have you found most helpful, and why?”

I’ve just started reading “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament” by Sidney Greidanus and wondered what others found helpful. I’m not in a position to comment on the book myself but I will when I finish it.

cheers!

books on preaching

G’day Philip. I have learnt from various books over the past 30 or so years. A long time ago I enjoyed John Stott’s Between Two Worlds: the art of preaching in the 20th century. I have recently enjoyed Richard Bewes Speaking in Public Effectively. When we attended an evening service at All Souls in Langham Place, London we had the privilege of hearing him speak on Daniel 2. I was chuffed that his service ended with the same song ours in Bathurst did, the night Dave Martin preached on the same passage: Geoff Bullock’s This Kingdom.

John Piper’s book The Supremacy of God in Preaching is a thrilling book, which I think all preachers should get into.

I also like Graeme Goldsworthy’s Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture . Goldsworthy commends the book you are reading, Philip, too.

I thought that Preaching & Preachers by Martin Lloyd-Jones was very helpful.

He is a man of his time though; but I thought a lot of what he had to say was a timely reminder indeed.

One of the most simple yet helpful books I have read on preaching is called, “Popular Preaching”by Dinsdale T.Young, D.D. first published in 1929.

His basic message is that you have to know the language of those you are preaching to and to preach to them in that language so that they can understand you and to know how long you can preach to them.

I have also read some of the following, Lloyd Jones as mentioned by Joshua, The Preacher & Preaching, Samuel T. Logan, Jr, John Stott’s I believe in Preaching, W.Boyd Carpenter - lectures on preaching, J.E. Adams - Preaching with Purpose , especially his chapter on Determining the preaching portion.

One of the questions I would like to ask about preaching is how many of us write the objective sentence before we prepare the sermon or is that something not really used?

craig

I have found Biblical Preaching by Hadden Robinson fanstastic.
The only thing is that I think it is out of print.

-bw

I have found Preaching that Connects by Mark Galli and Craig Brian Larson to be a very useful book on the communication side of preaching. It is strongly anchored in a biblical wisdom framework - that is, how do we see words and language working in our world, and how can we make best use of those observations for the task of preaching?

Both guys are journalists, and share some of the insights of how journalists use language to ‘grab’ readers and make them continue to read.

I found it through a review on the Perspective (www.perspective.org) website a couple of years back. BTW, that website has some good resources and training articles for preachers as well.

Preach hard, or sit down!

Setting Hearts on Fire by John Chapman.  John spells out a basic formula which makes sremon preparation efficient, gets to the point of the passage quickly, ensures the sermon is really from the passage and provides a easy to listen to talk.

Craig T <><