Backstory Preaching: Integrating Life, Spirituality, and Craft

by Lisa Cressman

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 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.

Genres: Spirituality

206 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 8, 2018

Reviews

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

No other preaching book did what this one does. I've collected helpful tips about outlines and sermon types from other books, but here Cressman immerses the heart, the soul, the mind, in a deep spirituality from which a sermon emerges. The way she took the old lectio divina patterns and matched them to sermon preparation has become my new preparation. And I feel centered in this practice. I am thankful.

[Alexander Steward · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the beat books on preaching that I have read!

[Catherine Wicker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preaching is not a performance it is a prayer and it is the prayer that we put forward. I loved the authors approach to thinking about where God is in life and how we see it.