Accidental Preacher: A Memoir

by William H. Willimon, Kate Bower (Afterword)

The lively, inspiring memoir of an eminent Christian preacher and leader In this book one of today’s best-known Christian leaders recounts—with his signature wit and humor—memorable moments from his rich and full preaching life. A personal and vocational memoir, Will Willimon’s  Accidental Preacher  portrays the adventure of a life caught up in the purposes of a God who calls unlikely people to engage in work greater than themselves.  Beginning with his childhood in a segregated South and moving through his student years, Willimon gives candid, inspiring, and humorous testimony to his experiences as a seminary professor, rural pastor, globe-trotting preacher, bishop, and popular theologian and writer. Above all, he shows how God has constantly had a call on his life.  By turns poignant, hilarious, and thought-provoking—but always irresistibly engaging— Accidental Preacher  is sure to join the well-remembered, classic memoir of our time.

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir, Faith, Christianity

240 pages, Hardcover

Published July 16, 2019

About the author

The Reverend Dr. William H. Willimon is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at the Divinity School, Duke University. He served eight years as Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, where he led the 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors in North Alabama. For twenty years prior to the episcopacy, he was Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Rick Lee Lee James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not stop reading this unique memoir of William H. Willimon. Though I’ve only met him once as we shared an hour in a podcast conversation together about one of his books, I consider myself one of his disciples. If it were up to me, Willimon’s books should be required reading for all pastors. This memoir is especially good for pastors to read because it feels less like an autobiography and more like the story of what God is, was, and will do do in the world, interpreted through the life of a preacher.

Kate Bowler sums up this memoir very well. “This memoir is about the comedy of calling and the absurdity of being chosen by a God whose purposes simultaneously elevate and level us. We devote ourselves to the grand cause of joining God in bringing heaven to earth, but mostly we find ourselves doing paperwork and trying to find better parking. We want to feel called, but we are asked to simply act like it.”

Please read this book, especially if you are in ministry. It will give you encouragement, discipline, laughter, and hope for ministry. You will close the final page thinking, thank God for creating Preachers like Will, and thank God that God is so good.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and bouncy book about the wonders of a God who continues to do surprising work where one wouldn't expect it-- in high academia, for instance, and in what looks like the corpse of the mainline churches. Lots of good stories, lots of rabbit trails into books that you thought you'd get around to one of these days. Worth a read, especially if you love the mess that is the local church and the bigger less lovable mess that is the government of a church denomination.

[Howard Boswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I had the opportunity to hear Willimon speak in the summer, I knew I wanted to read this memoir. Accidental Preacher sounds like Willimon. It’s an honest, straightforward, and, sometimes, humorous exploration of a preacher’s life. Willimon shares things about his childhood and youth that surprised me. His insights into the church and the academy are eye opening. The afterword by Kate Bowler is a great conclusion to a wonderful memoir.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A memoir about a man who became a pastor because of calling. 
I do not really know Will Willimon except through his book with Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens, and I read that nearly 30 years ago as a freshman in college. I really did not know what I was getting into, but I needed a change in pace and I tend to appreciate memoirs or elder preachers.

Willimon is funny. He knows he is funny and he likes to use self-depreciation humor, not just for effect, but also theologically. At the start of the book he has these two quotes

My story is a comedy, as opposed to a tragedy, not because my life is funny but because my life is having a happy ending due to God’s gracious choice to be God for us and choosing even the likes of me to be for God.

and

You can tell that Kathleen Norris is a Christian. As she wrote her memoir, she repeatedly reminded herself, “You’re not that big of a deal. The call is the big deal.” If my memoir makes me my life’s chief protagonist, me, the big deal, I’m the most miserable of writers. More interesting than my life are the hijinks of a vocative God who explains my life.

There is some real similarity between Hauerwas and Willimon in tone and history. Both seem to like to be cantankerous, getting riled up about things that both are really important and over things that seem odd to be riled up about to me. But because they are so serious about both their faith and their understanding of human and divine grace, there is a lot of inbuilt willingness on my part to allow for a bit of 'grumpy old man'-ing.

Willimon was a pastor, the chaplain at Duke for 20 years and then a United Methodist Bishop. He seems to live as he preaches. And hold himself to even higher standards than he holds others. Willimon does keep others the center of the story. He grew up with an absent father (often in jail) and was seeking father figures. When he was young and in a confirmation class at church, he was supposed to get a picture taken with the other kids and the pastor. A woman organizing the picture chastised him for not having a tie. But the pastor gave a sense of grace.

“What a beautiful group!” exclaimed Dr. Herbert. “I have one request before we go out and take our place on the church steps. Boys, please, no ties on a Thursday. Only I can wear a tie in church on a weekday. Such are the rules of our Connection. You may wear them if you must on Sunday. Please remove your ties. Let’s take that picture.” God is like Dr. Herbert, without the Plymouth.

I look forward to reading memoirs of pastors from my generation. I have found great value in Eugene Peterson, Stanley Hauerwas, John Perkins, John Stott, and other memoirs. I would love to get a memoir from Flemming Rutledge, although on Twitter, she has said she will never write one. Calling and what they have seen as important is part of what I have valued. And I value appropriate self-disclosure and weakness. It feels to me that I need to see weakness and struggle even more than success. Success should be attributed to God. But how God uses weakness seems to be more encouraging than recounting how well things went. Willimon seems to have worked really hard, but at the same time appropriately gives credit to God.

This is an easy to read memoir. The humor makes the hard stuff go down well. (Like this)

Jesus’s directives seem extreme for most church squabbles. I’ve found that when someone offends, if I count to ten and seethe for a year or two, I usually get over it. If, on the other hand, I offend them and they refuse to suppress their anger at me, I dismiss them as touchy, overly sensitive. I would like you to think that I’m such a nice person that I would never obey Jesus and confront you. Truth is, Jesus has a considerably higher view of friendship than that practiced in most churches, which amounts to: I promise never to hold you accountable if you’ll do the same for me. Church as a gentile conspiracy of niceness, as a civil compatibility club rather than a community of truth.

I mostly listened to the audiobook. It is Willimon reading and I think that matters, but the production was not as good as it could have been and the audio was at times muddy or airy, like the mics being used were not as good as they should have been. The audio is not awful, it just was not as good as I think it should have been.

The book ends with an afterword by Kate Bower. Kate knows Willimon well, he was both chaplain and colleague to her. She puts some context on his humility. And I think shows as well as anything that she believes in the faith and life of Willimon as someone to emulate. I want pastors that are not perfect, but ones that can be emulated. And that seems to be what I get from Willimon.

[Sarah Sisbot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Will Willimon when listening to Kate Bowler’s podcast. Their witty banter and close friendship made me give Willimon’s memoir a try. His accent is fabulous; I would listen to him read the phone book. But luckily the message in this book is wonderful too. His main theme, throughout retelling most of his rather fascinating life, is that our lives are not our own. Our lives belong to God and Willimon shows, with humor and humility, how he has responded to God’s calling. I highly recommend this book to fans of Christian memoirists like Anne Lamott and also more satirical memoirists like David Sedaris. I would love to listen to a panel of these authors together!

[Jerry Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is insightful and at times delightfully irreverent. The core theme of the book is vocation, how God is calling each of us and how we respond to that call. He tells many great stories about himself which are often self-deprecating. I found it thought-provoking and well worth the read. With Stanley Hauerwas, he authored a classic book (now on my reading list), Resident Aliens. He has also written many books on pastoring and preaching.

[Elizabeth Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I genuinely enjoyed Bishop Willimon’s book. However, I think I enjoyed it so much because I, too, am a United Methodist clergy person from the South Carolina Annual Conference who went to Duke Divinity. I could picture almost all the people and places he described. I don’t know if I would have appreciated it without the heavy connection. Willimon did have some great nuggets of wisdom and truth throughout the book, and I sincerely appreciate him more after reading this memoir.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very impressed by this memoir. Loved the end especially. Good colorful man of God.
What's hilarious is I just found out what he looks like through wikipedia and I thought the whole time he was a black pastor as per his voice. Maybe I should have started there. And maybe it's because I've been listening to "just mercy" at the same time whose author is black and also from the Methodist church. Go figure. They both have been very uplifting books in any case

[David Blankenship · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times this feels more like a stream-of-consciousness therapy session than a memoir. But that does not make it any less interesting, if sometimes confusing.

Perhaps this is also a book about God's calling of preachers and servants. How else to account for a life like this? Ministry is this fascinating calling for those of us who have taken similar paths to Willimon. It is never about us, of course, but God. But isn't this what makes it such a joyous and accidental life?

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are entertaining anecdotes abound, there is not always present an overarching theme or cohesive structure in the writing. That God has been present in the author’s life there is no doubt, but the depth of reflection and poignancy that one might expect from such as storied life is often yielded to in favor of a witty and amusing retelling of his history.

[Nick Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess it’s a memoir, but it’s pretty impersonal generally. It’s more of a life read through a theological (Methodist, Barthian, preacher) lens, but the lack of clear focus on finding or creating a single narrative holds it back.

[Geoff Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that he describes faithful children as those who can rebuke Paul Tillich. Will has shaped my ministry more than he will never know.

[Rachel Carosiello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook is 100% the way to experience this book.

[Pam Dubov · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best memoir I have ever heard made magical by the Bishop’s reading. Funny, outrageous, and truthful. Hit me right in the heart.