Customer Reviews

Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first chapter of Calvin Miller's book entitled Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition was essentially about who the messenger of a sermon is. It is entitled, Who's Talking? He writes, "The force of preaching must begin with who's saying it." Miller says that people care about the preacher just as much as the message; or more precisely that the messenger should not be proclaiming something that he does not practice. He says, "his congregation longs to see their pastor as a person of faith .... the world is tired of hearing pulpit "how-tos" that have arrived to take place of genuine transcendence." The preacher should be a person of information and should be there for the people. His task is to be a shepherd. Miller says, "Shepherds guard, heal, tend, and maybe even shear, when the care of the sheep require it. But of all the activities nothing is more critical than feeding them homiletically." Generally, the preacher must live with the people and be transparent as one who truly trusts God and speaks the words of Scripture.
Chapter two is primarily about the audience and how they are affected by the sermon. This section was the most compelling for me personally because I thought of some of my sermons as purely theological. Additionally, it grabbed me and had me wanting to read more concerning this topic. For the solid believer these kinds of sermons may be helpful; but for anyone else they are probably pretty dry of any meaning for practical life. How convicting is the statement, "Doctrinal preachers often fall into the trap of giving their congregations the notion that the Bible is something to know but not necessarily to live by." Miller says that "application is where the rubber meets the road;" which makes perfect sense.... even though I am still practicing how to be better at that. His immutable propositions conclude and capture much of the chapter meaning: "Here's who will hear me. Here's what they want to hear. Here's what they need to hear. Here's what will fascinate them. Here's what will transform them."
Chapter three is concerning how the sermon is relayed in the pale of who the preacher is. In considering an analysis of the passage; how does it relate to the preacher's life and therefore the congregation's life. Miller says, "Sermon hearers are not good at separating their feelings about the sermon from their feelings for the preacher." When performing a relational analysis, substance analysis, and in consideration of the content of the message; does the preacher convey that what he is preaching works? A great quotation that sums up chapter three is: "Spiritual formation is not a destination to which we arrive but a hunger of heart we long to satisfy. I believe preachers have lost a great deal of credibility in the ministry because they project that they are living in a spiritually satisfied state rather than living in a wilderness of hunger for closer intimacy with Christ."
Chapter four is about what to do with the message of the sermon. Once a person has heard a message, how should that message possibly be applied to life. What should I do once I have heard the message? Miller offers three axioms of application; which should help the preacher understand how application should affect his hearers. First, it is common ground that most people would rather just hear and do nothing at all. Second, most people don't mind understanding and picturing the ideal circumstance; they just do not want to go through the hard work of change or transformation. Thirdly, most people tend to think that a call to change is for other people and not themselves. In this chapter, Miller gives some ideas on how to deal with these difficulties.
Chapter five begins a section that deals particularly with writing the sermon and begins with the title, and theme of the sermon. And he concludes the chapter with pacing and preparing for the message. Included is a key idea; which is the thesis: "the Big Idea." Generally, the thesis or main idea is a "short statement that expresses what you're going to talk about and what the sermon will call the reader to do about it." One of the key fundamentals of sermon preparation according to this chapter is "Practice ahead of time writing out your thesis for all of your long-range sermon plans." In pacing he writes about the intensity and balance in moderating your content. He also includes pointers on how to plan and perform sermon series.
Chapter six digs into exegetical determination of meaning. Two major ideas characterize this chapter; what the text has to say in historical context and what the passage means in a preachers own life. Miller says, "the Bible is the most powerful way to comment on what the Bible has to say." As far as the personal aspect of sermonizing, Miller says, "They want to know why you have selected the text and what part this text has played in your life." Finally, in concluding the chapter he discusses narrative and propositional preaching of the text. He says that narrative goes well with proposition and proposition is supported well by narrative. The writer makes a final point about honoring the genre of the text. Which might deal with tone, and how the message is presented? A song is a song, judgment is judgment!
Chapter seven explains content and organization of the sermon. Miller addresses how stories are told effectively; and how they might be incorporated into the sermon with other items such as statistics, propositions, applications, etc.... He briefly addresses how the motif may be used and explains concepts related to telling and re-telling of stories. Within the story is how characters are built up to explain a point to the story. I liked the idea of getting, "The American Bathroom Book," which apparently includes a synopsis of many different books so that literary images and parallels can be used in your sermons. Finally, in writing a sermon; he discusses that we should always save the very best revealing information or culmination of interest for the very end of the sermon. If we give a huge crescendo of information at the mid-point and then end flat, then we have done a disservice to our hearers.
Chapter eight begins a section on actually presenting the sermon. Some of the highlights are style; which he emphasizes is personal. He does explain some things that he feels take away from an effective message in style. But a pinnacle in chapter eight is the section on passion. I found it highly valuable that we need to believe what we are preaching. Miller says we, "must believe and believe passionately," and that "worthy sermons are the result of passion." I believe it was in this section or the section on tone that he mentioned that we do not have to yell about everything or have a `preacher's voice' throughout the message. Yes, he says, "many wonder if the ear-splitting noise level is really necessary in saying `God loves you.'" Miller concludes the remainder of this chapter with axioms to delivery of the sermon. I attempted to use a few of these in my last sermon. First, I tried to eliminate meandering or hiding behind the pulpit. I also identified with my audience by not overdressing; and I simply did not use the audio system during my message. Although, I worked on it more; I still could not eliminate what Miller calls "affections of manner" like moving around. Although, I eliminated much verbal pause, I still had some moments when I slipped into bad habits. Additionally, although I found his suggestions about manuscripts helpful; it may be some time until I feel comfortable going with only the points of a sermon. I felt more comfortable with notes away from the pulpit and did not think they were too distracting to the message though.
The final chapter nine, describes some of the effects of preaching on the sermonizer. Miller quotes Thor Hall saying, "every sermon is a trip--a movement from where we are to where we ought to be." Because the message should have meaning for practical life and should therefore take us somewhere; I agreed with Miller's comment about young pastors. I was amazed and even chuckled, but I agreed! He said, "I think that young pastors should be defrocked for a week or two for joyously creating mayhem along the way. And many a church has ended up in a dead-end, dreamless world, led there by an overjoyous pulpit that loved the journey but never had a fondness for maps." It just goes to show what an impact an enthusiastic person could cause on a wayward congregation. In conclusion, Miller gives us some guides for traveling through messages. Essentially these guides discuss how to create better understanding for all audiences; how to read feedback; how to pace and present delivery; and finally how to live with the messages that are given. I see this to be concerned with the change in a message-givers life.

Great book. What I found most interesting is that there were bits of humor here and there that gave a soft touch to what is clearly a serious issue to the author. That made it unique for a book on preaching.

Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition
What I expected was to be another book teaching how to prepare a sermon was a very pleasant and different book. There are indeed some very good points about creating a sermon and the author gives many pointers along the way in the form of questions and outlines that one can use to help guide them in their sermon preparation. This book was different in that it teaches things that most preachers will probably never learn in seminary: the interaction with the congregation.
Miller calls for us to be expositors, but not dull, dreary ones. We should be expositors who can tell the story of God's glory in a manner that grips the hearts and minds of the people. Whether we add humor, drama, good illustrations, or use a narrative text, we should always seek to create something more than a three point sermon. It's not that we should have a 4-7 point sermon. It's that we should rather refuse to take the one point of a text and break it into pieces that seem unrelated. Let the sermon have one point even if our outline has seven. What? Yes. The sermon should find the big picture of the text and simply repaint the picture so as to appeal to the heart of each hearer with the message of God.
In so doing, Miller reminds us to exegete our text before we turn to the books. We should read our text and learn all that we can from it on our own before we turn to the library to see what others have to say about it. In so doing, we become part of the text, it becomes part of us, and our people recognize the fact that what we are preaching is from our hearts.
Not only should we exegete the text, but we should exegete the congregation. Most pastors know to whom they are preaching. We should see the crowd, know their needs, heartaches, and struggles. We should then take our text and see how it relates to them and how we should apply it to them.
What truly spoke to me, however, is the fact that Miller calls for the preacher to be a person in whom the fire of God burns. The church will seldom get on fire if the pulpit is not burning brightly. He calls for the pastor to be a man of character who will live what he preaches and have a good testimony before the people so that they know he is genuine. The strength of a sermon is not always found in rhetorical skill, but often in relationships. The people often listen because of what and who the pastor is instead of how he speaks.
The author also warns us about common pitfalls such as: expecting each sermon to be our best, and the next sermon to improve upon that. Often we fail. When we are committed to being faithful, and the church knows that we love Christ and them, we can relax in the performance category and get down to the work of simply getting the message across. He also speaks about dealing with disruptions, long-term pastorates, and much more.
If I were to sum it up, I would say that Miller calls the preacher to not only be a good expositor who can relate the message to the people, but to be a sermon in himself so that the people will listen to him.
Thanks to our friends at Baker for this review copy.

If you like Calvin Miller's writings, if you're a pastor or preacher, or a pastor wannabe, this would be a great choice. Or as a gift for your pastor. Be careful though, he may wonder why you think he needs a book about preaching. Public speakers can also collect some tips for their general speaking skills from this book.

Dr. Miller does a whiz-bang of a job in teaching us how to move preaching from the pulpit to the pew. A must-have for every pastor's library.

This book was okay - nothing stellar. I bought it because I've read Fred Craddock and Eugene Lowry and was hoping for something that expanded upon these works and gave further insight into narrative preaching. To that end, this book failed miserably. The first 6 of the 9 chapters gave little insight beyond what a Preaching 101 class teaches, and seemed to be directed at students who have never preached a sermon before. There was nothing until chapter 7 about narrative preaching, and even then the book mainly talked about how to write a sermon illustration. For a book that says in the introduction that it's trying to write in the same line as Fred Craddock, I expected a little more.

In my opinion, there was too much of the author's theology interjected throughout the book. It is clear he is a conservative evangelical and he wants you to be as well. Early on in the book he claims all preachers need to be preaching on hell more often, and if you have a different view on hell than the traditional evangelical one, you better reform yourself!

Further, the author is a strong advocate for the use of classical literature in sermon illustrations. While I appreciate classical literature and can see the benefit of using it occasionally, Calvin suggests are far more frequent use of it. The problem I have with this is that many people in the congregation have not read the classics, and so you have to spend as much time setting up the story as telling it. Calvin's approach would be great if everyone has read (and remembers) "To Kill a Mockingbird", but the fact is that few do. Something is lost when you spend several minutes of a 15-30 minute sermon talking about a fictional book just to explain an illustration that makes a point about something else. Like I said - it can be useful on occasion, but probably should not be a frequent source of illustrations.

Chapters 7-8 do contain some useful info about crafting sermon illustrations. But I would hardly place this book in category of Fred Craddock, and I'm not sure that it can even be considered in the narrative sermon genre. A traditional expositor preacher who uses occasional sermon illustrations could get just as much (or more) out of this book as I did.

© 2006, Baker Books, Grand Rapids

It's no secret that I like Calvin Miller. The couple of times that I have had opportunity to meet him in person, I have found him to be a personable person. Consequently, I also like to read Miller's writing. Being who I am, I prefer his fiction to his poetry (but like both). I also prefer the fiction to the allegory since the allegory makes me look too closely at my short-comings. So when I finally got a chance to read Miller's "textbook" on narrative sermonizing (creatively titled Preaching), I knew I was in for an interesting journey.

As a preacher, I don't read much on preaching. I like to excuse myself with the thought that I have too much on my plate to spend much time on reading about preaching (and yes, I know that it's an excuse). As a student, I didn't much like my preaching classes. Not that they weren't helpful, nor did it have much to do with the personality of the instructor and other students. No, the reason I don't like to read on preaching or study the art is that whenever I do so I begin to feel utterly inadequate. (This, by the way, can be a good thing.)

I was not disappointed in reading Miller's book. He challenged my study habits, my sermon-construction rituals, and my delivery style. Time after time as I chewed on a passage here and there I found myself muttering, "How does anyone have time to do this for three sermons a week (well, a main sermon--Sunday morning, a runner-up--Sunday evening, and a mid-week `Bible study') AND be out being the pastor?" Even so, Miller builds an excellent case for the preacher to do all the required study--know yourself, know your audience, know your passage, know your message--and to craft a sermon that your audience will actually listen and respond to.

Included are three major sections: (1) Preparing for the sermon ("Exegesis of All Things); (2) Writing the sermon; and (3) Preaching the sermon. Section after section, chapter after chapter, page after page, the preacher will find helpful information if not challenging. Along with the challenge comes a gentle chastisement for not handling the task of preaching as carefully as we ought. Finally, in all of this is the reminder that there is something otherworldly about the sermon. Keeping this in mind, the preacher can realize that the only way to adequately and rightly completing the task at hand is to rely on the Spirit of God (not as a cop-out for doing a bad job, but as a handle to hold onto as we lay our pale sacrifice on the altar of sermon).

For me the most useful section of this useful book is the appendix (how do we get along without appendixes?). Here Miller presents a list of ten mentors whose writing can help the preacher to better develop a sound preaching routine (even though there is nothing routine about the task of preaching). What this means for me is that I've more reading about preaching to do (ugh!). I already have one of the books recommended--thought I had another, but can't find it on the shelf. So, I'm off to my task. If you stand week in and week out in a pulpit where preaching is your activity, I suggest you start your task by reading this book.

5 out of 5 reading glasses.

--Benjamin Potter, November 30, 2011

I believe excellent customer service is great. I did not have any problems with this purchase. Everything went well and smooth.