Your Way with God's Word
By (author) David J. Schlafer
Publication date:
25 March 1995Length of book:
142 pagesPublisher
Cowley PublicationsISBN-13: 9781561011186
Schlafer's book is an adventure in homiletical spirituality and imagination. It leads us through reflection and practical exercises to deepen our self-awareness as preachers. These exercises allow us to discern whether we are poets, storytellers, or essayists; discover our preaching “parents” and mentors, and develop a preaching style that avoids rigidity and self-preoccupation.
Developed in workshops and conferences around the country, Your Way with God's Word can also be used in diverse settings and groups, including homiletical workshops, sermon reflection groups in the parish, and preaching colleagues groups. The introduction to the book gives numerous practical suggestions for its use. As a personal preaching resource, this book is also a powerful aid to prayer and spirituality.
Developed in workshops and conferences around the country, Your Way with God's Word can also be used in diverse settings and groups, including homiletical workshops, sermon reflection groups in the parish, and preaching colleagues groups. The introduction to the book gives numerous practical suggestions for its use. As a personal preaching resource, this book is also a powerful aid to prayer and spirituality.
As each person's signature is unique, so each preacher, says David Schlafer, has a distinctive preaching voice. This book is about that voice, but voice understood in a broad sense. Voice means more than tone, rate, style, and manner of presentation. It includes one's ‘preaching parents' (models), special gifts, the context, and the voices to which the preacher has listened. The sermon, according to Schlafer, is a ‘sacred conversation' in which the preacher orchestrates all the voices that he hears in the Scriptures and the culture. This book intends to guide the reader, through reflection and practical exercises (done either alone or in a group), to a deeper self-awareness of that distinctive preaching voice.