Every preacher, from the novice to the most experienced, needs fresh inspiration to build new skills and to inject creativity into their sermon preparation. A Sermon Workbook addresses the essentials for effective preaching in our multi-tasking, multi-ethnic, sound-bite society. It offers theological clarity about why we preach, and what matters most. The esteemed teaching team of Tom Troeger and Nora Tisdale invite the reader into their Yale Divinity School classroom, guiding the reader to build skill upon skill, working through inventive and engaging exercises. The workbook format can be used in a linear fashion, beginning to end. Or readers can pick and choose the chapters to tailor-fit their own needs. In either case, this is a remarkable and flexible resource, instantly accessible and useful for anyone tasked with the proclamation of the Word. Exercises in the art and craft of sermon preparation. Leonora Tubbs Tisdale is the Clement-Muehl Professor Emerita of Divinity (Preaching) at Yale Divinity School. Her research and teaching interests include: prophetic preaching, women and preaching, and congregational studies and preaching. She is the author or editor of twelve books, including Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, Prophetic Preaching: A Pastoral Approach, and A Sermon Workbook: Exercises in the Art and Craft of Preaching. She edited three volumes of the Abingdon Women’s Preaching Annual. She also served as one of the authors of The History of the Riverside Church in New York City, writing the chapter on that church’s rich preaching and worship history. Her recent devotional book, The Sun Still Rises: Meditations on Faith at Midlife, < Thomas H. Troeger was Lantz Professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music. He wrote more than 20 books in the fields of preaching, poetry, hymnody and worship, including A Sermon Workbook: Exercises in the Art and Craft of Preaching, Imagining a Sermon , and Music as Prayer: The Theology and Practice of Church Music . Troeger held ordinations in both the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. He was also a flutist and a poet whose work appears in the hymnals of most denominations and is frequently set as choral anthems. Professor Troeger was a graduate of Yale University, Colgate Rochester Divinity School and Dickinson College. In 2014 the University of Basel, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary doctorate in theology for his international work in homiletics and his development of “a contemporary religious language which does justice to both aesthetic and theological demands.” In 2016 he gave the Beecher Lectures at Yale University. His final book, The End of Preaching , was based on these lectures. A Sermon Workbook Exercises in the Art and Craft of Preaching By Thomas H. Troeger, Leonora Tubbs Tisdale Abingdon Press Copyright © 2013 Abingdon Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4267-5778-5 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction: The Whys and Hows of This Workbook, Part One: Thinking Like a Preacher, Chapter 1: Hallmarks of Good Preaching, Chapter 2: Diversity in Preaching, Chapter 3: Creative Biblical Study for Preaching, Chapter 4: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching, Chapter 5: The Sermons People Receive, Chapter 6: The Role of the Imagination in Preaching, Chapter 7: The Weekly Sermon Preparation Process, Chapter 8: Exegeting the Congregation for Preaching, Chapter 9: The Use of Multiple Intelligences in Preaching, Chapter 10: A Repertoire of Sermon Forms, Chapter 11: Theology and Preaching, Chapter 12: Making Theology Incarnate for Preaching, Chapter 13: Identifying Congregational Resistances to Preaching, Chapter 14: Addressing Congregational Resistances through Preaching, Chapter 15: Sermon Delivery Options, Part Two: Writing Like a Preacher, Chapter 16: Oral/Aural Speech for Preaching, Chapter 17: Images of God in Everyday Life, Chapter 18: Congregations as Partners in Preaching, Chapter 19: Images That Compete for Allegiance in Our Lives, Chapter 20: Biblical Scoundrels and Tricksters, Chapter 21: Taking Part in an Experience of God's Living Word, Chapter 22: Shifting the Point of View, Chapter 23: What Do You See?, Chapter 24: Creating Parables from Life, Chapter 25: The Ambiguities of Tradition, Chapter 26: Reason and Feeling, Chapter 27: Celebration in Preaching, Chapter 28: The Hungry Heart, Chapter 29: The Purposes of Preaching, Bibliography, CHAPTER 1 Hallmarks of Good Preaching We assume that many of you already know a considerable amount about preaching. It may be intuitive knowledge, things you have sensed and felt but not yet named to yourself. Through the years you have heard sermons—good, bad, and mediocre—whether in local churches or synagogues, on street corners, via television, in movies, or on the Internet. Even if you are fairly new to a faith tradition, our guess is that you have heard enough sermons to begin forming opinions about wh