At once “travel guide” and vision for the future, the Transformation series is good news for the Episcopal Church at a time of fast and furious demographic and social change. Series contributors - recognized experts in their fields - analyze our present plight, point to the seeds of change already at work transforming the church, and outline a positive new way forward. What kinds of churches are most ready for transformation? What are the essential tools? What will give us strength, direction, and purpose to the journey? Each volume of the series will: Explain why a changed vision is essential - Give robust theological and biblical foundations - Offer a guide to best practices and positive trends in churches large and small. - Describe the necessary tools for change - Imagine how transformation will look Preaching is one of the more “transformable” aspects of the church’s life. Performance teacher Ruthanna Hooke, writing for both clergy and lay leaders, delivers the good and bad news about Episcopalians and preaching. She explains why preaching is more difficult than ever today, and provides essential models and spiritual practices in order to transform both the creators of preaching and its listeners as both participate in sermons. Ruthanna B. Hooke is Professor of Homiletics and Program Director of “Preaching Congregations,” a Lilly Endowment-funded congregationally-based program of renewal and formation for preachers and listeners, at the Virginia Theological Seminary. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. James Lemler is priest-in-charge of historic Christ Episcopal Church in Greenwich, Connecticut and the former Director of Mission for the Episcopal Church. He has also served the church as a leading pastor and preacher, former dean of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and a consultant in the area of philanthropy, stewardship, and congregational development. He resides in Greenwich, Connecticut. Transforming Preaching By RUTHANNA B. HOOKE Church Publishing Copyright © 2010 Ruthanna B. Hooke All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-89869-646-2 Contents Series Preface..............................................viiAcknowledgments.............................................ix1. Why Is It Frightening to Preach?.........................12. "Is There a Word from the Lord?".........................223. Profiles of Preachers....................................464. Engaging the Body in Preaching...........................965. The Adventure of the Word Made Flesh.....................127A Guide for Discussion......................................139Resources...................................................146Notes and Sources...........................................149 Chapter One Why Is It Frightening to Preach? Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, `I am only a boy'; for you shall go to all to whom I send you.... I have put my words in your mouth." (Jeremiah 1:6–9) At the beginning of every semester I ask my students to choose a single word to describe how they feel to be in a preaching class. Some will choose the word "excited," but most pick words along the lines of "nervous," "terrified," or "petrified." Why are they afraid, and what are they afraid of? What is it about the act of preaching that makes it so terrifying? What makes preaching such a daunting task, so difficult to do well? Most of my students view preaching as a central part of their ministry, and they desperately want to do it well, which is one reason they find the task frightening. But why is it crucial that preaching be done well, and what would "doing it well" look like? What are the criteria of successful or effective or faithful (even the right adjective is hard to find) preaching? The series of which this book is a part considers the ways that various practices of the church—stewardship, evangelism, reading the Bible—need to be transformed in order for the church to continue to be vital in the twenty-first century. These books respond to a sense of crisis in the church today, a crisis that challenges the church's life and practices in ways that it has not been challenged before. I am mindful of this crisis and these challenges too, yet in my experience the most serious difficulties that preachers face in undertaking the task of preaching are perennial ones. The task of preaching may be more demanding today for various reasons, and I will consider them in the course of this book; yet I believe the most daunting aspects of the preaching task are ones that have been with preachers, in one form or another, for centuries. The title of a recent book in the field of homiletics, What's the Matter with Preaching Today? , is a quotation from a Harry Emerson Fosdick essay of the same name written in 1928, which itself is commenting on a nineteenth-century diatribe about the sorry state of preaching at that time. This sequence