Another brilliant homiletician who’s been popping out books like a Pez dispenser is the Reverend Dr. Donna Giver-Johnston. Currently Dr. Giver-Johnston serves as pastor and head of staff at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon and as an instructor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Her "Claiming the Call to Preach: Four Female Pioneers of Preaching in Nineteenth Century America” was published by Oxford University Press, but I want to focus on her two books published by Fortress are part of their Working Preacher series. "Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart" is, as it suggests, a guide for writing sermons differently, so that they can be preached without notes, to better connect with listeners with an embodied word. Her "For Every Matter Under Heaven" provides a process for preaching on special occasions beyond Sunday morning, including: baptisms, funerals, weddings, conflicts in the church, crises in the world, calls and commissionings, holy days and holidays.
While there’s muchAnother brilliant homiletician who’s been popping out books like a Pez dispenser is the Reverend Dr. Donna Giver-Johnston. Currently Dr. Giver-Johnston serves as pastor and head of staff at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon and as an instructor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Her "Claiming the Call to Preach: Four Female Pioneers of Preaching in Nineteenth Century America” was published by Oxford University Press, but I want to focus on her two books published by Fortress are part of their Working Preacher series. "Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart" is, as it suggests, a guide for writing sermons differently, so that they can be preached without notes, to better connect with listeners with an embodied word. Her "For Every Matter Under Heaven" provides a process for preaching on special occasions beyond Sunday morning, including: baptisms, funerals, weddings, conflicts in the church, crises in the world, calls and commissionings, holy days and holidays.
While there’s much to say about each of her recently released volumes, I’ve found her “Writing for the Ear” book to be the most transformative for my preaching and teaching. In the preface she shares her experience of going off manuscript for the first time. Following such experiences, Dr. Giver-Johnston no longer writes out a manuscript. She figured that if she could not remember a sentence, then chances were good that her listeners would not be able to remember it either.
If you’re a preacher or church leader, and you want to do that wild and crazy thing of trusting your prayerful preparation and the Spirit’s sustaining presence, you’ll definitely want to check out Dr. Giver-Johnston’s scholarship.
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