Must Reads is a collection of book reviews that we believe might be of interest to preachers. Many of the writers are participants in the Peer Groups or the Coaching Program, but other voices are welcome as well. If you have a book you would like to recommend or if you are interested in reviewing a book related to preaching, please email .
The book explores the question of what can preachers do to help congregants navigate everyday life with the courage, imagination, and savvy it takes to testify in action and word to God’s mercy and justice.
Dr. Thomas defines a dangerous sermon and provides advice on how to preach such a sermon and survive.
The underlying feature of the book is hope and the flourishing of all creation. Dr. Clark-Soles aspires to help people of all genders to live God's vision of better, more just, and abundant lives.
In her book, Dr. Lewis analyzes various models of leadership and offers a metaphor of the Paraclete as a framework for leading with integrity.
Dr. Schade’s book offers tools for bridging the red-blue divide and for addressing controversial issues of public concern while building up your parishioners’ faith.
Preaching with empathy for wounded souls can help with healing. Dr. Sancken introduces the term “soul wounds” and defines it as experiencing loss, brokenness, unresolved pain, and grief. She acknowledges that healing from these wounds does not happen instantaneously and that we should allow the time for the complex process of healing to unfold.
Dr. Neal talks about her exploration of what it means to be fully human as a preacher and as a pastor. Her book exposes the “shadows” – false understandings of who we are as preachers.
Dr. Ward shifts the conversation from homiletical techniques to Christian practices, or contextual virtues, that give life to preachers and to their preaching.
In the Must Reads interview, Dr. Thompson elaborates on the challenges that black women preachers face as outsiders in the pulpit.
Veteran preachers regularly become attached to their favorite/comfortable methodologies. Davis offers both novice and old hand preachers a new point of view by which they can create and analyze sermons. The book’s balance flows from the principal of one point and its attendant bottom line.
The Preacher’s Bible Handbook, edited by O. Wesley Allen Jr., (Westminster John Knox Press, 2019) is an indispensable aid for busy preachers.
Dr. Alyce McKenzie’s new book Wise Up! Four Biblical Virtues for Navigating Life is a practical guide to living by divine Wisdom in troubled times.
© SMU Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence
