562 - Fundamentals of Preaching

Fundamentals of Preaching
By John Killinger
Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985. 213 pp. $9.95.

Few books on preaching are worth the time and energy it takes to read them. Some are content to major either in the obvious or the sentimental. Others are written by professional homileticians who have not lived under the discipline of preaching regularly to one congregation, and thus have little to offer those who do.

This book is an exception. Written by one who not only has taught homiletics, but who is the pastor of a church, this book is an absolutely superb discussion of the fundamentals of preaching. It is comprehensive, balanced, and substantive, and will be helpful both to people-preparing for the ministry and to ministers who seek to increase their effectiveness in the pulpit.

The book begins and ends with the person of the preacher, emphasizing that everything about one's life--personal faith, intellectual vigor, personality, and physical health--contributes; to the construction and delivery of a sermon. The author rings the changes on the importance of study and prayer in a preacher's life. He warns that the sense of awe and mystery, which once led a person into the ministry, can be dulled by familiarity and routine. The minister who sets aside, regular hours for reflection, study, and prayer not only provides for his or her nourishment, but makes a theological statement to the congregation concerning the centrality of these activities in the Christian life.

Killinger stresses the historical, biblical, and personal dimensions of preaching, after which he moves step by step through the process of sermon construction and delivery. Although never in doubt about the author's preference and practice, the reader is left great latitude in evaluating style and method. Numerous examples are cited of preachers who write and preach in different ways, liberating the reader from the tyranny of thinking there is but one right way to preach.

This book is so comprehensive that one wishes the author had tried to come to terms with the relation of preaching to social and political issues. The book deals almost exclusively with pastoral preaching. It would have been strengthened by a chapter on prophetic preaching. How does a preacher deal with the tension between accountability to the church and accountability to the Gospel when the latter seems to call the former into question? How does the preacher bring biblical faith to bear on controversial issues on which there is legitimate disagreement without becoming a tool of theological fad or political ideology? How responsive should the preacher be to the criticism which such preaching inevitably incurs?

No book can touch every base. This book touches most of them. The sum of it all is that preaching requires of us everything we have and all we are, to which one might only add the forgiveness of sins.

Wallace M. Alston, Jr.
Nassau Presbyterian Church
Princeton, N.J.