Make The Word Come Alive

by Mulligan, Mary Alice

• ISBN13: 9780827205031
• ISBN10: 0827205031
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-30
• Publisher: Chalice Pr

Summary

In this final volume of the Channels of Listening series, Mary Alice Mulligan and Ronald Allen turn to sermon listeners for advice on how to create more engaging and meaningful sermons. Drawing on the first large-scale systematic study of how listeners themselves describe the experience of hearing sermons and how those reports can influence preaching, Mulligan and Allen identify twelve qualities or characteristics that listeners most commonly seek in sermons. They use the listeners' own words to impart not just points that preachers would benefit from keeping in mind but also a real sense of how and why these qualities are important to the listener. The study this book is based on revealed that the participants went to church eager to hear the sermon. They said they believe sermons impact their lives and have the power to help them build a closer relationship to God. In this book, they talk openly and candidly about what makes a sermon meaningful to them and what blocks the message and turns them away. Their testimonies are a plea to preachers to listen and to learn.

Author Biography

Mary Alice Mulligan is director of the chapel and teaches preaching and Christian ethics at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis Ronald J. Allen is Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Preaching and New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(4)
Help Us Figure Out What God Wants	5	(10)
Walk the Walk	15	(10)
Speak from Your Own Experience	25	(10)
Make the Bible Come Alive	35	(10)
Show How the Gospel Helps Us	45	(10)
Keep It Short	55	(8)
Make It Plain	63	(10)
Talk about Everything	73	(10)
Don't Oversimplify Complex Issues	83	(10)
Help Us Get It Right	93	(10)
Talk Loud Enough So We Can Hear	103	(10)
Don't Forget to Put in Your Teeth	113	(10)
Appendix: Putting the Advice to Work: Sample Sermons	123	(24)
Notes	147