Its a review about this product
In his first book on Creative Styles of Preaching, Mark Barger Elliott grabs my attention with his varied, unique resources for inspired preaching. As an experienced Pastoral Care Chaplain my main responsibility does not lie in the area of preaching. I am always on the look-out for new approaches and resources for writing new sermons on the Lectionary Texts. When I opened this book my eyes fell on his middle chapter, it is entitled The Four Pages of the Sermon. There I saw the names of pivotally well-anchored men as, John Broadus, Fred Craddock, Halford Luccock, Thomas Long, David Buttrick, and "more recently Paul Scott Wilson." Not knowing the name of Wilson, I read this chapter first of all... The homiletic process touches on the length of sermon connected with the days of writing. The writing for getting started on Monday peaked my interest! His checklist did catch-hold of my own underlying motives for writing sermons. I liked Thursday's tough themes where we tend to misplace the good news of God's action in the biblical text. The two model sermons of "When God Is Absent" - the only one written by Pastor Elliot and "Calling Off Christmas" by Paul Scott Wilson are both personal, interesting and well-written. After being introduced into the heart of Mark Elliott's text, I began reading in-earnest to see how many of his resources I had already read and how they were related to his themes of Creative Styles of Preaching. The first chapter on Narrative Peaching, I was already deeply exposed to Fred Craddock and greatly love his fascinating example of "When the Roll is Called Down Here." I have long admired his creative sermons and his inspired teaching.When I saw Dr. Craddock quoted as "Everyone lives inductively... I was transported back to his numberless conferences on Styles of Preaching. Then Mark Elliott follows Fred Craddock with his successor at EMORY UNIVERSITY, Thomas Long. He appeals to those stories of Edmund Steimle, who "was in the middle of, and to some degree was the cause of, a major shift in American preaching." Then he proceeds to give us the five steps for any preacher to weave his narrative sermons. He notes that Steimle and Craddock agreeed that a sermon should be "low keyed..."For my lengthy interest of listening, reading and presently the writing of sermons, I was most impressed by the scholarly list of Elliott's resources. He reached back into my early days of being introduced to John Broadus' 1944 Textbook, "On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons." From there he ventures into the great influence of Henry Sloan Coffin, Richard Niebuhr, Harry Emerson Fosdick, right up to Tony Campolo and William Willimon. Two samples of Tony Campolo's Evangelistic preaching and Samuel Proctor's Afro-American became highlights for my lack of knowing their inspired styles of delivery. I found it terribly interesting to peruse the six sermons of these outstanding women preachers. From the first African American sermon of Valerie Brown-Trout, to Leonora Tubbs Tisdale - to Barbara Brown Taylor's final sermon - they were imaginative and inspired greatly from Old Testament texts. That possibly stems from the great influence of Walter Brueggemann's teaching and emphasis of the older inspired texts. Barbara Brown Taylor is my favorite with her compelling, dramatic, shortest example! But the longest sermon by Dr. Tisdale comes-across as profoundly thought provoking! They were all quite consuming for this crusty old connoisseur of great preaching. I recommend this little handbook of Creative Styles of Preaching wholeheartedly and with promises for some surprises to the other lovers of good preaching.
