Lutheran pastor Kim Beckmann presents a challenging new method for engaging scripture in the preparation of sermons for the parish. Utilizing the preacher's own sense of vocation, the community's voice, and the collective vision for the Gospel in the marketplace, Beckmann teaches us how to read the scriptures with fresh eyes, to see the coming Kingdom of God in encounters and events as "ordinary" as going on site with a local bulldozer operator to "prepare a road" in the wilderness. A fresh and exciting look at preaching, community, and the Word of God as it is lived every day by the People of God. "In my sermon-writing cell, surrounded by a feast of commentary, I find myself casting a wandering (and wondering) eye out the window toward the village square, where this gospel, my message, will finally have to live. What if the sermon could be conceived in the very soil in which it has to take root? While many of us consider the Bible to be the favorite storybook into which we want to climb, we nevertheless often find its language inaccessible, its setting unfamiliar, and the apprehension of its real meanings for daily life frustrating to pursue. In our frankly market-driven society, where such a difficult story must compete with many other stories that are both easier to access and seemingly easier to inhabit, the gospel story calls forth faithful and inspired interpreters and equally faithful and inspired tellers."
KIM L. BECKMANN is the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Stambaugh, Michigan and Bethany Lutheran Church in Amasa, Michigan. She received her Doctorate in Ministry and Preaching at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Chapter 1 A Road in the Wilderness: Surveying the Text Chapter 2 What Do You See? What Do You Hear?: Relating the Text to the Marketplace Chapter 3 I'm in the Picture, Too: Being One Who Names Grace Chapter 4 The Sermon is Crafted: Making It Memorable Chapter 5 The Sermon As Preached: Keeping Us Awake Chapter 6 A Mirror for the Northwoods and a Window on the World: Living the Sermon
In a single volume Kim Beckmann orchestrates themes found in Barbara Brown Taylor's The Preaching Life, Mary Catherine Hilkert's Preaching and the Sacramental Imagination, Nora Tubb Tisdale's Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, and Lucy Rose's Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church. All of this Dr. Beckmann effects with the warmth and sparkle of a style strikingly akin to that of Annie Dillard! Prepare a Road does not try to set forth what preaching is about, or how it ought to be done; instead it sweeps us directly into the vivid Conversational Adventure through which effective sermons come to life -- David Schlafer, The author of Surviving the Sermon, What Makes This Day Different, and Your Way with God's Word.
