Fortress Press Preaching and Worship Collection (7 vols.)

Susan Smith’s creative thinking and academic rigor are balanced by her practical pastoral applications to real life challenges of change and transition. Caring Liturgies deals with life’s ambiguities and paradoxes well, offering astute pastoral wisdom and clear theological insight in a practical manner. Presenting the idea of ritual as a powerful symbolic expression of liberation and healing, Smith patiently leads the reader through the necessary stages of curiosity and questioning of this methodology to acceptance of this traditional wisdom. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who yearns for a creative, liberating expression of one’s faith in times of turmoil.

—Jim Clarke, director of spiritual formation, St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, CA

Susan Smith skillfully weaves together her pastoral experiences and scholarly knowledge to provide students, pastors, and lay leaders an excellent resource for their work as caregivers and creators and leaders of caring liturgies. With Caring Liturgies, Susan Smith has provided communities and their leaders with useful strategies for creating rites that cultivate spiritual growth in times of transition. Her book brings to light through their rituals, caring communities birth hope in the midst of despair and life in the midst of death.

—Jill Crainshaw, professor of worship and liturgical theology, Wake Forest University

Luke Powery integrates close readings of prophetic literature and the spirituals, and makes a major contribution to our understanding of the interrelationship of music and homiletics. He attends carefully not only to the words of the spirituals but to their musical idiom and affect, thus deepening the conversation that needs to go on between music and theology. Through the course of his discussion Powery illuminates the relationship between death and hope in ways that resonate with the depths of the Gospel. An important book for all who are interested in the intersections of preaching, music, and theology.

—Thomas H. Troeger, J. Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian Communication, Yale Divinity School

Like a master artisan at a kiln firing pottery, and like the majestic prophetic voices of old, Luke Powery, as scholar and homileticist signals an artistic, engaging clarion call reminding us of the importance of authentic preaching which must help congregants and the world reckon with death and the daily death-dealing enterprises (personal, societal, natural meteorological events). Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death, and Hope engages African American spirituals and Ezekiel three’s infamous ‘valley of the dry bones’ as metaphor to problematize contemporary preaching, amidst life’s paradoxes and chaos, critiquing prosperity gospel messages that fail to deal with death; without such heightened awareness and preaching, Powery notes that the faithful cannot know resurrection hope. This is a must read for those who tarry with the God’s people, particularly those in faith communities, as they make their way from birth to death on earth, towards eternal life.

—Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, professor of theology and ethics, Shaw University Divinity School

Powery provides a powerful contextual counter narrative to contemporary prosperity preaching by resurrecting the social historical synergy of death and hope in the lived experience of the faithful. Dem Dry Bones should be required reading in seminaries and churches as a tool for recovery of effective, life affirming preaching.

—Teresa L. Fry Brown, professor of homiletics, Candler School of Theology

This is a book to be savored. By interpreting liturgy in light of the movements of lectio divina, Jonathan Linman offers a fresh approach to the dynamics of liturgy. Holy Conversation invites both those responsible for preparing for or leading worship and those yearning for a deeper spiritual experience in worship to listen and respond to the work of the Spirit and so to engage liturgy deeply and richly.

—Ruth Meyers, Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics, Church Divinity School of the Pacific

This book beautifully embodies what it describes: attentive and reflective conversation with the reader about the ‘holy conversation’ that is liturgy. Liturgical theologians have focused on the meaning of liturgy’s deep structure or ordo; Linman presents a model for engaging the ordo and, in the process, richly redescribes the ordo itself. Holy Conversation is the next step in the study of liturgy.

—James W. Farwell, professor of religious studies and philosophy, Bethany College, West Virginia

The heart of any authentic Christian spirituality is the church’s liturgical life, the feast of Word and Sacrament. Linman opens the contemplative experience of liturgical worship in new and deeply faithful ways, inviting an encompassing, personal ‘holy conversation’ with the One who is life for the world. A great gift.

—Lisa E. Dahill, associate professor of worship and Christian spirituality, Trinity Lutheran Seminary

In an appealing question and answer format, Senn has given us a catechism of worship that is simple, clear, and practical throughout, with his deep learning and his long experience as a parish pastor abundantly evident. The book is a treasure for all who care about Christian worship.

—Philip Pfatteicher, professor of English, East Stroudsburg University

Combining the skills of ecumenical scholar and experienced Lutheran pastor, Frank Senn has produced a wonderfully useful handbook for Christian liturgy. Pastors and students alike will benefit greatly from his careful and accessible survey of the tradition of Christian worship. The question and answer format should help readers to find needed information quickly.

—John Baldovin, professor of historical and liturgical theology, Boston College

Drawing upon his years of experience as a pastor of congregations and a teacher in graduate academic programs, Frank Senn has produced a liturgical primer—a ‘pastoral manual’—organized by theoretical and practical questions that shape the content of the book. The ecumenical range of the text, the consideration given to practices in local contexts, and the provision of learning aids, all make this a rich, accessible and helpful study book for classroom or personal use.

—Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, professor of worship, Boston University

By providing an engaging, accessible introduction to Christianity’s major festivals, Susan Hedahl invites preachers to mine the riches of festival proclamation in ways that celebrate the wonder, mystery, and grace of God. Here we encounter fresh possibilities for transformative preaching that are deeply rooted in Christian tradition. Every preacher who values the lectionary should read this book.

—Phil Snider, senior minister, Brentwood Christian Church, Springfield, Missouri

How can it be that preachers think they have nothing to add to the glorious good news at Christmas and Easter? Susan Hedahl challenges and encourages us to reflect upon the dramatic, lively doctrines that shape and inform our proclamations at the six major festivals of the church year. A return to doctrinal preaching will teach, will connect us with the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, and will invite choice and action, not just ‘aesthetic appreciation.’ Hedahl’s approach will add depth and radical faith to festival sermons.

—Lucy Hogan, Hugh Latimer Elderice Professor of Preaching and Worship, Wesley Theological Seminary

The insights of the New Homiletic were too revolutionary to be allowed to slip, like hulls of abandoned ships, under the tidal waters of an advancing age. Now refurbished in this fine volume, they continue to interpret the nature of language, metaphor, and narrative so essential for biblical preaching in our postmodern era.

—Paul Scott Wilson, professor of homiletics, Emmanuel College, University of Toronto

That the future of our discipline is in good hands is evidenced . . . by the diverse group of smart and insightful colleagues in the homiletics guild assembled [here]. I rejoice in the wealth of their assessments and constructive offerings.

—Richard L. Eslinger, From the Afterword

Here we see what worship can be like in a season devoted fully to creator and creation. Top notch biblical scholars have contributed commentaries to help church leaders to hear the voice of the Earth and the voice of the poor in the texts, in the sacraments, and in the practical experience of healing Earth. So timely and so inspiriting!

—Carol S. Robb, professor of Christian social ethics, San Francisco Theological Seminary, Graduate Theological Union