Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art

by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 1997

Overview

Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art explains how to analyze a congregation so the sermon fits the listeners. This book provides practical helps for preparing and delivering sermons that are meaningful and appropriate.

Key Features

• Explains how to analyze a congregation so the sermon fits the listeners
• Provides practical helps for preparing and delivering sermons that are meaningful and appropriate
• Completely interactive with your Logos library
• All Scripture references appear on mouse-over

Contents

Top Highlights

“. Seek out those symbolic ‘texts’ that have value and meaning to the members of the congregation itself.” (Page 62)

“Congregational Christian preaching is then, at its best, a highly contextual act of constructing and proclaiming theology within and on behalf of a local community of faith. It requires of the preacher interpretation of biblical texts, interpretation of contemporary contexts (including congregations and their subcultures), and the imaginative construction and communication of local theology that weds the two in a fitting and transformative way.” (Page 38)

“Good preaching not only requires its practitioners to become skilled biblical exegetes. It also requires them to become adept in ‘exegeting’ local congregations and their contexts, so that they can proclaim the gospel in relevant and transformative ways for particular communities of faith.” (Page xi)

“The method employed by the symbolic anthropologist is ethnography. Functioning within culture as a ‘participant-observer,’⁵ the ethnographer goes into a culture, establishes rapport with its inhabitants, and analyzes the culture while also becoming immersed in its day-to-day activities.” (Page 58)

“The awareness of individual hearers and their real-life situations prevents the preacher from (mis)using the pulpit as a platform from which to voice abstract answers to abstract theological questions posed by an abstract (and faceless) humanity.” (Page 12)

Product Details

• Title: Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art
• Author: Leonora Tubbs Tisdale
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Pages: 176

About Leonora Tubbs Tisdale

Professor Tisdale teaches the theory and practice of preaching, with research interests in congregational studies and preaching, women’s ways of preaching, and prophetic preaching. She is the author or editor of five books including Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art; Making Room at the Table: An Invitation to Multicultural Worship; and three volumes of The Abingdon Women’s Preaching Annual. She also wrote the chapter on the Riverside Church preachers in The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York, and is currently co-editing a book for teachers of preaching. A former president of the Academy of Homiletics, Professor Tisdale has served on the faculties of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (now Union-PSCE) and Princeton Theological Seminary, and as adjunct faculty at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She also served on the pastoral staff of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, where she provided theological oversight for the Center for Christian Studies, an innovative lay theological academy offering courses for over 2,000 people in the greater New York area.