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When God Speaks Through You: How Faith Convictions Shape Preaching and Mission (Alban Institute, 2008)

Description
“Holy and active listening” means listening openly and attentively to one another with the expectation that God will speak in and through the conversation. In When God Speaks Through You, homiletics professor Craig Satterlee helps preachers and their congregations learn to listen to one another with such grace.

Satterlee demonstrates how individuals and groups can identify, clarify, and articulate their convictions about the Christian faith and share them in a nonthreatening manner. He also helps readers discover their expectations of and reactions to preaching itself. The preacher will come to better know what people listen for, and parishioners will better understand what the preacher hopes to accomplish in the sermon.

Creating discussion groups about preaching frequently results in spiritual growth, renewal, deeper appreciation for difference, new perspective, and motivation for the preacher and discussion group members and, through them, the congregation. These conversations can prepare congregations for broader conversation about how people’s faith convictions shape both their lives and the congregation’s worship, life together, and mission.

Author
Craig A. Satterlee is Associate Professor of Homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and Dean of the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching Program of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS). Dr. Satterlee served congregations in upstate New York and Michigan before being called to LSTC and continues to engage in parish ministry in Chicago area congregations. He is currently consulting pastor of St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Glenwood, IL.

Endorsements
"What a novel idea! A book that invites pastors and lay people to enter together into a deep conversation about the nature and purposes of preaching. I say: let the conversations begin! They are long overdue, and Satterlee's book provides the perfect catalyst and guide."
—Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Clement-Muehl Professor of Homiletics, Yale Divinity School

"Satterlee skillfully helps people identify how they can become better listeners by developing better understandings of the purposes of preaching, of how their social and theological locations influence what they hear, and of how they can respond. Preachers and laity should read this book together.”
—Ronald J. Allen, Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Preaching and New Testament, Christian Theological Seminary

Vital Worship, Healthy Congregations Series with The Alban Institute
This series is designed to call attention to instructive examples of congregational life and to explore these examples in ways that allow readers in very different communities to compare and contrast these examples with their own practice. To find all the books in this series, go to Publications and under "Publisher," select "Alban Institute."

Book description from The Alban Institute