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Preaching Ethically: Being True to the Gospel, Your Congregation, and Yourself
(Alban Institute, 2008)
Description
How do clergy preach to meet the legitimate needs of their congregation and live up to standards of professionalism and personal integrity? Preaching Ethically offers guidelines for preaching in light of a range of factors that might tempt a preacher to misuse the pulpit. How do you preach about controversial issues? What do you say from the pulpit when your marriage is in trouble? What are the ethics of preaching in times of local or national crisis? How do you draw from resources found on the Internet and elsewhere without plagiarizing or misleading listeners about the source of the materials? How do you write a sermon when you know very little about a subject? Why and how do you feed a congregation a balanced sermonic diet? To be true to ourselves and our calling, says Sisk, we must examine how the many factors that can influence our preaching come into play. The calling to preach the gospel compels us to preach in ways that keep the gospel foremost, treat the congregation fairly, and are true to our own convictions and our personal integrity.
From his own twenty years as a parish pastor, his training in Christian ethics, his attempts as a seminary professor to help fledgling pastors grow, and a lifetime of listening to sermons preached ethically and otherwise, Sisk offers the wise counsel found in this book.
Author
Ronald D. Sisk is Academic Vice President and Dean, and Professor of Homiletics and Christian Ministry, at Sioux Falls Seminary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He holds degrees from the University of Arkansas, New York University, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and has served pastorates in Kentucky, California, and Texas. He is the author of The Competent Pastor: Skills and Self-knowledge for Serving Well (Alban, 2005).
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."