Mike Graves – författare

Seventy-five years ago, renowned preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick asked in Harper's Magazine, "what's the matter with preaching?" Fosdick's question is even more relevant today, as both pastors and laity acknowledge the need for improvement in Sunday morning's sermons. And who better for pastors and students to learn from than those who already do it well? The contributors to this book are a some of the best and most thoughtful preachers in the church and classroom today. In their essays, they assess the state of preaching today, identify a variety of issues that challenge effective preaching, and offer helpful suggestions for what can be done to improve preaching. In the process, they help to define what effective preaching is.

Mike Graves begins this book with the question "If preaching is intended to enliven the church, why is it killing so many ministers?" His answer? Because preaching has become divorced from the vitality and diversity of the preacher's daily life. He invites preachers to discover how preaching can be renewing rather than draining.

For nearly two thousand years followers of Jesus have gathered in churches to eat a meal called Communion in his memory. In Table Talk, Mike Graves claims if we could travel back to those earliest Christian gatherings, we would realize we are not just two thousand years removed; we are light-years removed from how they ate when gathered because eating was why they gathered in the first place, a kind of first-century dinner party. Four characteristics of their Communion practices would leap out at us, traits that are scattered throughout the New Testament, but that often go unnoticed: how the meal was part of a full evening together, promoting intimacy; how it was a mostly inclusive affair, everyone welcome at the table; how it was typically festive, more like a dinner party; and how afterwards they enjoyed a lively conversation on a host of topics.   But Table Talk explores more than just Communion practices, because a new way of doing church is happening around the world, gatherings more horizontal than vertical. For two thousand years Christians have oriented themselves toward God in the presence of others; now a growing number of congregations, part of the dinner church movement, are orienting themselves toward each other in the presence of God. This book tells their story and helps us rethink our own.

In 1928, when Riverside Church (NYC) pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick asked the question in Harpers Magazine, "What''s the Matter with Preaching Today?" he did not know that one response to that question had just entered the world in Humboldt, Tennessee. Fred B. Craddock revolutionized preaching theory and practice by flipping pulpit logic from deductive to inductive--often called the preaching-as-storytelling revolution--and in so doing brought renewed interest and impact to the practice of preaching, effectively rescuing it from an often tedious and moralizing fate. With Fred, preaching was anything but boring. Rather, it was an exciting and enlightening ride that led to the renewal of faith.To honor Craddock''s legacy, Mike Graves and Andre Resner invited ten leading voices in homiletics to identify something that is right about preaching today. In addition, they issued a call to a wide variety of people to contribute stories about Fred''s impact on their lives and ministries. Twenty-seven remembrances of Fred are included here throughout the book.If you appreciate effective and engaging preaching--as either a preacher or listener--the essays and remembrances here will speak to you and provide encouragement about preaching''s present and future. With contributions from:Ronald J. AllenBarbara K. LundbladAlyce McKenzieDebra J. MumfordLuke PoweryAndre ResnerRichard WardDawn Ottoni-WilhelmPaul Scott Wilson