Popular homiletics professor Linda Clader has been helping her students become attentive to how the Holy Spirit is speaking to them, and eventually through them to the congregation. In Voicing the Vision she shares her ideas about what preachers can do to be open and receptive to the Spirit once the exegesis is done.
Clader's approach to inspired and prophetic preaching is a holistic one, filled with suggestions about how the preacher's spiritual life and practice affect openness to the Spirit, as well as how various creative exercises can create spaces in which the Spirit can flourish. Her careful analysis of the biblical texts that illuminate how the Spirit works in those texts is supplemented by practical suggestions for noticing how the Spirit also works in the everyday life of preacher and congregation.
This book will be a welcome companion for the seminarian who is just learning to preach, as well as the seasoned preacher who is looking for new inspiration.
Linda Clader is Professor of Homiletics and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.
"With seasoned grace, Linda Clader leads us into landscapes of the heart. There we find--beyond our wildest dreams, but according to our deepest longings--that God's Spirit does bear witness with our preaching words."--The Rev. Dr. David Schlafer, co-editor of Sermons that Work
Colorful, juicy, engaging, and, oh yes, profound--Linda Clader is all the things a preacher should be. Her elegant prose, insight and experience give her a uniquely powerful voice. And equip her to be just the kind of help a preacher most needs!"--Jana Childers, Dean and Professor of Homiletics, San Francisco Theological Seminary
"Here is a book for preachers who want to speak freshly and directly of the Holy but who do not always know how. Clader models what she teaches, inviting her readers into a conversation rich with ideas, images, insights and inspiration that are as true to earth as they are to heaven. She may remind us that preaching is 'a profoundly dangerous occupation,' but not without believing (and asking us to believe) that we have everything we need to do it well."--Barbara Brown Taylor, author of The Preaching Life
"Opens new avenues for letting the Spirit speak to both preacher and listener."--The Living Church
"This book is a fine energetic spur to exciting preaching....In this era of spirituality and helping people connect to God's presence and reality, preachers tend to err on the side of spirit and not the side of the flesh. Clader gives us refreshing ways to tell our story better and be more convincing, and for that we preachers can be grateful."--Robert Warren Cromey, for The Witness Magazine
"For more than a decade homiletics professor Linda Clader has been helping her students become attentive to how the Holy Spirit is speaking to them, and eventually through them to the congregation. In Voicing the Vision she shares he ideas about what preachers can do to be open and receptive to the Spirit once the exegesis is done. Clader's approach to inspired and prophetic preaching is a holistic one, filled with suggestions about how the preacher's spiritual life and practice affect openness to the Spirit, as well as how various creative exercises can create spaced in which the Spirit can flourish."--The Presbyterian Outlook
"In the literature of preaching, few volumes address the complex relationship between spirituality and preaching. Most homileticians acknowledge the importance of inspiration in the task of preaching and will hint at disciplines to enhance a preacher's spiritual life. Few will explore the subject as deeply as Linda Clader has done in Voicing the Vision."--Homiletic
"A refreshing corrective to mechanical methods of sermon preparation and delivery...helpful insights."--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
