I’ve been hearing from clergy across the country about my new book, Leading with the Sermon. I’ve also met with a number of clergy groups who have used the book in their professional growth in ministry. My former student and friend, Wade Powell, who leads a congregation in Texas, has now done a study guide on the book for individuals or groups of preachers. You are welcome to use Wade’s guide individually or in your clergy group.
If you gather a group of clergy friends to study the book, I’d be delighted to meet with you by Zoom.
I hope that you find the book helpful in your ministry.
Will
Leading with the Sermon: Preaching as Leadership
In this addition to the new Working Preacher Books series, prolific author William H. Willimon makes the compelling case that two key pastoral tasks–preaching and leadership–complement, correct, strengthen, and inform one another. Preaching is the distinctive function of pastoral leaders. Leadership of the church, particularly during a challenging time of transition in mainline Protestantism, has become a pressing concern for pastors.
This book shows how the practices, skills, and intentions of Christian preaching can be helpful to the leadership of a congregation. It will also show how leadership is an appropriate expectation for sermons. In preaching, pastoral leaders can help a congregation face its problems and coordinate its God-given resources to address those problems. Sermons can be an opportunity to articulate, motivate, and orchestrate God’s people in doing God’s work in the church and in the world.
Leading with the Sermon includes chapters on why pastors must be leaders, why preaching is such an essential task in telling the truth about the gospel, how preaching makes better leaders, and how better leaders make better preachers.
Peculiar Prophet 