The Fully Alive Preacher (Westminster John Knox) by Mike Graves seeks to offer renewal and new energy to preachers suffering from “homiletical burnout.” While the book contains material on sermon preparation, it is also peppered with brief reflections and other resources aimed at helping the preacher rethink and renew for future service.
Graves shares a story about Brevard Childs, long-time Old Testament professor and scholar. “In class one day, a student asked him what it would take to get an A on an exegesis paper. Childs responded, ‘If you want to do better exegesis, become a deeper person.’
“What wisdom! The same goes for the homiletical task. If we want to be better preachers, we should first consider how we might become deeper persons. Or to put it in the vernacular, if we want to get up sermons for the next umpteen years, we had better get a life first!” (Click here to learn more about the book The Fully Alive Preacher.)