Fred's Stories

I picked up a book two weeks ago that I completed on Friday: Craddock Stories. It is a collection of homiletical (fancy work for "preaching") stories told by preaching professor Fred Craddock. Craddock became well known for his "inductive" preaching method. I've had the pleasure of hearing Fred preach a few times, but I have no idea if I was hearing "inductive" vs. "deductive" or just "uctive".

Anyway, these are great stories, and I'm sure I'll use them in my own sermons some time in the future. I'll be saying: "Now, according to uncle Fred . . ." or "As Fred Craddock tells it . . ."

My own preaching, however, has been influenced by my homiletics professor at Duke, Dr. Richard Lischer. Only one thing I remember him saying, but it stuck:

"Most of you are going to want twenty hours to research, meditate upon, pray over, and write your sermons every week. But in actuality, between the phone calls, the interuptions, the marriage counseling, the crisis intervention, the poor, the weak, the needy, the worship prep, the staff crises, the hospital visits, the emergencies, the invitations, the weddings, the funerals, and all of the needs of your family and home . . . you're going to be damn lucky to get twenty minutes in the parish. Just make sure your sermons are inspiring, elucidating, entertaining, fulfilling, insightful, challenging, and homiletically consistent with the Biblical text, and you'll do fine!"

Thanks, Dr. Dick. I would write you a letter of thanks, but, hey, the phone just rang again while I was working on my sermon . . . .