I have been blogging on preaching for about a year now. Through all the blogs I have suggested books on preaching. Over the past year here are the top 10 best selling books on preaching.
The 10th most popular selling book through my blogs is Preacher, Can You Hear Us Listening?. I have never read or suggested this book, but it was still on our list becuase one person bought it through the site. It does look interesting in that it suggests that preachers listen to their congregation. This is an interesting area of research that my own professor Dr. John McClure has edited four volumes on in the “Listening to Listeners” project.
The ninth most popular selling book is the The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching by Thomas Long. This was one of the textbooks in my Introduction to Preaching course. I think he does a very good job of introducing the studen to homiletics in a quick way. I especially find it helpfu to see many structures of sermons in one place. I have not purchased the second edition, but will very soon. This is one of the books that should be on every preachers shelf, especially those preachers who seek to teach others how to preach.
Our eight most popular book is one of my favorite books on preaching, The Heart of Black Preaching by Cleo LaRue. This book is a very good introduction to African American Preaching. There are a few important things that make it valuable. First it seeks to present a Black Preaching Theological perspective and demonstrates this theological perspective by looking at a few sermons in depth throughout history. These sermons are in the book in the appendix. In addition, LaRue presents a clasfication scheme for categorizing the purposes of Black sermons that is very helpful. You can find this book pretty cheap on the web so I would suggest adding it to your library.
The seventh most popular book is Paul Scott Wilson’s book The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching. Once again I have not read the book, although it is in my library, it does provide an interesting classification scheme for sermon preparation. On each of the four pages you look at the text under consideration from a different perspective. I will eventually get to it in my reading.
And our sixth most popular book is Preaching in Black and White. What can a white and a black preacher learn from each other? These kinds of conversations are always tough to have without stereotyping one or the other perspective. I have not read the book, but I hope that it is not the typical “Black preaching can learn logic and intellectual stimulation from white preaching and white preaching can learn style and verbal eloquence from black preaching.” I don’t know if this book does that because I have not read it, but I hope that it recognizes that black preaching is more than style and white preaching is not solely about intelectual stimulation.
Stay tuned for the top 5 books that you have purchased though this site.