As One Without Authority By Fred Craddock – amazing paradigm changer in how we view preaching and the preacher. This is Craddock’s inductive approach and an effort to reconnect the form of the sermon with the meaning we intend to convey. Every preacher should read this book (as is the case with every book on this list, IMO).
Christ-Centered Preaching By Bryan Chapell – amazingly insightful book on preaching that may have a bit too much information but is filled with insight after insight that I couldn’t do without.
Communicating for a Change: 7 Keys to Irresistible Communication by Andy Stanley is a very simple book on communication in general, applying to but also reaching beyond just preaching.
Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible By Tom Long gave me insights into the meaning of genre and how those meanings can be lost by changing the form of the text into a sermon and regained by reflecting the genre in the form of the sermon.
The Homiletical Plot By Eugene Lowry – a classic preaching book on narrative preaching…building and resolving conflict. This is the home of the infamous “Lowry loop” that shows us how the sermon can and should be not just heard by the church but experienced.
The Four Pages of the Sermon By Paul Scott Wilson – this book is a must read in understanding how to develop and resolve conflict in the text and apply that to conflict in this world and in the lives of Christians in the church. You may or may not want to use his specific approach but his use of tension and resolution is very good. I would say it is second in importance on that to the Lowry loop.
