Learning to Preach in Varied Pastoral Settings

This introductory essay by the issue editor recounts a personal narrative of someone who did not go into the family business. In this article, the minister/professor reports briefly from service in a wide variety of church settings. The contexts include rural settings in Tennessee and Kentucky, a small town in Tennessee, urban Manhattan, a suburb in Kentucky, and finally a county seat church in a large metropolitan area in Georgia. This minster went from hayfields in Kentucky to skyscrapers in New York. It became imperative to learn new cultural languages in very different sociological settings requiring growth and change. The author shares insights about preaching, sometimes learned the hard way. The article includes anecdotes, some mildly embarrassing and candid, accounts of beneficial interaction with good classes in homiletics along the way, as well as evidence of the influence of exemplary preaching models.