Featured Books

Discover top books on preaching, sermon writing, and biblical communication—trusted resources to help pastors grow in skill and spiritual impact.

Craddock Stories

By: Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward.

One of the things that makes Fred Craddock's sermons so compelling is his masterful use of storytelling, but few of his stories have ever been published. This collection provides a a glimpse into Craddock’s life and curates hundreds of Craddock stories told in his own words.

The Cherry Log Sermons

By: Fred B. Craddock

A collection of Craddock sermons, this book demonstrates Craddock’s wit, wordsmithing, and narrative skill.

The Collected Sermons of Fred B. Craddock

By: Fred B. Craddock and Barbara Brown Taylor

A country boy born and raised in Tennessee, Craddock after graduating from Johnson Bible College, Craddock became one of America’s most respected preachers. His distinctive style and relatability caused Newsweek to rank him as one of America’s greatest preachers. This collection of more than fifty of Craddock's sermons provides a glimpse of a master preacher at work.

Making a Scene in the Pulpit: Vivid Preaching for Visual Listeners

By: Alyce M. McKenzie

This book is a supplemental text in Elementary Homiletics at Great Lakes Christian College. It is about mastering preaching as performance across a variety of styles without sacrificing authenticity. Preaching as performance is about amplifying our authentic self, not about becoming someone we are not.

Storycraft: The Art of Spiritual Narrative

By: Walter Wingerin

This book is a defense for the need to tell spiritual stories and a manual for telling good stories. This book is a great starting place for anyone who struggles to know what details to include in a story or struggles to tell stories well. Narrative is a critical component for preaching and this short book accomplishes a great deal in training preachers to capture their audience.

Delivering the Sermon

By: Teresa L. Fry Brown

This book is required reading for Advanced Homiletics at Great Lakes Christian College. This is a preaching book written by a speech pathologist. It covers the parts of preaching that are rarely discussed like how to articulate better, how to take care of your voice if you are doing a lot of talking, how to improve your breathing, and generally how to leverage your body as an instrument to produce the audible component of preaching.

Preaching With Variety

By: Jeffrey D. Arthurs

This book is required reading for Elementary Homiletics at Great Lakes Christian College. As the title implies, this book is about how to successfully include variety into your preaching throughout the year without becoming a worshipper of novelty. A person typically has one comfortable method that they slouch into during the routine of preaching, but this book helps preachers build confidence in their own abilities to try something new.

Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities

By: Mark R Glanville

This book has a nice break down of literary forms and teaches preachers how to craft expository sermons that connect meaningfully with post-Christian, doubt-filled communities by integrating emotional health, cultural discernment, and neighborhood-rooted leadership. He uses the metaphor of jazz to reimagine preaching so if that’s a turn off, steer clear.

Preaching with a Plan: Sermon Strategies for Growing Mature Believers

By: Scott M. Gibson

This book builds on sermon writing and argues that pastors should treat sermons as a long-term, intentional curriculum aimed at forming mature disciples, rather than a series of disconnected, week-to-week talks.

The Practices of Christian Preaching: Essentials for Effective Proclamation

By: Jared E. Alcántara

I used this book in my Masters course and it was really well received. The book presents an introduction to preaching that trains the reader in five core competencies: conviction, context, clarity, concreteness, and creativity. The book is also supplemented with multimedia resources to help preachers develop lifelong habits.

Learn more. Preach more powerfully.