Voicing the Vision

Imagination and Prophetic Preaching

For more than a decade popular homiletics professor Linda Clader has been helping her students become attentive to how the Holy Spirit is speaking to them, and eventually through them to the congregation. In Voicing the Vision she shares her ideas about what preachers can do to be open and receptive to the Spirit once the exegesis is done. Clader's approach to inspired and prophetic preaching is a holistic one, filled with suggestions about how the preacher's spiritual life and practice affect openness to the Spirit, as well as how various creative exercises can create spaces in which the Spirit can flourish. Her careful analysis of the biblical texts that illuminate how the Spirit works in those texts is supplemented by practical suggestions for noticing how the Spirit also works in the everyday life of preacher and congregation. This book will be a welcome companion for the seminarian who is just learning to preach, as well as the seasoned preacher who is looking for new inspiration. Linda Clader is Professor of Homiletics and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.