When You Talk, Are People Changed?

Whether you speak from the pulpit, podium, or the front of a classroom, you don't need much more than blank stares and faraway looks to tell you you're not connecting. Take heart before your audience takes leave! You can convey your message in the powerful, life-changing way it deserves to be told. An insightful, entertaining parable that's an excellent guide for any speaker, Communicating for a Change takes a simple approach to delivering effectively. Join Pastor Ray as he discovers that the secrets to successful speaking are parallel to the lessons a trucker learns on the road. By knowing your destination before you leave (identifying the one basic premise of your message), using your blinkers (making transitions obvious), and implementing five other practical points, you'll drive your message home every time!

"Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

"Once upon a time..."

"In the beginning..."

Great stories capture and hold an audience's attention from start to finish. Why should it be any different when you stand up to speak?

In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley and Lane Jones offer a unique strategy for communicators seeking to deliver captivating and practical messages. In this highly creative presentation, the authors unpack seven concepts that will empower you to engage and impact your audience in a way that leaves them wanting more.

"Whether you are a senior pastor with weekly teaching responsibilities or a student pastor who has bern charged with engaging the hearts and minds of high school students, this book is a must-read."
-Bill Hybels, Senior pastor, Willow Creak Community Church

"A very practical resource for every biblical communicator who wants to go from good to great."
-Ed Young, Senior pastor, Fellowship Church, Grapevine, Texas

"To communicate effectively, you have to connect. Andy has been connecting with people for years, and now he's sharing his insights with the rest of us."
-Jeff Foxworthy, Comedian

Story Behind the Book

Andy Stanley and Lane Jones are on staff at one of America 's largest churches, North Point Community. Leaders of thousands of people, they regularly speak in front of large groups. They also listen to numerous speakers and know the disastrous effects of a poorly delivered message. This book is the result of their efforts to make public speaking--one of the most common fear-inducing activities known to mankind--simple, easy, and even enjoyable, so that God's messages will readily produce the life-changing results they should.

With this new lectionary commentary series, Westminster John Knox offers the most extensive resource for preaching on the market today. When complete, the twelve volumes of the series will cover all the Sundays in the three-year lectionary cycle, along with movable occasions, such as Christmas Day, Epiphany, Holy Week, and All Saints' Day.

For each lectionary text, preachers will find four brief essays--one each on the theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical challenges of the text. This gives preachers sixteen different approaches to the proclaimation of the Word on any given occasion.

The editors and contributors to this series are world-class scholars, pastors, and writers representing a variety of denominations and traditions. And while the twelve volumes of the series will follow the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary, each volume will contain an index of biblical passages so that nonlectionary preachers, as well as teachers and students, may make use of its content.

Charles Bartow's stated purpose in this practical theology of preaching is "to encourage confidence in the Bible read and the sermon delivered as a means of grace in an age of radical criticism of Scripture, creed, and confession.

With this commitment in place, Samuel Miller entered his career at Princeton Seminary determined not to allow his professorial duties to diminish his calling as a minister of the gospel. And with such conviction, Miller did, indeed, continue preaching unto the last days of his life. Holding Fast the Faithful Word collects a number of sermons Miller had published during his ministry. Miller's sermons are models of organizational clarity. His main headings are easily discerned, and he always provides practical applications from the doctrines contained in his discourses.

Table of Contents:
1. Christ Our Righteousness
2. The Evidence and Duty of Being on the Lord's Side
3. The Earth Filled with the Glory of the Lord
4. The Vision is Yet for an Appointed Time
5. The Difficulties and Temptations Which Attend the Preaching of the Gospel in Great Cities
6. Christ the Model of Gospel Ministers
7. The Sacred Office Magnified
8. Holding Fast the Faithful Word
9. The Duty of the Church to Take Measures for Providing an Able and Faithful Ministry
10. A Plea for an Enlarged Ministry
11. The Divine Appointment, the Duties, and the Qualifications of Ruling Elders
12. The Duty, the Benefits, and the Proper Method of Religious Fasting
13. The Importance of Domestic Happiness
14. The Means of Domestic Happiness
15. The Appropriate Duty and Ornament of the Female Sex
16. The Dangers of Education in Roman Catholic Schools
17. The Guilt, Folly, and Sources of Suicide
18. Theatrical Amusements
19. The Rejection of Revealed Truth Referable to Moral Depravity
20. The Importance of Gospel Truth
21. Opening of the New Presbyterian Church, in Arch Street