Preaching is the most difficult thing anyone can do. What makes it so challenging is the call on the preacher to understand two unfathomable objects-the mind of God as it is revealed in the riches of Scripture and the minds of the audience as they are shaped by the complexities of our postmodern world. The sermon seeks to unite these two poles, bringing the purposes of God to bear on the audience.

Not surprisingly, classical books on preaching tend to focus on the first pole: how to comprehend the wonders of a very great God, how to distill the profundities of biblical texts into preaching ideas, and how to expound those ideas faithfully. What is often overlooked is the audience-its outlook, its needs, its aptitude. Veteran pastor and seminary professor Calvin Miller seeks to redress the imbalance in Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition.

Miller sets for himself a radical agenda: to persuade preachers to give as much consideration to the audience as they do to the biblical text and theology. Without sensitivity to the feelings and moods and struggles and pains of the hearers, argues Miller, no communication will take place; the message will fall on uncomprehending ears, and the preacher's biblical insights will avail nothing.

Part of knowing the congregation requires appreciating how contemporary people process information. It's a process that has undergone seismic revision in recent years. In the postmodern West, we are less and less people of ears, deriving our outlook from words, either written or spoken, and increasingly people of eyes, taking our bearings from all sorts of visual stimuli. According to Miller, preachers have been slow to adjust to this massive shift.

Happily, Miller spends little time criticizing modern preaching and instead offers an abundance of wise counsel and helpful solutions. Over and over, he commends the power of story to drive home transcendent truths. Our preaching should be saturated by the creative use of narratives, illustrations, images, and anecdotes. It was symptomatic of the preaching of Jesus, and it should be of ours as well. Whenever Hawaiians gather, they (to use their own words) “talk story.” So should the preacher on Sunday morning, when standing in front of the people: he should “talk story.” It's especially stories that postmodern ears remember, and hence that most fruitfully punch home the truths of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For Miller, preachers are artists, practitioners of a superlative craft. Every sermon is an artistic creation, a retelling of the biblical text in the form of a story, seeking to connect with people on a relational level, not just intellectual. This takes prayerful creativity, Spirit-inspired insight, and hard work. The introductions and conclusions of sermons should be given highest priority in preparation, written out in full (as well as, if possible, the middle part of the sermon) and yet never read, but delivered from an outline, freely spoken, with an earnest passion to resonate with the hearts of congregation. Eye-contact should be made with individuals in the pews; pacing back and forth should be limited, and so should jokes. The aim is to help people to live within the biblical text. “Great preaching is making the audience feel the Scripture” (p. 220). References to the preacher's own pilgrimage can help to make the story accessible. So can the use of the literary classics, as well as saving the best insights and illustrations to the last. Like every good story, the sermon should build to a crescendo-including, above all, the grand finale of strong and sound application to every heart (and such application should be fermenting in the preacher's mind from the earliest stages of sermon preparation).

At the end of the day, Calvin Miller, a life-time advocate of the glories of gospel-preaching, successfully accomplishes his purpose. He pays careful attention to two horizons, both a lofty message and a potentially fickle audience, knowing both so well that the latter will, with help from the Holy Spirit, truly hear and assimilate the former. Thus the author who can say “all preaching is doctrine” (p. 49) and laments that in postmodern preaching “transcendent themes have been replaced by 'how-to[s]'”(p. 183) is the same author who pleads with us to acknowledge that “stories are the stuff of persuasion far more than propositions” (p. 134) and that “relational preaching is everything” (p. 71).

As a preacher who longs-with Miller-to proclaim the immensely rich and exceedingly glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, I was blessed by the challenge of this book to pay more attention to the second pole: to know my audience well enough to be able to expound the gospel compellingly, interestingly, passionately, and creatively to their hearts.

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