The Homiletical Plot, Expanded Edition: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form

I think our friends who rated this book low are individuals who seem to subscribe to a Western-Euro homiletical style. That is to say, it's a direct presentation of information. To each his own.Other cultures have a more storytelling form of preaching and they do not lack in strong theology, doctrine, or actionable life principles.Lowry teaches sermon crafting in manner that engages the pathos and ethos. One great preacher, Noel Jones, put it like this, "Who goes to a movie and the plot is reveal in the first 30 seconds of the film?Why would you stay?" He also gave the analogy of watching "The Lone Ranger" each week. What he said was, "each week you knew the Lone Ranger would get into trouble, get out of trouble, and save the day.You tuned in because you wanted to see how much trouble he got into and how he got out of it." He went on to say, "every Sunday we know Jesus is going win.However, we show up week to experience the way in which gospel gets us out of trouble and Jesus is victorious."Lowry's method engages both ethos and pathos and allows the hearer to participate in the grace of the gospel on both a cognitive and emotive level.We know Jesus wins, Our faith is strengthened by participating in the word by hearing how He does it. In Deuteronomy, Moses gave both legal instruction as well as gave a narrative of the exploits of God ashe prepared Israel to enter into Canaan.No sermon can be a purely intellectual presentation. People take more actions based on feeling that intellect. Narrative preaching engages the hearers on multiple levels.Narrative preaching does not eliminate the blunt and straight forward.Once an individual is invested on an intellectual and emotive level, she/he is ripe to be confronted with the blunt and straightforward truth of doctrine.Life is narrative. You go home to your spouses and tell the STORIES of what happened at work today, not the bullet point details and principles.We live by a narrative. We are shaped as a nation and a people by the story of our history (Stanley Hauerwas).In addition, the bible is written in mostly narrative and poetry. I ask, why one earth would a preacher a problem with a narrative style of preaching?

I disliked all of the torn pages. The book is new which is my understanding.

What began as a very promising thesis steadily dissolved into a welter of liberal cliches. The irony is not small that a book about retaining interest through the suspense of narrative form should dissipate its force steadily as the book goes on. This is a thesis that needs to be taken up by a staunchly evangelical author, committed to expository preaching.

A wealth of knowledge

The Homiletical Plot offers an intriguing approach of narrative preaching that emphasizes story line aspects that appeal to people's expectations and desires. People are engrossed by stories and deeply need and long for preaching, so Lowry proposes a combination of these two. He lays out a form of preaching whereby narrative elements are used in order to maintain the attention of the audience and to present the gospel as it truly is, a reversal or turnabout to our typical ways of thinking. As he says, the gospel is continuous with life after it is turned life upside down. The book is short at just over 100 pages and at the very least will give preachers some ideas for adding more spice and interest to their sermons which can often be boring and didactic.

This little classic book is in great shape. It does have markings, but the price is right. Received it way before the promised delivery time. I like it. Thanks!

Love this book for its method of inductive preaching. As Americans we are barraged with deductive communication where you state the main point and then unpack it. This does make for a fairly uninteresting experience for the audience. Lowry offers a wonderful way of looking at sermonizing that flips the whole thing and takes the audience on a journey where you unveil the main point later in the presentation. It is based on good story telling, which is why the method is called narrative preaching. I recommend this book highly for any preacher that wants to become more equipped in his/her preaching style.

A well written book on sermon preparation and presentation challenging the reader to use storytelling to bring forth the Good News of Jesus the Christ. I will re-read this book twice a year at minimum. In addition, I can see this book being a reference tool on a weekly or monthly basis for the Pastor.

Eugene Lowry is Professor of Homiletics at He is also a preacher and a jazz pianist - the latter two being not unconnected. He has written a number of books on narrative preaching, of which this is the best known.The Homiletical Plot suggests that preachers should structure their sermons according to the basic structure which underpins many stories. After all, Jesus told stories far more often than he gave three-point sermons!According to Lowry's scheme the basic narrative plot has five parts:1) Oops!--upsetting the equilibrium;2) Ugh!--analysing the discrepancy;3) Aha!--disclosing the clue to resolution;4) Whee!--experiencing the gospel;5) Yeah!--anticipating the consequences.Lowry explains these in the chapters which form the heart of the book. It's good but I only gave four stars because it's a bit too theoretical for my taste. I would have liked some examples of sermons which used the format; these would have helped bring the ideas to life.I have never constructed a sermon in the way that Lowry outlines; nevertheless, I do sometimes use his schema to check the structure of my own sermons and I find that they often follow his structure. In such cases the book can be useful for refining what I've already done.Overall a good book; any preacher will benefit from reading it.

Super helpful if you're if you're starting off to write and take worship in you're church. It is easy to understand the step and how they work for you

This book will help reform your patterns and steps to sermon writing and give you tools to be a more effective preacher people want to hear.

Required for a course. Passed course