Preachers around the globe have come to rely on Will Willimon for insight and advice on the craft of preaching. For over a decade, Willimon has published his reflections in the «Five-Minute Preaching Workshop,» a quarterly column he writes as editor of Pulpit Resource. Here the best selections from that column have been brought together into a single volume for the first time. Drawing on years of experience, study, and careful observation of the current state of preaching, Willimon offers candid thoughts on a wide range of homiletical issues-from theological to pastoral, cultural, and stylistic. Readers will find challenge and inspiration from a few hours spent in the studio of this master preacher.
Hope Church–its clergy and its people–are quite a congregation, an unforgettable cast of saints and sinners. While serving a heavenly realm, they also have their feet plainly planted in the muck and mire of the real world. Here is an Easter story of ordinary folk caught in the gracious grasp of an extraordinary God. In this rollicking, hilarious, sometimes pathetic, fast-paced, and always entertaining journey through a month of Sundays at Hope Church, we meet a wild cast of characters in church people surprised to be the body of Christ. Sex, violence, greed, grunge, lust, and lies–all in church! Saints and sinners all, caught within the embrace of a God who refuses to make proper distinctions.
With I'm Not from Here, popular writer Will Willimon returns to fiction with a story of spiritual discovery set in a Southern town. Will takes us on a Don Quixote-like journey during which young Felix Goforth Luckie learns a great deal about the world, about other people, and about a God who shows up in the oddest places, in the strangest times, and among the unlikeliest people. On a quest to discover himself, Felix is discovered by the grace of God. In homage to Dostoevsky, Cervantes, and the Bible, Willimon creates a world that is thoroughly believable, realistic, and ordinary, yet at the same time fantastic, strange, and funny. In Galilee, Georgia, young Felix finds that things are not as they first appear, people are wonderfully mysterious, and God is unavoidable. At times odd, frequently very funny, both satirical and poignant, I'm Not from Here is a rollicking tale, a light-hearted parable with serious intent. Willimon's first novel, Incorporation, was widely acclaimed for its satire, honesty, and theological depth. While this his second novel differs considerably, I'm Not from Here is equally surprising and entertaining, showing Willimon's gifts as a masterful storyteller. Even as the parables of Jesus reveal things to us that could not be seen except through fiction, so this novel is not only engaging but also revealing.