THE MISSION OF PREACHING

Equipping the Community for Faithful Witness

Patrick W. T. Johnson


Foreword by David J. Lose

www.IVPress.com/academic

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400 
Downers Grove, IL
60515-1426

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©2015 by Patrick W. T. Johnson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Images: © Jamie Farrant/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-9712-4 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-4070-0 (print)

To Isla, Luke and Claire

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 The Preacher as Witness

The Witness of Preaching

Preaching as Testimony

Confessing Jesus Christ

Toward a Missional Ecclesiology

2 The Witness of the Christian Community

Barth’s Ecclesiology and Its Place in Missional Theology

“The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community”

Moving Toward a Missional Homiletic

3 The Witness of Missional Congregations

The First Pattern: Discerning Missional Vocation

The Second Pattern: Biblical Formation and Discipleship

The Third Pattern: Taking Risks as a Contrast Community

The Fourth Pattern: Practices That Demonstrate God’s Intent for the World

The Fifth Pattern: The Public Witness of Worship

The Sixth Pattern: Dependence on the Holy Spirit

The Seventh Pattern: Pointing Toward the Reign of God

The Eighth Pattern: Missional Authority

Moving Toward a Missional Homiletic

4 A Missional Homiletic of Witness

Preaching

Preaching Confesses Jesus Christ

The Preacher Confesses Jesus Christ

Preaching Confesses Jesus Christ Through a Missional Interpretation of Scripture

Preaching Confesses Jesus Christ Through a Missional Interpretation of Scripture … To Equip the Community for Witness to the World

Conclusion

Bibliography

Name and Subject Index

Praise for The Mission of Preaching

About the Author

Foreword

To understand the import of the book you hold in your hands, it’s vital to give attention to a fact of congregational life that is as blatantly obvious as it is frequently overlooked: The dominant culture in the United States no longer has any vested interest in supporting church participation. From Benjamin Franklin ...

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About The Mission of Preaching: Equipping the Community for Faithful Witness

We hear plenty of discussion about missional theology, missional leadership and missional church planting. But what about missional preaching? Now that the church in the West lives within a post-Christendom context, how should preaching look different? What homiletical assumptions arose within Christendom but are no longer relevant for a missionary church? In The Mission of Preaching, Patrick W. T. Johnson develops the first missional homiletic, a model for preaching determined by the missionary encounter between the gospel and Western culture. Mobilizing the latest resources in homiletical theory and missional theology, he argues that preaching is a major form of the church’s witness to Jesus Christ, equipping the congregation for its witness to the world.

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