Books in the Fortress Resources for Preaching series

Blackwell explores the Passion Story in Mark 14:116:8, then offers concrete suggestions for preaching, teaching, and Bible study. He contends that "the story of the cross as contained in Mark's Passion Story provides a significant way to understand the Christian faith at large."

Fewer people today are familiar with vital theological ideas from the Christian tradition. Preaching about the continuing relevance and richness of this heritage is one of the pastor's most important responsibilities in this age of relativities. Robert Hughes and Robert Kysar show how this situation has come about and offer imaginative and empowering suggestions for proclaiming Christianity's profoundest truths to a new generation.

Stiller argues that Jesus' parables, through their narrative, personal, and oral dimensions and reversal of expectations, provide unique access to Christianity for those whose experience and hopes we label "postmodern." Aligning contemporary scholarship with today's cultural assumptions, Stiller offers preachers a working knowledge of postmodern sensibilities, an understanding of the parable genre, an analysis of ten parables, and a sample of how one might preach them effectively.

The emphasis on pastoral freedom is nearly spentand found wanting. Many caregivers today are seeking to balance such freedom with a sense of God's transcendence and communal order, which entail personal and ritual formation.In Underwood's resulting spirituality, the soul of pastoral care is prayer. The substance is Scripture, studied in both liturgical and personal settings. The evangelical principle is reconciliation. Baptism lays the foundation for pastoral care by providing the paradigm for all transformations. Eucharist constitutes the eschatological horizon for pastoral care as ministry in the human encounter of God's presence.This winsomely written book stands at the forefront of a broad movement among scholars and clergy in nonliturgical traditions that aims at retrieving explicitly religious resourcesthe means of grace. The result is a rare, truly ecumenical contribution to pastoral care, which deepens practice by providing a vision and a spirituality.