Jerry Vines

The cover alone of Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix’s book, Power in the Pulpit thrilled me with their subtitle stating, “How to Prepare and Deliver Expository Sermons.” However, my enthusiasm was dampened a bit by its delayed arrival which forced me to rush through the material instead of taking the time to mark it up, reflect, and chew through some of Vines and Shaddix’s timeless work. Nevertheless, it has afforded enough time to share an overall synopsis of their work and offer my interactions with their material.

Book Synopsis
Power in the Pulpit provides helps for those tasked with weekly preaching on the preparation, process, and presentation of their sermons. A weighty task few take lightly, but Vines and Shaddix set out to “reduce the frustration and increase the fulfillment,” of those charged with doing so whether they are students like me or veteran preachers. The authors bring a wealth of experience to the table from which pastors can glean much practical wisdom.

In one sense Power in the Pulpit is a critique against those that might think preaching is little more than entering the pulpit and praying the Holy Spirit will fill our mouth with the words to say. No, the authors suggest the call to preach is just as much a call to prepare, as his introduction indicates, and this book is a guidebook or manual for what is a lifetime call to prepare sermon after sermon.

The authors seek to do so by organizing the content in three parts, along with appendixes offering four practical bits of help from how to structure the sermons to breathing exercises. The three primary parts of the book are split between the preparation, the process, and the presentation of expositions of Scripture. Each part therein has between three or five chapters teaching each part of preaching. Each chapter is, to some degree, written like a sermon on each topic with two to six sub-points, some even being alliterated! Finally, but selfishly, as a lover of quotes, each chapter begins with a quote to set the tone for the material to be covered.

Personal Interaction
Some of the most helpful content I find in Power in the Pulpit is how they define expository sermons. There are many different definitions, but the one Vines and Shaddix promote in their book on page 32 is to go “through books of the Bible—chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph—in a systematic fashion,” which goes against “general exposition,” where one seeks to “tie various texts together in a series” and “are not necessarily consecutive Bible passages,” as they differentiate on page 31. While they do not state this is necessarily wrong, they do state the better option is “systematic exposition,” which I previously defined. I find this helpful because while I have been in ministry for over 15 years, I have not had the tools, definitions, or parameters this books gives and have therefore simply started with a book and worked my way through the texts the best I could. Therefore, this it is encouraging, perhaps, because my past 15 years have not been wasted, and have perhaps even been done mostly right!

Chapter six, on “Designing the Structure,” coupled with their appendix offering, even more, helps therein, is also timely for this “novice” preacher of God’s Word. As I’ve stated, my approach has been merely to pick a book, work my way through it verse by verse, complete it, and begin another. I did not have any sort of structure or template to go by, so chapter six was exceedingly helpful, especially with how it breaks down into the structure’s various “phases.”

I feel like I have always appropriately exegeted the text, but have not always had a structure to serve it. Therefore, chapters like this will prove exceedingly helpful now and in the future. This is by far the most important section of the book review.

At first glance, I did not think I would come to appreciate chapter ten on “Playing the Voice” because I was afraid I was about to read how to perform or even act as a preacher. And while it certainly has some of those tones, the content proves to be more than mere acting, and more on the importance of the “marvelous instrument with which [we] may convey [God’s] Word to men: the voice,” they write on page 263. From tips on relaxing, proper breathing, and even caring for one’s voice, this chapter teaches me the value and practicality of how will they hear without a preacher?

Finally, chapter eleven on connecting with our congregation likely proves itself to be the timeliest in its helpfulness. As I have shared, I have not had the training in preaching that would help with such, so I tend to rely on manuscripts and see how it is incredibly easy to be disconnected from my church if I do not heed their words on visualizing, vitalizing, and communicating the sermons I deliver. If I do not connect with my people, the authors ultimately suggest I am doing them a disservice and much can be lost in my delivery.

Conclusion
To summarize and conclude, Power in the Pulpit has been and will continue to be a helpful addition to my library. It is organized clearly enough to go back and “rehearse” and rehash some of the helps I have already found, especially if I find myself in an expositional rut down the road. It seems like Vines and Shaddix want nothing more than for pastors to be able to effectively use their limited time to do the most faithful preaching of the text, and I believe they have done so splendidly.… (altro)