The Mission of Preaching

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.

Patrick W. T. Johnson (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Asheville, North Carolina, and author of The Mission of Preaching: Equipping the Community for Faithful Witness. In addition to pastoral work and writing, he is a leader in the Academy of Homiletics, serves as a preaching consultant, retreat, and workshop leader, and as faculty for the Joe R. Engle Institute for Preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary. He received his doctorate in practical theology with a concentration in homiletics, and continues to focus his writing and teaching on the areas of preaching, worship, and missional theology.