Book in Review: Preaching By The Book

Good Primer; Lacking in Examples

Preaching by the Book provides a formulaic step by step approach to producing "text-driven" sermons. Pace is a big proponent of the expositional model in which each sermon point branches off of the one textual big idea. In this short book he provides an excellent summary of sound Biblical interpretation methodology, as well as a very helpful sermon drafting process. There are many streams of wisdom throughout!

I appreciated Pace's understanding of the centrality of the Holy Spirit and His involvement in the entire preaching process. The Spirit wrote the Scriptures, helps us understand and communicate the Scriptures, and He convicts the hearts of the listeners with the Scriptures. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it--and as preachers we need to ensure we are doing none of this in our efforts alone.

I will say that Pace's preaching model seems a little too rigid. He presents a good exegetical point by point method, which works very well; but he makes no room for different approaches which may be more "free form", or styles which prefer to simply walk through the text. A sermon model is just that, a model. And while it can be a helpful tool to preach effectively, it is not the only preaching method out there.

A bigger frustration for me with this book is Pace's lack of examples. For instance when he writes about Sermon Introductions he gives a list throughout the chapter of 12 bold terms to do (or not to do) in your introduction. Introductions must set the tone, while being brief, while including the listener in on the strategy, while making an approppriate entrance, while...etc. Without any examples of introductions doing these things, this assault of requirements can be straight overwhelming to a new preacher: "how can I be expected to do all of that in just an introduction?"

This is a helpful book, and a good refresher. If you are looking to preach on occasion, or are a more seasoned vet who would like to glean further on the topic, this is a quality book. There are thicker more exhaustive volumes out there, but this remains a good reference.