Reviewed Book: Lowry, Eugene L. How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989

Nevile, Donald C.

English

Scholars Commons

Consensus
Volume 17
Issue 1 Adult Education Article 20
5-1-1991
How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative
Sermons
Donald C. Nevile
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus
This Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Nevile, Donald C. (1991) "How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons," Consensus: Vol. 17 : Iss. 1 , Article 20.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol17/iss1/20
Book Reviews 159
in fact; it is about aspects of a specific style of ministry, using some ACoA
concerns a^ occasional examples.
The final section consists of three chapters about the dynamics of how
the church as a system may itself display addictive disorder. This could
have been a fascinating study, even if brief, but this entire section feels
rushed and disorganized, and offers little insight.
I had hoped from the title and the Table of Contents that this book
would be the single volume which would cover most of the issues, and sys-
tematize most of the research in the field of pastoral care and the ACoA.
The authors have certainly tried to minister to the whole person, using all
that the church has to offer. It is confident and optimistic, and certainly
pastorally written, and does contain some insight. However, it contains
nothing original, and is needlessly jargony. So much background in the
field is needed to recognize or understand the many glancing references to
other works and ideas, that if one has the necessary background, one doesn’t
need this book. The bibliography contains the usual list of standard works,
but some authors of important or closely related books are missing. For ex-
ample, John Bradshaw’s Healing the Shame that Binds You (Florida: 1988)
addresses and supports directly most of what Callahan and McDonnell say,
but he is omitted, as is Sean Sammon’s Alcoholism’s Children: ACoA’s in
Priesthood and Religious Life (New York: 1989).
The authors of Adult Children of Alcoholics: Ministers and the Min-
istries have tried valiantly to integrate ACoA issues with many strands
of contemporciry theological and pastoral thought, and they are obviously
deeply committed to caring for people wounded by alcoholism. But this vol-
ume is really an advocation of a specific spirituality and style of ministry
rather than a handbook on understanding and helping ACoA’s, and there
are better introductions to both pastoral care and ACoA issues available.
Eric Richard Griffin
Grace Anglican Church, Arthur, Ontario
How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Ser-
mons
Eugene L. Lowry
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989
173 pp. $17.50
With this volume in the Abingdon Preachers’ Library, Eugene Lowry,
the dean of neu'rative preachers, adds to his already extensive publications
on narrative preaching {The Homiletical Plot, Doing Time in the Pulpit).
Lowry, who teaches preaching at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas
City, is concerned here to make narrative preaching accessible to those who
160 Consensus
may be apprehensive about this style. To do so, he presents four narrative
sermons and investigates them to determine what narrative preachers do
and how they do it.
By way of introduction, Lowry provides background material on re-
cent biblical scholarship on story and parable. He presents a rather
McLuhanesque picture of the medium of the story as its message, a tele-
scoping of form and content. He suggests that . a parable doesn’t have a
point, it is a point. Further, there is no external referent at all; the message
is held in solution” (20). Powerful stories do not so much say something as
do something to us. Meaning does not stand outside a story or narrative,
but is part of its substance. Consequently, Lowry will not use stories as
“illustrations” in preaching, to entertain the listener or emphasize a point:
the point is the story.
In Lowry’s preaching, narrative does not mean a sermon full of stories,
nor a sermon as one long story, but that . . all sermons ought to follow
a narrative sequence of opening conflict, escalation, reversal, and proleptic
closure” (25). This is Lowry’s narrative form. He applies this to the biblical
text through the analogy of an automobile trip: just as the trip is made up
of the car plus the context of highway, movement, and destination, so the
sermon is a journey which is shaped by its vehicle, the biblical text.
Lowry suggests that there are four approaches to the text and sermon,
each involving a somewhat different shape given to the sermonic journey.
These approaches are Running the Story, Delaying the Story, Suspending
the Story, and Alternating the Story. It is the text, along with the questions
asked of it, which will dictate the shape of the sermonic journey.
Herein lies one of Lowry’s most valuable contributions to homiletic the-
ory: instead of trying to isolate a discursive theme which answers questions
and achieves closure, Lowry prefers to “stay out of the driver’s seat,” asking
questions of the text, looking for trouble, and searching for the focus, turn,
and aim of text and sermon. The preacher’s response to those questions
will determine which narrative model the preacher chooses.
Lowry’s four models are illustrated, with running commentary, in four
chapters, each of which includes a sermon representative of the model. The
preachers he chooses are Dennis M. Willis, Fred Craddock, Leander Keck,
and himself. These four models he sees as “basic yet reasonably flexible
shapes that narrative sermons may likely take” (173).
The book is a well-written and elegant presentation of Lowry’s the-
ory of narrative preaching, which builds on and expands his basic theory
as presented in The Homiletical Plot. For those who have hesitated to
experiment with narrative preaching, or who are uncertain of its biblical
integrity, this book will reassure them, and provide both theoretical and
practical assistance.
A mixed blessing of the book, and others like it on preaching, is that
the sermons included are top-notch—hardly an encouragement to the aver-
age preacher who struggles weekly with limited imagination and scholarly
resources! This reviewer especially found the sermon by Dennis Willis an
Book Reviews 161
astonishing tour-de-force: “Noah was a Good Man” (Genesis 7-8-9). Buy
the book for this sermon alone!
Donald Nevile
Peace Lutheran Church, Pickering, Ontario
A New Hearing: Living Options in Homiletic Method
Richard L. Eslinger
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987
191 pp. $14.80
Richard Eslinger, who teaches homiletics at Duke University Divinity
School, places himself clearly in the camp of those who believe . . that the
old topical/conceptual approach to preaching is critically, if not terminally,
ill” (11). The “propositions and illustrations” style of preaching is over the
hill, he says, being routinely met with “blank stares and congregational
inattention” (11). Its ideas and illustrations, he claims, rarely connect, and
little of its form or substance finds its way into the consciousness, faith, or
life of its listeners.
There is no lack of alternate theories for the concerned preacher today.
The problem is to make sense of the plethora of contemporary styles. Es-
linger, rather than providing an exhaustive survey of the whole homiletic
terrain, observes that there are three newer basic styles of preaching emerg-
ing from the old orthodoxy: an inductive approach, a narrative or story
form, and a method based on the movement and structure of the biblical
text.
In this book, Eslinger looks at the methods of five major contempo-
rary homileticians who represent these three trends: Charles Rice (story-
telling), Henry Mitchell (black narrative preaching), Fred Craddock (induc-
tive preaching), Eugene Lowry (narrative and inductive forms), and David
Buttrick (structure and form within the text). After giving an explication
of the method of each of these and an evaluation of their method, Eslinger
includes a sermon by each person, representing his style.
The idea behind this book is a good one. To acquire, read, and absorb
the homiletical texts written by these five scholars, much less to put the the-
ory into homiletical practise, would be a formidable task. Eslinger provides
us with enough explanation and detail to understand what each individual
is trying to communicate homiletically, and to try it out for ourselves. At
any rate, this reviewer found it possible to create flexible homiletic work-
sheets that reflect the theories of Rice, Craddock, and Lowry from Eslinger’s
descriptions: these have served as practical entries into the homiletic styles
of these three teachers.


How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 17Issue 1 Adult Education Article 205-1-1991How to Preach a Parable: Designs for NarrativeSermonsDonald C. NevileFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationNevile, Donald C. (1991) "How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons," Consensus: Vol. 17 : Iss. 1 , Article 20.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol17/iss1/20Book Reviews 159in fact; it is about aspects of a specific style of ministry, using some ACoAconcerns a^ occasional examples.The final section consists of three chapters about the dynamics of howthe church as a system may itself display addictive disorder. This couldhave been a fascinating study, even if brief, but this entire section feelsrushed and disorganized, and offers little insight.I had hoped from the title and the Table of Contents that this bookwould be the single volume which would cover most of the issues, and sys-tematize most of the research in the field of pastoral care and the ACoA.The authors have certainly tried to minister to the whole person, using allthat the church has to offer. It is confident and optimistic, and certainlypastorally written, and does contain some insight. However, it containsnothing original, and is needlessly jargony. So much background in thefield is needed to recognize or understand the many glancing references toother works and ideas, that if one has the necessary background, one doesn’tneed this book. The bibliography contains the usual list of standard works,but some authors of important or closely related books are missing. For ex-ample, John Bradshaw’s Healing the Shame that Binds You (Florida: 1988)addresses and supports directly most of what Callahan and McDonnell say,but he is omitted, as is Sean Sammon’s Alcoholism’s Children: ACoA’s inPriesthood and Religious Life (New York: 1989).The authors of Adult Children of Alcoholics: Ministers and the Min-istries have tried valiantly to integrate ACoA issues with many strandsof contemporciry theological and pastoral thought, and they are obviouslydeeply committed to caring for people wounded by alcoholism. But this vol-ume is really an advocation of a specific spirituality and style of ministryrather than a handbook on understanding and helping ACoA’s, and thereare better introductions to both pastoral care and ACoA issues available.Eric Richard GriffinGrace Anglican Church, Arthur, OntarioHow to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Ser-monsEugene L. LowryNashville: Abingdon Press, 1989173 pp. $17.50With this volume in the Abingdon Preachers’ Library, Eugene Lowry,the dean of neu'rative preachers, adds to his already extensive publicationson narrative preaching {The Homiletical Plot, Doing Time in the Pulpit).Lowry, who teaches preaching at Saint Paul School of Theology in KansasCity, is concerned here to make narrative preaching accessible to those who160 Consensusmay be apprehensive about this style. To do so, he presents four narrativesermons and investigates them to determine what narrative preachers doand how they do it.By way of introduction, Lowry provides background material on re-cent biblical scholarship on story and parable. He presents a ratherMcLuhanesque picture of the medium of the story as its message, a tele-scoping of form and content. He suggests that . a parable doesn’t have apoint, it is a point. Further, there is no external referent at all; the messageis held in solution” (20). Powerful stories do not so much say something asdo something to us. Meaning does not stand outside a story or narrative,but is part of its substance. Consequently, Lowry will not use stories as“illustrations” in preaching, to entertain the listener or emphasize a point:the point is the story.In Lowry’s preaching, narrative does not mean a sermon full of stories,nor a sermon as one long story, but that . . all sermons ought to followa narrative sequence of opening conflict, escalation, reversal, and prolepticclosure” (25). This is Lowry’s narrative form. He applies this to the biblicaltext through the analogy of an automobile trip: just as the trip is made upof the car plus the context of highway, movement, and destination, so thesermon is a journey which is shaped by its vehicle, the biblical text.Lowry suggests that there are four approaches to the text and sermon,each involving a somewhat different shape given to the sermonic journey.These approaches are Running the Story, Delaying the Story, Suspendingthe Story, and Alternating the Story. It is the text, along with the questionsasked of it, which will dictate the shape of the sermonic journey.Herein lies one of Lowry’s most valuable contributions to homiletic the-ory: instead of trying to isolate a discursive theme which answers questionsand achieves closure, Lowry prefers to “stay out of the driver’s seat,” askingquestions of the text, looking for trouble, and searching for the focus, turn,and aim of text and sermon. The preacher’s response to those questionswill determine which narrative model the preacher chooses.Lowry’s four models are illustrated, with running commentary, in fourchapters, each of which includes a sermon representative of the model. Thepreachers he chooses are Dennis M. Willis, Fred Craddock, Leander Keck,and himself. These four models he sees as “basic yet reasonably flexibleshapes that narrative sermons may likely take” (173).The book is a well-written and elegant presentation of Lowry’s the-ory of narrative preaching, which builds on and expands his basic theoryas presented in The Homiletical Plot. For those who have hesitated toexperiment with narrative preaching, or who are uncertain of its biblicalintegrity, this book will reassure them, and provide both theoretical andpractical assistance.A mixed blessing of the book, and others like it on preaching, is thatthe sermons included are top-notch—hardly an encouragement to the aver-age preacher who struggles weekly with limited imagination and scholarlyresources! This reviewer especially found the sermon by Dennis Willis anBook Reviews 161astonishing tour-de-force: “Noah was a Good Man” (Genesis 7-8-9). Buythe book for this sermon alone!Donald NevilePeace Lutheran Church, Pickering, OntarioA New Hearing: Living Options in Homiletic MethodRichard L. EslingerNashville: Abingdon Press, 1987191 pp. $14.80Richard Eslinger, who teaches homiletics at Duke University DivinitySchool, places himself clearly in the camp of those who believe . . that theold topical/conceptual approach to preaching is critically, if not terminally,ill” (11). The “propositions and illustrations” style of preaching is over thehill, he says, being routinely met with “blank stares and congregationalinattention” (11). Its ideas and illustrations, he claims, rarely connect, andlittle of its form or substance finds its way into the consciousness, faith, orlife of its listeners.There is no lack of alternate theories for the concerned preacher today.The problem is to make sense of the plethora of contemporary styles. Es-linger, rather than providing an exhaustive survey of the whole homileticterrain, observes that there are three newer basic styles of preaching emerg-ing from the old orthodoxy: an inductive approach, a narrative or storyform, and a method based on the movement and structure of the biblicaltext.In this book, Eslinger looks at the methods of five major contempo-rary homileticians who represent these three trends: Charles Rice (story-telling), Henry Mitchell (black narrative preaching), Fred Craddock (induc-tive preaching), Eugene Lowry (narrative and inductive forms), and DavidButtrick (structure and form within the text). After giving an explicationof the method of each of these and an evaluation of their method, Eslingerincludes a sermon by each person, representing his style.The idea behind this book is a good one. To acquire, read, and absorbthe homiletical texts written by these five scholars, much less to put the the-ory into homiletical practise, would be a formidable task. Eslinger providesus with enough explanation and detail to understand what each individualis trying to communicate homiletically, and to try it out for ourselves. Atany rate, this reviewer found it possible to create flexible homiletic work-sheets that reflect the theories of Rice, Craddock, and Lowry from Eslinger’sdescriptions: these have served as practical entries into the homiletic stylesof these three teachers.

Nevile, Donald

ConsensusVolume 17Issue 2 Health and Wholeness Article 2011-1-1991How to Preach a Parable: Designs for NarrativeSermonsDonald NevileFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationNevile, Donald (1991) "How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons," Consensus: Vol. 17 : Iss. 2 , Article 20.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol17/iss2/20Book Reviews 203The final section consists of three chapters about the dynamics of howthe church els a system may itself display addictive disorder. This couldhave been a fascinating study, even if brief, but this entire section feelsrushed and disorganized, and offers little insight.I had hoped from the title and the Table of Contents that this bookwould be the single volume which would cover most of the issues, and sys-tematize most of the research in the field of psistoral care Eind the ACoA.The authors have certainly tried to minister to the whole person, using allthat the church hEis to offer. It is confident and optimistic, and certainlypastorally written, and does contain some insight. However, it containsnothing original, and is needlessly jargony. So much background in thefield is needed to recognize or understand the many glancing references toother works and ideas, that if one has the necessary background, one doesn’tneed this book. The bibliography contains the usual list of standard works,but some authors of important or closely related books are missing. For ex-ample, John Bradshaw’s Healing the Shame that Binds You (Florida; 1988)addresses and supports directly most of what Callahan and McDonnell say,but he is omitted, eis is Sean Sammon’s Alcoholism’s Children: ACoA’s inPriesthood and Religious Life (New York: 1989).The authors of Adult Children of Alcoholics: Ministers and the Min-istries have tried valiantly to integrate ACoA issues with many strandsof contemporary theological and pastoral thought, and they are obviouslydeeply committed to caring for people wounded by alcoholism. But this vol-ume is really an advocation of a specific spirituality and style of ministryrather than a handbook on understanding and helping ACoA’s, and thereare better introductions to both pEtstorEil care and ACoA issues available.Eric Richard GriffinGrace Anglican Church, Arthur, OntarioHow to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Ser-monsEugene L. LowryNashville: Abingdon Press, 1989173 pp. $17.50With this volume in the Abingdon Preachers’ Library, Eugene Lowry,the dean of narrative preachers, adds to his already extensive publicationson narrative preaching (The Homiletical Plot^ Doing Time in the Pulpit).Lowry, who teaches preaching at Saint Paul School of Theology in KansasCity, is concerned here to make narrative preaching accessible to those whomay be apprehensive about this style. To do so, he presents four narrative204 Consensussermons and investigates them to determine what narrative preachers doand how they do it.By way of introduction, Lowry provides background material on re-cent biblical scholarship on story and parable. He presents a ratherMcLuhanesque picture of the medium of the story as its message, a tele-scoping of form and content. He suggests that . a parable doesn’t have apoint, it is a point. Further, there is no extem8Ll referent at all; the messageis held in solution” (20). Powerful stories do not so much say something asdo something to us. Meaning does not stand outside a story or narrative,but is part of its substance. Consequently, Lowry will not use stories as“illustrations” in preaching, to entertain the listener or emphasize a point:the point is the story.In Lowry’s preaching, narrative does not mean a sermon full of stories,nor a sermon as one long story, but that . all sermons ought to followa narrative sequence of opening conflict, escalation, reversal, and prolepticclosure” (25). This is Lowry’s narrative form. He applies this to the biblicaltext through the analogy of an automobile trip: just as the trip is made upof the car plus the context of highway, movement, and destination, so thesermon is a journey which is shaped by its vehicle, the biblical text.Lowry suggests that there are four approaches to the text and sermon,each involving a somewhat different shape given to the sermonic journey.These approaches are Running the Story, Delaying the Story, Suspendingthe Story, and Alternating the Story. It is the text, along with the questionsasked of it, which will dictate the shape of the sermonic journey.Herein lies one of Lowry’s most valuable contributions to homiletic the-ory: instead of trying to isolate a discursive theme which answers questionsand achieves closure, Lowry prefers to “stay out of the driver’s seat,” askingquestions of the text, looking for trouble, and searching for the focus^turn,and aim of text and sermon. The preacher’s response to those questionswill determine which narrative model the preacher chooses.Lowry’s four models axe illustrated, with running commentary, in fourchapters, each of which includes a sermon representative of the model. Thepreachers he chooses are Dennis M. Willis, Fred Craddock, Leander Keck,and himself. These four models he sees as “basic yet reasonably flexibleshapes that narrative sermons may likely teike” (173).The book is a well-written and elegant presentation of Lowry’s the-ory of narrative preaching, which builds on and expands his basic theoryas presented in The Homiletical Plot. For those who have hesitated toexperiment with narrative preaching, or who are uncertain of its biblicalintegrity, this book will reassure them, and provide both theoretical andpractical assistance.Book Reviews 205A mixed blessing of the book, and others like it on preaching, is thatthe sermons included are top-notch—hardly an encouragement to the aver-age preacher who struggles weekly with limited imagination and scholarlyresources! This reviewer especially found the sermon by Dennis Willis anastonishing tour-de-force: “Noah was a Good Man” (Genesis 7-8-9). Buythe book for this sermon alone!Donald NevilePeace Lutheran Church, Pickering, OntarioA New Hearing: Living Options in Homiletic MethodRichard L. EslingerNashville: Abingdon Press, 1987191 pp. $14.80Richard Eslinger, who teaches homiletics at Duke University DivinitySchool, places himself clearly in the camp of those who believe . that theold topical/conceptual approach to preaching is critically, if not terminally,ill” (11). The “propositions and illustrations” style of preaching is over thehill, he says, being routinely met with “blank stares and congregationalinattention” (11). Its ideas and illustrations, he claims, rarely connect, andlittle of its form or substance finds its way into the consciousness, faith, orlife of its listeners.There is no lack of alternate theories for the concerned preacher today.The problem is to make sense of the plethora of contemporary styles. Es-linger, rather than providing an exhaustive survey of the whole homileticterrain, observes that there are three newer basic styles of preaching emerg-ing from the old orthodoxy: an inductive approach, a narrative or storyform, and a method based on the movement and structiure of the biblicaltext.In this book, Eslinger looks at the methods of five major contempo-rary homileticians who represent these three trends: Charles Rice (story-telling), Henry Mitchell (black narrative preaching), Fred Craddock (induc-tive preaching), Eugene Lowry (narrative and inductive forms), and DavidButtrick (structure and form within the text). After giving an explicationof the method of each of these and an evaluation of their method, Eslingerincludes a sermon by each person, representing his style.The idea behind this book is a good one. To acquire, read, and absorbthe homiletical texts written by these five scholars, much less to put the the-ory into homiletical practise, would be a formidable task. Eslinger providesus with enough explanation and detail to understand what each individualis trying to communicate homiletically, and to try it out for ourselves. At

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