Author Examines Modern Literature In Relation To Several Basic Doctrines Of Christian Theology.

Sharing years of wisdom from more than fifty years in ministry and teaching, The Ministry Life: 101 Tips for New Ministers by John Killinger is filled with practical advice and wisdom for a minister's day-to-day tasks as well as advice on intellectual and spiritual habits to keep ministers of any age healthy and fulfilled. With a chapter of guidance from other pastors, the book shares important and timely insights that will help ministers, both new and seasoned, find their way a little more quickly and easily.

"War would be wonderful if...for the sake of Global Safety and Security in the 21st Century...we could, collectively, learn to fight with timely tactics of Constructive Self-Criticism and Creative Caring. But current strategies Miss the Mark We must develop New Heart-Ware and explode Missiles of Meaning filled with Soul-Searching Shrapnel that effectively counters: Ego-Centered Thinking, Self-Destructive Fears, and Lack of Combat with Corporate Myths, Earth-Shaking Political Pot-Holes, Raging Religious Ruminations, and Mangled/Simplistic Presumptions that money-making-greed is the Way-to-Wonder in a World of Wars " Chaplain/Colonel Don Reeves, USAFR (Ret.) "It's time to find New Ways of Warring " says an ancestral nephew of fabled Colonel Davy Crockett, as he takes shots at out current tendency toward mindlessness and points to new Frontiers of Thought

Is there an afterlife? If so, how can I be saved? For traditional Christians, the fate of the soul after death is the most pressing question of life. But many Christians have never learned the way that concepts of the afterlife evolved throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, and church history. In this easy to read new volume, John Killinger gives us a sense of changing and more diverse views on salvation in Christianity, while respecting the importance of the question for many today.

Helping new ministers as they enter into the church, this book offers a humorous look at the important things seminarians need to know. It discusses difficult issues new ministers and seminary students will face in the church, and also considers issues not covered in seminary.

The title of John Killinger's newest book, "Preaching To A Church In Crisis," is meant to underline the uniqueness of the present situation in mainline Protestantism, and perhaps the urgency of it, but not to sensationalize it. He makes the point that inasmuch as the mainline churches for so many years established the social and political norms in our country, as well as the spiritual norms, any crisis in their existence becomes a major crisis in modern Christendom, and, by extension, in American life as a whole.
In the opening chapters of the book Killinger creates a general understanding of the malaise now affecting our churches. He then extrapolates from that understanding a sense of the moods and feelings affecting the people in America's congregations. Answering the question of what influence the disintegration of the mainline church has on the psyche of the persons attending these congregations, he places the preacher in a better position for thinking about preaching and what its hallmarks must be in order to speak truly and effectively for the gospel in our time.
"I don't think I'm tipping my hand to say that preachers have not faced such challenges, or lived in such a tumultuous era, since the days of the Reformation itself when a similar series of shocks and stresses occurred in the history and culture of the world. Then, a revolution of far-reaching and deeply felt consequences produced radical changes in the life of the church and in the way many preachers came to understand their calling and their craft.... The fundamentalist and traditionalist voices attempting to reinforce the dogmas and emphases of an earlier age, sincere and faithful as they may be, do no service to the church or the world at this point in what is transpiring."(from author introduction)
Though anguish fills these pages at times, the profound and hope-filled review of the themes and factors Killinger feels necessary to turn the tide will inspire and motivate the modern preacher. This is one of the most forceful and insightful books on preaching and the modern day church to appear in years.
John Killinger, one of the best known preachers and teachers of preachers in America, has pastored churches In Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, and California. He has taught preaching, worship, and literature at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, The University of Chicago, and the School of Theology at Claremont. His book"The Fundamentals Of Preaching"is widely used as a textbook in preaching.

Originally published in 1983, Fundamentals of Preaching is a comprehensive textbook on preaching, guiding the novice from the first steps of conceiving the sermon through the actual construction and delivery. In this new, revised edition, Killinger enhances the outstanding, practical qualities of the text with much input from recent homiletical studies and the preaching of women.