Preaching's Top Books on PreachingLet your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Proverbs 4:25-26Preaching is difficult enough under the best of circumstances. But what are we to do when it seems that all of ushearers and preachers alikeare constantly distracted?Veteran preacher and homiletics professor J. Ellsworth Kalas offers wise insights for effective preaching in an age of distraction. He examines how people have been distracted in every era and explores how God can meet people precisely at the point of their distraction. Regardless of whatever new technologies come our way, this call to pastoral attentiveness, creativity and excellence provides avenues for connecting with congregations with a countercultural clarity of focus.Rediscover how the proclamation of the Word still speaks profoundly to distracted hearers. Invite your congregation to a renewed attention to the things of God.

Ellsworth Kalas is senior professor of homiletics at Asbury Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and the author of many books, including Preaching the Calendar (Westminster John Knox, 2004) and Faith from the Back Side (Abingdon, 2011).

1 Preaching in an Age of Distraction
2Naming an Age
3The Distracted Preacher
4The Distracted Congregation
5The Benefits of Distraction
6 Excellence as a Counter Force
7 Creativity and Distraction
8Packaging and Distraction
9The Insistent Power of Sermon Content
10The Preacher?s Secret Resources
Acknowledgments
Notes