Hearing, Preaching and the Indian Congregation

Hearing, Preaching and the Indian Congregation is an attempt to develop a new homiletic for India based on how the Christian people in Indian congregations hear sermons. While it certainly has a point of view, its primary concern is to provide preachers with the tools necessary to preach sermons that are heard by members of Indian congregations at the deeper levels of their being. Thus the aim is practical and the chapters cover issues affecting not only the sermon's substance but also the ways in which it is developed and presented. It is based on five assumptions: (1) the general aim of preaching, whatever the specific message may be, is to be heard; (2) hearing is facilitated or hindered as much by the form as by the substance of the sermon; (3) a message addressed to the receivers' imaginations may be heard more deeply and with greater effect than one addressed to their intellect or emotions; (4) what is most important to people, and thus what they hear most acutely, is a message concerning their identity; and (5) that God is the sender of the message and such hearing is therefore an experience of being addressed by God and not just by the preacher.