Book review: The Homiletical Plot
Lowry, Eugene. The Homiletical Plot (Westminster John Knox, 2001). The Homiletical Plot is Lowry’s development of a sermon style which presents and alternative to the traditional methods of preaching. The narrative/storytelling sermon. Following the disruption with “the old homiletic” inaugurated by Craddock (whom he quotes a few times in his book), he introduces the concept of storytelling as a powerful tool for engagement of the listener. Lowry works with the idea of “developing a sermon instead of just “constructing” one (p.12). The sermon “should not be a collection of parts constructed by a preacher” (p.13) but a plot that is developed in time, since preaching happens in time. Lowry emphasizes that our task in preaching is to facilitate the homiletical birth (p.14). In a way, we are less engineers working on the ed...
