The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities
Mark R. Glanville
IVP Academic (2025). 238 pp.
Glanville’s Preaching in a New Key comprises a welcome addition to the homiletics space. Operating with the recognition that the questions and concerns of our communities have changed with the shift to a post-Christian world, Glanville draws from his years of preaching in such contexts to help others navigate these times ripe with opportunity.
In Part One (chaps. 1–3), the author opens by discussing the inner life of a preacher and how that determines whether one’s preaching is a rehashing of our trauma and people-pleasing tendencies or flows from a life lived in trust before God. The second chapter focuses on the need to preach the word to churches as communities rather than to isolated individuals, which seeks to recover the communal life assumed in the NT rather than succumb to the individualism of the West. The third chapter unpacks the current cultural context, observing the change from the need for rational justification for the faith to seeing instances of justice and compassion lived out, which further substantiates the value of being a community under the word.
Part Two (chaps. 4–7) provides a thorough overview of the sermon-crafting process. Chapter four covers a sweeping amount of sermon-preparing steps from studying the passage to structuring the sermon. The fifth chapter explains the author’s core practices for preaching effectively along with a number of gems for additional things to make sermons more memorable. Here the author’s musical background finds its richest application, reminding readers that good preaching is art too. Chapter six covers the refining process with a specific focus on making sermons connect to people’s hearts and internal world. The final chapter in this section gives a brief overview of the author’s preaching sketchpad, which is a helpful way to generate creativity and compile one’s thoughts to deliver consistently effective sermons.
Part Three (chaps. 8–10) provides an overview of the larger story of the Scripture from creation to the renewal of creation. At the center stands Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Together these chapters contend that preaching needs to point to Christ while also acknowledging where in the larger flow of Scripture’s grand narrative a particular passage falls.
In Part Four (chaps. 11–14), the author begins by emphasizing the need for creativity in storytelling and in activating the five senses in chapter eleven. The twelfth chapter talks about a preacher’s posture with special attention to the kind of posture needed in post-Christian communities to promote participation and dialogue. The thirteenth chapter focuses on empowering the church members and for the church to become a locus of God’s grace in its surrounding community. The final chapter talks about justice and violence and particularly how one can approach the violent portions of Scripture in an age that is wary of religious violence.
Reading Preaching in a New Key feels like having a conversation with a master at crafting sermons. From the onset, it becomes clear that preaching to the author is not simply a matter of effectively presenting and delivering content. It is a synthesis of life and theology that inspires a community to follow Jesus in a deeper and more holistic way. Throughout the book, the author has inserted nuggets of wisdom that can only come from years of devoting oneself to the task of preaching well. As a result, preachers at any stage of their journey are bound to glean something from this book, and I personally want to implement some adaptation of his preaching sketchpad.
With that being said, the title and the opening chapters set up the book to be mostly about preaching to post-Christian communities. While that conversation does emerge at various points in the book and most especially in the last chapter, it fades into the background more than I expected. By the end, I found myself wanting more as it relates to preaching in a post Christian world. Instead, much of it reads more like a book geared to help preachers perfect their craft with some helpful insights on adapting to a post-Christian culture sprinkled in.
I think, therefore, that the book will most benefit people who have some basic experience with preaching and are looking to take it up a notch. The places where it shines are in areas where the author shares some of his insights about connecting the biblical texts to human hearts—including that of the preacher—and stimulating creativity in sermons. At the same time, it lacks the granular step-by-step instructions that one would expect for a book geared for beginning preachers as some of the sections on exegesis and Scripture study are cursory, which is just fine for anyone who has those skills already in the toolbox. Thus, anyone who has some basic Bible study habits in place and is looking to improve his or her preaching effectiveness with creativity and sensitivity for our cultural moment would find this book helpful. I know I personally will be adding a few things to my sermon-crafting regimen.
Benjamin Burkholder (PhD, Duquesne University) is an Associate Pastor at North Park EPC in Wexford, PA and a Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone Theological Institute and. He is a member of the St. Hildegard Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
