Eugene L. Lowry

Originally published 1980, this is deservedly one of the most influential books on homiletics in the last half century. The art of good preaching has moved so much in the last thirty years in the direction proposed here, that it is difficult to reimagine what a breath of fresh air it was when it first appeared. An expanded edition appeared in 2001, leaving the original text unchanged, but supplementing it with an afterword.
Lowry’s was an early salvo in a new approach to homiletics, impatient with the three-point expository sermon that prevailed at the time. He stressed that preaching is a narrative art, by which he did not mean that a preacher should just stand up and tell stories. Instead, a good sermon is a plot, moving, as he puts it, from itch to scratch. Early in the sermon, listeners should be confronted with a bind: a felt need, a discrepancy. The skilled preacher maintains the suspense that arises out of this as long as possible.
One point I found especially helpful was the insight: the difference between analysis and creative production. Lowry says many books on homiletics are great at analysis of a sermon as given, but they are not very helpful in preparing the sermon. His book aims to contribute to this task, and he succeeds in this.
In the Afterword, the author offers further reflection on staging the plot, as well as new terminology less open to misunderstanding than his original terms. He also places his own work in the general context of the New Homiletics, and shows where his project corresponds to and differs from those of other teachers.
Those interested in good preaching are almost certainly aware of this book; it repays reading and rereading by all practitioners of the art, but I would also suggest that church members serving on pastoral search committees would be well-advised to read it (it's only a little over 100 pages).… (plus d'informations)

Lowry was the first homiletics teacher I ever heard, sometime in high school, when I knew I wanted to go to seminary, and I knew I was interested in (at the time, others’) preaching. That was in perhaps 2000. Finally, now almost ten years out of seminary (Duke with Richard Lischer for preaching, for those who care) I’ve read what is supposedly a classic. It’s a very simple idea, an essay’s worth of content really. It would be a great essay, but at this length it overworks and oversells one approach to a sermon over against many other good approaches. Might it be that reading it now, I miss its groundbreaking newness back in 1980? At any rate, worth being familiar with, and an approach that is now affecting my own, but not a great book overall.… (plus d'informations)

Eugene L. Lowry. The Homiletical Plot Expanded Edition The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.
This book is a reissue of the Homiletical Plot published in 1980 and the author and editors have presented the text without change except to add clarification in an afterward. The goal of his book is to transform "our intuitions into articulate form"(xix). Lowry says, "Our task [in preaching] is to tell it, to form it, to fashion it -- not to "organize" it".(xx) He suggests utilizing the plot form as a way of encouraging preachers to develop their sermons using a play or a novel as their primary form rather than using logically developed pasted together construction.
Fred Craddock's words are telling when he says, "Let someone give valuable and needed attention to form and style, and soon comes the charge that substance and content are to the writer inconsequential. Let a book on any subject reveal literary artistry on the part of the author, and immediately its scholarship is questioned. "(xiii) Craddock's evaluation explicates an academic bind which is detrimental to homiletic development. My sense is that Lowry is encouraging us not to get caught up in this academic debate but rather to utilize whatever creative tools are helpful to communicate. His method allows preachers to follow their initial intuitions so they can take an idea that they experience to be alive and present it to others who can in turn hear it with excitement and anticipation the way the preacher did early in the week. Preachers who want their preaching to be relevant, comprehensible, and inspiring will discover that Lowry's Homiletical Plot form offers a creative and intelligent tool for sermon development. In addition, when preachers choose to use their intelligence creatively, they encourage and model for the hearer how to do likewise.
Lowry's model suggests that sermon development is best understood as a process of pruning rather than a block-by-block construction.(9) The pruning process he describes is reminiscent of a watercolorist who has to take care not to pull too many colors out of the palate, creating a murky convoluted canvas. In the preliminary stages, many colors and textures might be tested but in the final painting, the artistic way will lead the painter to take an idea and focus it by minimally indicating shadow and leaving open space for light. Likewise, the pruning process allows the preacher to nimbly negotiate through deep exegetical waters, which can overwhelm the sermon.
Furthermore, Lowry suggests a sermon plot "has as its key ingredient a sensed discrepancy, a homiletical bind... An issue not resolved."(12) Likewise, in a good painting, there is a similar tension between light and dark that draws in the viewer. Once the attention is focused, multiple discoveries and different levels of meaning reveal themselves. This is reminiscent of Lowry's concept of the plot moving toward resolution. However, that movement is not always in a forward direction. Lowry says, "The novelist may begin a novel with the final resolution and fill in the plot backwards".(20) Any art form including a sermon is open to this kind of creative direction.
As a sermon is developed using these movements its final form will reflect these experiments, either in full or by implication, and as a result, multiple layers of meaning will emerge. Freed from logical steps subplots develop, challenging choices emerge between the good and the better, complicated motives and the important "aha" moment occurs. In this way listeners will not only hear a sermon, but will both experience a text and be given a model for critical thinking to help them live out the gospel. In addition, this method encourages the preacher to plan the placement of the good news so that the preacher is assured to include the good news in their message. The inclusion of the good news in the sermon may sound obvious but recently both Paul Scott Wilson and Eugene Lowry have bemoaned the lack of "Good News" in contemporary preaching. The narrative preaching model is one way to assure that neither an ethical response nor grace is left out of the sermon.
In his afterword, Eugene Lowry addresses some of the critiques he has received for his Homiletical Plot method. As Fred B. Craddock wisely said in his forward "One cannot say everything in one volume; to attempt it is to dull the edge of all that is being said. To say everything is to say nothing. One writes of one thing with such conviction that the impression is given that this one subject rises above all others."(xiv) As human beings who would like answers for every question, the Homiletical Plot could have been an easy answer. In this updated version Lowry does not let us off that easily by clarifying that "the good news of the gospel... is not reducible to answering people's every felt need; the good news of the gospel involves a transformation of human experience."(127) Lowry's outline of some alternative plot formations was also very helpful.
The one area of this book that seemed to be deficient was the lack of sample sermons. Though there are samples in each chapter to explain the plot line, this addition would help the preacher to gain a clearer understanding of the transitions, the varieties of forms and enable a comparison of the working form to the final form. However, this exclusion in no way diminishes the fact that this book has made an impact on many preachers and is still relevant today. This slim book is jam packed with practical advice and encouragement for the preacher and the student alike. Having used this method in a traditional pulpit in a downtown mainline church, a contemporary rural congregation and as a guide for dialogue preaching in an emergent-missional community I have experienced how this book helps the preacher assist people to begin to grasp the spiritual and biblical relevance, understanding, and inspiration for which they yearn.… (plus d'informations)