Some of the Words Are Theirs

A wise and lyrical encounter with the distinctive work of a pastor, Some of the Words Are Theirs reveals the beating heart of a life measured not just in years lived, but in sermons preached. Given the stiff competition in today’s attention economy, many pastors feel pressured to make their sermons strikingly original. But Austin Carty, a longtime pastor and award-winning writer, has a different perspective: nothing we do or say is ever truly new. The power of a sermon is found not in novelty, but in the mandate it gives preachers to collect their thoughts every week and put them down in a succinct, coherent fashion. Seen this way, sermon writing is a built-in answer to the distinctly human quandary of making meaning from the stuff of our lives. As Carty puts it, “This is the unique gift of preaching. While all writers are blessed by self-discovery, preachers are the most blessed writers of all—for we have a deadline for self-discovery each Sunday.”   In Some of the Words Are Theirs: The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon, Carty offers a masterclass in sermon writing that also explores the “why” driving this vocation. In so doing, he discovers how often his own sermons have been an exercise in trying to make sense of his own past, and how much autobiography lies beneath the themes he has been preaching throughout his pastoral career.   Ultimately, Carty shows how careful attention to the craft of writing a sermon—like careful attention to living a meaningful life—leads to greater self-awareness and humility. The Holy Spirit can use a preacher’s words and life in ways he or she never could have anticipated. A beautifully woven tapestry of homiletical instruction and memoir, Some of the Words Are Theirs will appeal to readers of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and to seminarians and pastors who yearn for a more holistic understanding of the craft of sermon writing.

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