TEACHING FROM THE PULPIT

In order to find out what has already been written about the pastor as teacher, I am going to need to do more than a search on Amazon. But that's where I started.

And it does leave me wondering what is out there specifically to help a preacher approach the pulpit as a teacher.

My initial search on Christian teaching turned up plenty of books about "Christian education", but these are focused on teaching faith in a formal school setting:

• On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom
• Transformational Teaching: Instructional Design for Christian Educators
• Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom
• Teaching for Spiritual Formation: A Patristic Approach to Christian Education in a Convulsed Age

Many others are aimed at an audience of Sunday school teachers. Sometimes pastors are included in the audience.

Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive bills itself as being for parents, Sunday school teachers, pastors and professors.

And there do seem to be a number of books aimed at "creativity" in teaching about the Bible, but that's not exactly what I am looking for. 

Effective Bible Teaching by James C. Wilhoit and Leland Ryken seems promising. I like the title, anyway.

But the Amazon summary says, "The book offers concrete guidance for mastering a biblical text, interpreting it, and applying its relevance to life. Its methods, which have been field-tested for twenty-five years, help pastors, teachers, and ministry students improve their classroom skills. Readers will learn how to develop the "big idea" of a passage and allow the text itself to suggest creative teaching methods. This new edition has been updated throughout and explores the changed landscape of Bible study over the past two decades. Readable and interdisciplinary in approach, this book will help a new generation of Bible students teach in a purposeful and unified way." (emphasis mine)

So, it's still ultimately about a classroom. I'm more interested in teaching from the pulpit. 

And I still think there's a need to develop pastors who THINK like teachers.

And there's more to that than just coming up with a creative hook.