James Earl Massey

In the 1970s, James Earl Massey wrote a book about his beloved mentor, the noted theologian and preacher Howard Thurman. The completed manuscript was never published. Howard Thurman: Reflections on a Luminous Life finally brings this book to the public. This book presents the latest, 1977 version of James Earl Massey's manuscript, lightly edited for clarity. Edited by Dr. Curtiss Paul DeYoung, it includes editorial commentary, a history of the relationship between James Earl Massey and Howard Thurman, and a description of the process of developing the book and why it was never published until now. The book includes footnotes, an updated bibliography, and selections of relevant writings, correspondence, and interviews that shed light on the relationship between Massey and Thurman. Howard Thurman: Reflections on a Luminous Life offers a unique perspective on the life and thought of Howard Thurman from prolific author and popular preacher James Earl Massey, for whom Thurman was a mentor and friend. The book offers valuable insight into both men and makes a lasting contribution to the study of theology and preaching.

Rather than settling for cheap shortcuts to harmony, Curtiss Paul DeYoung invites us to embrace a costly reconciliation. Reconciliation: God's Timeless Call to Justice, Healing, and Transformation describes what is essential for engaging in the process of costly reconciliation: taking responsibility, seeking forgiveness, repairing the wrong, healing the soul, and creating new ways of relating. Chapters close with a set of study-guide questions for readers who seek a concise, lay-oriented articulation of the biblical mandate for reconciliation across racial, gender, and class lines. This is the 2019 reprint edition of Reconciliation: Our Greatest Challenge--Our Only Hope.

Resources for preachers steadily appear, called forth by the perennial need on the part of working pastors for helpful and inspirational materials backed by tested experience, reverent scholarship, and creative insights. The essays in this book are of that cast, and each essay is the work of an experienced practitioner-scholar in the field of preaching. The chapters focus on the preaching ministry of Gardner Calvin Taylor, in whose honour the volume was prepared. They are offered, with affection and esteem, by colleagues, students, and friends, fellow preachers all, whose own attempts to speak the unsearchable riches of Christ owe much to the life and labours of Gardner C. Taylor. Considered by many as the greatest living American preacher, Gardner C. Taylor has often reminded other preachers about the need for divine help in fulfilling the call.

In this insightful study, James Earl Massey offers an expanded version of the Twelfth Annual William E. Conger, Jr. Lectures on Biblical Preaching that he delivered at Beeson Divinity School in February 2004. Through a unique collection of informative lectures and illustrative sermons, the highly esteemed teacher and preacher considers four dimensions of the preacher as steward of the gospel story. Pastors will warmly welcome this book as it provides them with both practical guidance and insight about their identity as preachers.

In this volume, James Earl Massey explores the sense of burden and the sense of joy that accompany the preaching task. He gives attention to the preacher's sense of both the inward side of the task and the outward side of preaching. He then considers the togetherness that earnest preachers seek to experience with their hearers, followed by reflections on the planning necessary for the eventfulness that preaching was ordained by God to offer.

Providing fundamental homiletical principles, this classic book gives readers all the tools they need to prepare a meaningful sermon. "Sermon design"--James Massey's contemporary, creative approach to shaping specific classifications of sermons--focuses on order (What is the preacher's goal?) and on movement (What structure is he or she using to get there?). The discussion of his approach begins with an appraisal of the sermon in context--in relation to goals, design, basic forms, contemporary concerns, and the "why" of it all. Dr. Massey's specific forms for designing sermons include the narrative/story sermon--a subject which is receiving renewed interest today; the textual-expository sermon; the doctrinal/topical sermon; and the special occasion sermon, for which he has chosen the topic of the funeral. Suggestions are included for studying the methods of master preachers as a resource for more effective preaching. And three of the author's own tested sermons are used as illustrations of sermon design possibilities.