Learning Together to Preach: How to Become an Effective Preaching Coach

Preaching is best learned and improved when preachers receive excellent, supportive reflection on their lived experiences and sermons. For nearly ten years at Vanderbilt Divinity School a group of scholars and practicing preachers joined together to develop and hone several models of peer-group and individual coaching. In this book, they describe the key dimensions of “collaborative coaching,” a learner-centered approach to coaching that emphasizes covenant-building, deep spiritual curiosity, care-filled listening, ethical awareness, attention to bodies and places, parallel learning, careful sermon analysis, and the art of asking excellent questions. In the final section of the book, practitioners provide examples of this kind of coaching in practice.

John S. McClure is Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He has written Mashup Religion (2011) and other books.