Spirit-Led Preaching - by Greg Heisler (Paperback)

About the Book

Spirit-Led Preaching shows the crucial connection between Word and Spirit as they depend on each other to bring about spiritual transformation in the lives of your congregation.

Book Synopsis

Preaching simply does not happen apart from the Holy Spirit. In fact, preaching is the Spirit's ministry! Spirit-Led Preaching helps readers understand preaching from the Spirit's point of view and teaches about the Spirit's role in both the preparation and delivery process, showing what it means to be truly empowered by the Spirit when you preach. It also explains the crucial connection between Word and Spirit as they depend on each other to bring about spiritual transformation in the lives of the congregation. This revised edition includes a new chapter on the congregation's role in relationship to the Spirit and preaching--a subject not often mentioned in books on preaching. Spirit-led Preaching is a book written by a pastor to pastors and students of preaching and is filled with personal examples from the author's own preaching ministry. It has encouraged both novice students of preaching as well as seasoned pulpit veterans for over a decade.

In 2007, Spirit-Led Preaching won first place for the Pastor's Soul category from Christianity Today magazine.

Review Quotes

"Only the Holy Spirit can deliver a sermon from ineffectiveness. This book pierces to the heart of the issue of what makes preaching truly powerful. Only faithful exposition of the Scripture coupled with a firm reliance on the Holy Spirit will truly produce life transformation. The man-centered circus of so much that goes under the banner of being 'anointed' these days is effectively countered by Heisler, who tells us why and how we can learn to prepare sermons saturated with the Holy Spirit and preach them dependent upon the Holy Spirit's power. If you want to learn about the Holy Spirit's ministry in your preaching, get this book."

--David L. Allen, dean, School of Preaching, George W. Truett Chair of Pastoral Ministry, distinguished professor of preaching, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

"The great reformers of the sixteenth century emphasized the indispensable linkage and coinherence of the Word and Spirit in the life of the church. This book clearly presses that point home with reference to the central task of proclamation. In an age marked by frenzy on the one hand and lethargy on the other, we need a revival of the kind of preaching called for in this book: God-honoring, Christ-centered, Spirit-anointed, soul-searching, passionate, convicting, and courageous. May God give us heralds of the gospel who preach like this!"

--Timothy George, dean, Beeson Divinity School, and executive editor, Christianity Today

"I feel that we all could agree that there is no greater need in our preaching than the touch of God. Greg Heisler has done us all a great service in that he has written this book with the Holy Spirit's role in Spirit-led preaching in mind. I am grateful for every resource that can I can study of the illumination of God's Spirit in opening up the text, but I have found that the greatest need is for God's touch by His precious Holy Spirit in the delivery of that message. This book will teach you how to keep that in the forefront of your mind. Read it, and recommend this inspirational book to others."

--Johnny Hunt, senior pastor, First Baptist Church of Woodstock, GA

"Compare Ephesians 5:18-19 with Colossians 3:16 and a remarkable truth emerges: Scripture equates Spirit-filled living with letting the Word of Christ dwell richly within. That is precisely the key to authentic Spirit-empowered preaching, too. When prominence is given to the Word of God rather than to the antics of the preacher or the feelings of the hearers, that is when preaching is most Spirit-directed. Greg Heisler has wonderfully traced the New Testament theme of the Holy Spirit's role in our preaching. Heisler's passion for Spirit-led preaching is contagious. His insights are both wise and biblical, and this book should be a great help and encouragement to any preacher who longs for the Spirit's true anointing in the pulpit."

--John MacArthur, president, The Master's Seminary, and pastor-teacher Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA

"Many who hear evangelicals talk about preaching would be surprised to hear us talk about Scripture without the Holy Spirit. That is because the church through the centuries has understood the combined gift of the Spirit and Word that is to culminate in the preaching event. Greg Heisler has written an important book that will help to educate a new generation of evangelicals about the power of preaching through the Holy Spirit and the Word."

--R. Albert Mohler Jr., president, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

"Greg Heisler has presided over the wedding of the preacher's preparation and the Spirit's power. He demonstrates that we need to have no conflict between passionate delivery and pietistic devotion, nor do we need to choose between intellect and anointing. Whether the preacher is at his desk in intense study or on his knees in intense supplication, his most desperate need is the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Heisler's book saves us from the extremes of a cold rationalism and a mindless emotionalism and teaches us how to find the divine balance of Word and Spirit. My heart has long waited for this book."

--Hershael W. York, Victor and Louise Lester Professor of Christian Preaching, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and senior pastor, Buck Run Baptist Church, Frankfort, KY

About the Author

Greg Heisler serves as senior pastor at Madison Avenue Baptist Church in Maryville, TN. He previously served as the Johnny Hunt Chair of Expository Preaching and Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC.