Making Your Way to the Pulpit

Making Your Way to the Pulpit is a book for beginning preachers, for preachers who will never have a seminary course called ""homiletics"" (the art of preaching), for preachers who studied homiletics with William Hethcock and want a review, and for all preachers who are looking for a tested, reliable approach to sermon preparation. In short, this is a book for those who preach regularly or occasionally and would like a clear guide for making their way to the pulpit.
At the School of Theology (SofT), University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, the Rev. Dr. William H. Hethcock directed field education from 1979 to 1985 and taught homiletics from 1985 until his retirement in 1997. After retiring, he continued to teach homiletics on semester contracts at the SofT and the Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). He remains active as a teacher, speaker on the subject of preaching, and preacher.
Assimilating the work of other scholars, Hethcock developed his own process for approaching sermon preparation on a weekly basis. This book summarizes and describes the Hethcock method. When followed, his process reliably gets the preacher to the pulpit with a biblical proclamation that resonates with individuals in today's congregations.


""Jerrilee Parker Lewallen in Making Your Way to the Pulpit enlightens and informs the process of basic sermon preparation and delivery, showing the preacher step by step what is essential and how to achieve it. Based on the principles of William Hethcock's methodology and example, Making Your Way to the Pulpit is an essential handbook and preserver of a tradition that can serve to enliven not only sermons, but lives.""
--Isabel Anders
author of Becoming Flame and The Faces of Friendship

""William Hethcock is a master pedagogue in homiletics who for a generation taught seminarians a reliable path from their study to the pulpit. Jerrilee Lewallen has given her preaching colleagues a great gift by making Hethcock's approach available to a wide audience. The wisdom and experience found on every page of this volume will simply make one's preaching better.""
--J. Neil Alexander
Bishop of Atlanta and former seminary professor of liturgics and homiletics

""Preaching is an art, but can be improved by discipline, structure, and guidance. Bill Hethcock, a master homiletics professor, has distilled his decades of experience into the simple, straightforward, and effective four 'box' process of sermon preparation, which this book details . . . Following Fred Craddock Hethock also believes that with today's lack of respect for authority, 'the purpose of the sermon is not to get something said; it is to get something heard'-an inductive, not a deductive approach. This book will help any preacher from the novice to the seasoned pro.""
--A. Gary Shilling
Founder of The Episcopal Preaching Foundation


Jerrilee Parker Lewallen, formerly a lawyer, is a retired Episcopal priest who lives with her husband, Tom, in Sewanee, Tennessee. She was a student of William Hethcock, who taught homiletics for many years at the Episcopal seminary located in Sewanee.