Will Willimon is widely acclaimed as one of the top ten preachers in the
world. For each Sunday of the Christian year, Will provides just what
you need to begin the journey toward a sermon. This guide will stoke,
fund, and fuel your imagination while leaving plenty of room to insert
your own illustrations, make connections within your congregational
context, and speak the Word in your distinctive voice. Guidance from
Will Willimon is like sitting down with a trusted clergy friend and
asking, “What will you preach next Sunday?” Year A Part 2 is part of a
six-volume set that includes years A, B, and C (2 volumes per year) in
the Revised Common Lectionary. Part 1 includes the Pentecost through the end of the church year, Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday.

Each week of sermon resources includes:

1. Readings
2. Theme title
3. Introduction to the Readings
4. Encountering the Text
5. Proclaiming the Text
6. Relating the Text

Will Willimon is widely acclaimed as one of the top ten preachers in the
world. For each Sunday of the Christian year, Will provides just what
you need to begin the journey toward a sermon. This guide will stoke,
fund, and fuel your imagination while leaving plenty of room to insert
your own illustrations, make connections within your congregational
context, and speak the Word in your distinctive voice. Guidance from
Will Willimon is like sitting down with a trusted clergy friend and
asking, “What will you preach next Sunday?” Year A Part 1 is part of a
six-volume set that includes years A, B, and C (2 volumes per year) in
the Revised Common Lectionary. Part 1 includes the First Sunday in Advent through the Easter season.

Each week of sermon resources includes:

1. Readings
2. Theme title
3. Introduction to the Readings
4. Encountering the Text
5. Proclaiming the Text
6. Relating the Text

Will Willimon is widely acclaimed as one of the top ten preachers in the
world. In Preaching the Psalms, he provides just what
you need to begin the journey toward sermons based on the Psalms. This guide will stoke,
fund, and fuel your imagination while leaving plenty of room to insert
your own illustrations, make connections within your congregational
context, and speak the Word in your distinctive voice. Guidance from
Will Willimon is like sitting down with a trusted clergy friend and
asking, “What will you preach next Sunday?” Preaching the Psalms
is part of a seven-volume set that also includes lectionary-based
preaching resources for Years A, B, and C (2 volumes per year: Part 1
and Part 2) of the Revised Common Lectionary.

Sermon resources include:

1. Readings
2. Theme title
3. Introduction to the Readings
4. Encountering the Text
5. Proclaiming the Text
6. Relating the Text

Talk the talk and walk the walk.

The challenge of the Christian life is learning to talk Christian. Somebody has got to tell us, give us the words that open the door to the faith called Christian. Each of us is due the delight of discovery that in submitting to God’s talk to us.

God Turned Toward Us: The ABCs of Christian Faith is organized by the words the church teaches us to use to talk about ordinary life apprehended by a God who is Jesus Christ–short, meditative reflections upon key concepts that guide Christians, new or longstanding.

Praise for God Turned Towards Us

“Reading God Turned Towards Us is like walking through a diamond mine. The opening segment on “Abortion” is itself worth the price of the book! Consider these gems: On the Cross: “The cross is a mirror that reflects who we really are as well as a window where we are given a privileged look into the heart of who God is.” On Sanctification: “The Gospels depict the disciples on a continual road trip. They journey, not only step-by-step closer to Jerusalem but also day-by day closer to Christ, that is, sanctification.”
--Mike Lowry, Resident Bishop of the Central Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church

God Turned Toward Us: The ABCs of Christian Faith is no ordinary book about Christian beliefs and practices. Rather, it is a sometimes jarring, always interesting, consistently insightful, and persistently provocative invitation to “talk the talk and walk the walk” of Christian discipleship. Addressing topics from A (Abortion) to Z (Zaccheus), Bishop Willimon prods us to listen more attentively to the God who continues to speak amid the confusion and turmoil of our times. This is a valuable resource for individuals and groups who genuinely want to hear a word from the Lord.
--Kenneth Carder, Retired Bishop of The United Methodist Church

Take the best preacher you’ve ever heard; add in the teacher who first opened your eyes to the excitement and meaning of your favorite subject in school; combine these with that member of the family to whom you could always turn for the best advice; stir them all together, and you’ll get a flavor of the writing of Ellsworth Kalas. And now the very best thoughts and reflections of this wise teacher and guide are available together in one volume.

Across his career Ellsworth Kalas has worn many hats: pastor, professor, seminary president. Through all of them, however, he has remained first and foremost an interpreter of God’s Word. His most potent skill is to open up new insights and meanings in even the most familiar biblical stories. Gathered here are some Kalas’s most humorous, touching, and enlightening writings, drawn from his own experience of finding God in Scripture.

What does it mean to say that salvation is God’s business, and God’s alone?

“Who will be saved?” is almost always a question about them, and rarely about us. Thinking itself wrapped securely in the everlasting arms, the church has spent much of its history speculating on whether God will allow anyone else to join the party.

But if we truly believe that salvation is God’s business, and God’s alone, then perhaps we should stop asking, “Who will be saved?” and ask instead, “How is God calling me to participate in the redemption of the world?” Rejecting the idea that God chooses some and not others, drawing on his Wesleyan heritage, and deepening his longstanding theological conversation with Karl Barth, Willimon reflects as a pastor and a theologian on God's intention that all would someday return from the far country into the loving embrace of the One who created them.

Will Willimon is widely acclaimed as one of the top ten preachers in the world. For each Sunday of the Christian year, Will provides just what you need to begin the journey toward a sermon. This guide will stoke, fund, and fuel your imagination while leaving plenty of room to insert your own illustrations, make connections within your congregational context, and speak the Word in your distinctive voice. Guidance from Will Willimon is like sitting down with a trusted clergy friend and asking, “What will you preach next Sunday?” Year C Part 1 is part of a six-volume set that includes years A, B, and C (2 volumes per year) in the Revised Common Lectionary.

Each week of sermon resources includes:

1. Readings
2. Theme title
3. Introduction to the Readings
4. Encountering the Text
5. Proclaiming the Text
6. Relating the Text

In this no non-sense book, reliable spiritual guide, Will Willimon, invites readers to consider the gospel command to love (and not merely tolerate) those considered to be “Other” or outside mainstream Christian culture. Rooted in the faith of Israel and the Christian story and vision, Willimon brings a Wesleyan perspective to bear on what may be the hardest thing for people of faith to do: keeping and loving the "Other" as they are - without any need for them to become like us.

Emphasizing biblical teaching to receive Others for who they are and their differences as gifts and mysteries bearing the grace of God, Willimon also offers a strong critique of the privileged who all too often rush to speak of reconciliation and evade the injustice of huge inequalities faced by foreigners and strangers - as well as the antagonism the stranger experiences. He identifies concrete, everyday ways persons are formed in welcoming others without annihilating their differences.

Rooted in the New Testament understanding of Gentile outsiders grafted into the covenant community, Willimon invites readers to an on-the-ground faith that remembers the God who comes to us again and again through so-called outsiders, strangers, immigrants, and those without status. Beyond welcome, Christians must become “other” to the world, shaking off the dominant culture’s identity and privilege through practices of listening, humility, and understanding.

“I love Will Willimon, and I love this book. Will writes with prophetic sarcasm, a touch of humor, plenty of self-effacement, and a pastor’s heart. And his words will make you laugh, cringe, cry, confess, and repent. This is a very timely book. I urge you, prospective reader, as you read this blurb on the back cover: buy and read it! You’ll be grateful you did.” —Adam Hamilton, senior pastor, The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, KS; author of Half Truths

“This gutsy, biblically rich, theologically searing book by Willimon gigs everybody’s sacred cow. Not only is the one whom Christ loves Other but God is Other. The ground beneath us shakes the walls that divide us. If you are holed-up happy with people who look like you, don’t read this thing. It will screw up your world.” —Tex Sample, Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society, Saint Paul School of Theology, Leawood, KS

“Timely and prophetic, Willimon’s call to love the Other will quickly take hold of your soul, changing your preaching and your life. This book is not just a reminder of our Christian calling to welcome the Other but a call to conversion, a new way of seeing the neighbor and a new way of being in the world God desperately loves.” —Karoline M. Lewis, Marbury E. Anderson Chair of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN

“Bishop Willimon’s new book should come with a warning: Do not read unless you are ready to be changed and want to change the world!” —O. Wesley Allen Jr., Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

Now with a New Introduction!