Getting Heady for Sunday’s Sermon: A Practical Guide for Sermon Preparation. By Martin Thielen. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990. 160 pages. Paper, $6.95.  

Martin Thielen, the new editor of Proclaim magazine, offers practical help to pastors struggling to find enough sermon ideas and illustrations for three sermons a week. Thielen writes in the preface that the book is “simply one preacher’s method of getting ready for Sunday’s sermon, combined with sermon ideas, illustrations, outlines, sermon series possibilities, and other sermonic materials.” It is exactly that.  

Thielen organizes the book around the acrostic PREACH, saying preaching should be Planned, Relevant, Engaging, Authoritative, Comprehensive, and Human. He devotes a chapter to each quality.  

The chapter on planning is excellent and the chapters on being relevant and engaging are helpful. Many pastors will find the section on discovering illustrations especially practical. The chapter on authoritative preaching merely describes types of biblical sermons without discussing the nature of authority. Thielen’s suggestions about having a comprehensive approach to preaching are satisfactory, but one might add to his list the need to preach from all sections of Scripture. Describing sermon aims with more precise categories than simply “challenge” and “comfort” might also be an improvement. The chapter on humanity in preaching is brief but effective. 

In short, Thielen delivers the nuts and bolts of sermon preparation. Pastors needing sermon ideas and illustrations can find them here in abundance.