Preaching the Calendar:Â Celebrating Holidays and Holy Days

by J. Ellsworth Kalas

Pastors face a perennial challenge in deciding how to treat special days in the calendar. For days marked in the church year, the challenge is how to speak a fresh word about a familiar theme or story. For days marked in the civil calendar, the challenge is to discern within secular celebrations appropriate connections with the Christian gospel. In Preaching the Calendar , masterful preacher J. Ellsworth Kalas discusses the importance of embracing holidays and special days as occasions when sermons can enlarge and deepen spiritual yearnings. His words of wisdom demonstrate how this type of preaching can be done well and serve as valuable sources of stories and sermon illustrations for pastors eager to help people find new and renewed relationships with God.

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

J. Ellsworth Kalas has been part of the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary since 1993, after thirty-eight years as a United Methodist pastor and five years in evangelism with the World Methodist Council. He has been a presenter on DISCIPLE videos and is the author of more than thirty books, including the popular Back Side series as well as the Christian Believer study.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Kalas gives really good examples of how you might preach a Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Pentecost, or Trinity Day sermon. I come from a non-liturgical background, so this book helped me see the value in even highlighting some of these days in the Church calendar. Before each chapter, Dr. Kalas, explains the holiday and the significance for the Christian calendar, but also he gives advice on how (or how not) to preach them. His prose is very readable and down-to-earth. It really is like being back in his preaching classes.