Preaching to People in Pain

"Our congregations need not only truthful exegesis and engaging preaching but also emotional discipleship. Each week, the people in our pews carry with them loss, grief, and suffering, and they long for a way to meet God in the midst of their struggles. When sermons focus only on the victory of the Christian life, this makes walking the way of Jesus more difficult for those who are in pain. Kim helps those of us who preach to address various types of suffering with wisdom, compassion, and the hope of Christ. He helps us take up the holy responsibility of proclaiming that every part of our lives--including our sorrow and pain--is something that we address as a church and is, more importantly, a place to encounter God."

"Matthew Kim is a battle-scarred, veteran pastor familiar with suffering and a master teacher of preaching. His perceptive, poignant book will pluck up your courage and inspire you to preach powerful sermons that birth hope in the lives of people who suffer."

"Matthew D. Kim, an experienced pastor, preacher, and teacher of preaching, has written an insightful and beautifully instructive book on preaching to people who experience pain--on all sorts of levels. Kim deftly demonstrates the preacher's responsibility to understand his or her own personal pain and the pain of his or her listeners. As a result, the preacher is enabled to empathize with them and out of her own pain preach the hope of the Scriptures to them. Preaching to People in Pain is an important contribution to pastoral ministry, to preaching, and to the field of homiletics. Kim is to be commended for addressing this tender and fragile but often overlooked aspect of the preaching task."

"Preaching to People in Pain could also be called Preaching to Humans. In a culture which makes us believe something is wrong with us when we experience suffering, preachers have a choice: to provide shallow promises or to trust in the truth of our story--that resurrection only comes after death. With wisdom and courage Matthew Kim invites preachers to name their own pain for the sake of their own health and the health of their congregations. We're presented with the hopeful possibility that together we have the capacity for the challenges of life and that as we face them, we find the truth of our story in solidarity with our suffering (and resurrected) Lord."

"Frederick Buechner famously wrote that the preacher should not be like the captain of a ship 'who is the only one aboard who . . . does not know that the waves are twenty feet high.' Preaching to pain clearly indicates that we understand that there are waves. Confessing our own pain as part of that process indicates that we have had to navigate the waves too. Matthew Kim addresses the waves and rides them with his readers to teach us all how to navigate life's storms by the light of our Savior's heart."