Some of the Words Are Theirs
The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon
By Austin Carty
Eerdmans, 144 pages, $22.99
For the last few years, the art and craft of preaching has been on the national stage. This resurgence is due in part to the Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative. As 100-plus ecclesiastical and ecumenical bodies received funds totaling over $90 million to strengthen the teaching and practice of preaching, the book market has seen an uptick as well. Most volumes on preaching cover one of three categories: the craft of sermon-writing, the theological raison d’être for preaching, or a compilation of sermons with notes scattered throughout.
Within this flourishing landscape, Austin Carty’s Some of the Words Are Theirs stands out as a literary and spiritual meditation on the life of preaching—a short volume that delivers both hard-won insight and pastoral encouragement.
Preaching is a deeply personal craft. Every preacher I know has a personal style, rituals, and routine. The only thing that will get you into trouble faster than telling clerics how to spend their money is telling them how to write and preach their sermons! As such, most preachers are reluctant and reticent to read a book on homiletics because they have it all figured out. The reality is that there are no perfect preachers. Thankfully, Carty’s volume is not a guide to make you preach like him. It is an invitation into an intentional discipline of praying, preparing, and preaching a sermon.
Rather than chasing novelty in an age obsessed with originality, Carty invites readers to see sermon-writing as a weekly act of meaning-making—a spiritual discipline that shapes both message and messenger. Drawing on years in the pulpit and a writer’s keen eye for language, he explores how the preacher’s words inevitably weave autobiography, theology, and grace. The result is part homiletic guide and part memoir, showing how faithful attention to the rhythm of sermon-writing can foster humility, self-knowledge, and openness to the surprising work of the Spirit.
With great skill, Carty uses a “tell and show” technique to demonstrate his points. In the introduction, he tells the reader precisely what he is about to do: how writing sermons is about both faith and form, that our words sometimes come back to us transfigured. He then unpacks his points by showing the reader through prose, note, and anecdote. The message is contained within the medium and the medium becomes the message.
Carty reminds us that the preacher steps into the pulpit with a community’s words. Formed by mentors and communities of faith, we speak with—and sometimes through—the voices that shaped us. The point here is not some “mystic sweet communion,” but the knowledge that every preacher was shaped and formed by the faith and fidelity of others. I can hear the formative work of the people and preachers closest to my heart when I’m in the pulpit: Rebecca, Ellis, Cynthia, Fleming, Rob, and others.
Carty’s book is neither exhaustive nor a mere introductory text. At times, the brevity of the volume leaves the reader wishing for a deeper dive into certain homiletic themes—but that restraint is part of its charm. In a field crowded with volumes and monographs, it cuts through the noise with the skill of a preacher and the heart of a pastor. It may not be the only book one should read on preaching, but it should be the first. After nearly 20 years of writing and preaching sermons, I found it refreshing, challenging, and inspiring.
The Rev. Porter Taylor, Ph.D., is rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in Augusta, Georgia. He is the editor of We Give Our Thanks Unto Thee (Pickwick, 2019) and The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Liturgical Theology (2024).
