Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots

Editorial Reviews. Review. "For two generations, Fred Craddock has been the single most Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots Kindle Edition. by Dr. Fred Craddock (Author).
Table of contents

Healing the Heartbreak of Grief. What Women Wish Pastors Knew. One-Liner Wisdom for Today's Guys. Jesus' Parables of the Lost and Found. Nickels for the Plate. A Moment with God for Grandparents. Love as a Way of Life. Homosexuality and the Christian.

Preaching Through the Year of Matthew. Pressing into Thin Places. Our Love Is Here to Stay. Teaching Children How to Pray eBook. The Four Pages of the Sermon. Parables from the Back Side Vol.

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You can remove the unavailable item s now or we'll automatically remove it at Checkout. Continue shopping Checkout Continue shopping. Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots is Fred Craddock's autobiographical consideration of his calling to be a preacher. The book bears all the marks of a classic Craddock sermon: I have come to love Christian biography and autobiography more and more, and Craddock's ranks up there with the best of them. Craddock is a preacher's preacher, a masterful homiletician and teacher whose insights never fail to challenge and edify the reader.

He is also an amazing story-teller. So when I saw that he had published this memoir in I knew that, eventually, I'd spend some profitable time with it. The story is precisely what it purports to be: It is dominated largely by Craddock's life as a boy. Having been called myself at the age of fifteen, I am always intrigued to hear others' stories of their own callings.

A call is as unique as the person being called. This is vividly portrayed in ways moving and touching by Craddock. I was particularly touched by the dynamic of his parents: Unlike some sons' takes on their less-than-perfect fathers see Frank Schaeffer , Craddock's depiction is charitable but honest without spilling into thinly-veiled vitriol. In fact, the story of his father pulling one of his own molars with pliers in order to pry out the gold filling to sell for Christmas presents for his children will remain in my mind as a powerful example of fatherly love even as the stories of his alcoholism has reminded me again that the decisions we fathers make will affect our children all their lives.

I was also struck by Craddock's revelation of his own perilous infancy and his mother's offer of him to God should he survive not least of all because I haved a similar story in my own calling. Craddock tells his story with sympathy, introspection, humility, and a sense of reserve, but also transparency.

I can tell it was difficult for him to write. I was moved by his account of the awkwardness of sitting with his elderly brothers trying to approach issues that haunted them into later life.

Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots - Fred B Craddock - Google Книги

I also appreciated his self-awareness in admitting that memories are tricky things and notoriously difficult to offer with exact certainty. This book offers a moving account of one young man's growth in a world of racial strife, social complexity, and poverty.

The stories of the Craddock's relationships with black friends and some of the tragic dynamics that living in a racially divided South introduced into their lives were painful reminders of our own scandalous, recent past as a nation. Above all else, it is a story of divine calling.

It is told without pretension or romantic mysticism.

It is, instead, the cautious but sincere retelling of one man's self-understanding of his own pilgrimage. This is really a fantastic book. If you know Fred Craddock's work, you'll be delighted and moved by this short new memoir of his growing up in the small town South. His voice and his keen eye for detail are as strong as ever. Key moments include his delivery by midwife, suffering from diptheria as a baby, moving from the country into "town" as a small boy, memories of his parents and siblings, etc.

Like the best Southern writing, it is deeply shaped by the power of memory and of finding one's voice without being merely nostalgic or sentimental. It's no exaggeration to compare Craddock's memoir to writing by Willie Morris, T.

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Pearson, or Eudora Welty. Even people who are not "church" people, or who don't know Fred Craddock's other work will enjoy the book. Of course, it's also very much a story of the direct and indirect early influences on his voice as a preacher, and many of the book's readers will likely be part of a church audience. They will also enjoy it. Craddock's theology is subtle and inviting. He talks about the God we glimpse in brief moments, and during common if powerful circumstances, and he is quick to observe that God's hand in events is often unclear until much later in life.

This is why memoir is, in his hands, also a kind of proclamation. It's also why "connecting the dots" is an apt theological description and not just a folksy expression. If you're a religious person, you can't help but begin to think about your life and God's hand in it -- about your own early influences, positive and negative -- as you see him grapple with the legacy of his own.

That it is a "grappling" is clear and is part of what gives the book its power and integrity.


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It's a quick read, left me thinking, and I put it down hoping that the story will continue in a new volume sometime soon. Other readers will be able to say if it's appropriate for book groups or spiritual growth groups. I think it could be if the group is well-established and is willing to tease out the ideas, but not every group is at that point. But the bottom line: See all 12 reviews. Most recent customer reviews.

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