Taylor, Barbara Brown Books

Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

By now I expected to be a seasoned parish minister, wearing black clergy shirts grown gray from frequent washing. I expected to love the children who hung on my legs after Sunday morning services until they grew up and had children of their own. I even expected to be buried wearing the same red vestments in which I was ordained.

Today those vestments are hanging in the sacristy of an Anglican church in Kenya, my church pension is frozen, and I am as likely to spend Sunday mornings with friendly Quakers, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists as I am with the Episcopalians who remain my closest kin. Some-times I even keep the Sabbath with a cup of steaming Assam tea on my front porch, watching towhees vie for the highest perch in the poplar tree while God watches me. These days I earn my living teaching school, not leading worship, and while I still dream of opening a small restaurant in Clarkesville or volunteering at an eye clinic in Nepal, there is no guarantee that I will not run off with the circus before I am through. This is not the life I planned, or the life I recommend to others. But it is the life that has turned out to be mine, and the central revelation in it for me -- that the call to serve God is first and last the call to be fully human -- seems important enough to witness to on paper. This book is my attempt to do that.

After nine years serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta, Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia (population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life to country dweller is something of a shock -- Taylor is one of the only professional women in the community -- but small-town life offers many of its own unique joys. Taylor has five successful years that see significant growth in the church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep her faith she may have to leave.

Taylor describes a rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that life is about both disappointment and hope -- and ultimately, renewal.

Preaching Life

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Preaching life has gifts for clergy and laypeople 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Barbara Brown Taylor offers a book here that is a wonderful and moving read. The book takes the form of two parts, each of which offers insight and spiritual direction to aspiring clergy, clergy, and laypeople alike. The first half of the book is a journey through the growth of the author's faith. She speaks of her quest for God that developed from childhood that led to a variety of churches and experiences through adolescence and young adulthood. This journey demonstrates the struggle we all have to come to know God, and the imperfect path which we all travel in order to arrive at a relationship with God. In the process, though, she illustrates tools and elements of the journey which are important to all the faithful. This "everyperson" quality of the book shows the average reader that a preacher is as human as those who sit in the pews on a Sunday morning. For the professional or those interested in preaching, it gives insight to the necessities involved in preparing a sermon on Sunday mornings, and the importance of our own faith stories in preparing us to live as preachers. The second half of the book is a collection of sermons from the author. These also have purpose that can offer spiritual direction to readers no matter if they are in the pews or in the pulpit. For the people in the pews, they are an excellent source of understanding the scriptures that they are written on. The author often acknowledges the difficulty in relating to the words of the Bible in these sermons, but the plain-spoken way in which they are offered give them the ability to bring those words alive for the modern audience. For the ones in the pulpit, it demonstrates a style of preaching that can be most effective in presenting the word of God to a wide variety of people at very different stops on the type of journey she details in the first half of the book. I would encourage anyone who is on their own spiritual journey to read this book, and especially those who are preparing to or filling a pulpit in a church. The vision of faith from both sides of the preaching equation is of great benefit to all.

Editorial Review:

In her bestselling preaching autobiography, Barbara Brown Taylor writes of how she came to be a preacher of the gospel as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Home By Another Way

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Seldom Do I Choose Sermons about Lectionary Year 5 out of 5 stars.
29 of 36 people found this review helpful.

Not long ago I confessed to a dear friend. I reminded Milly that I review some sermon books without reading every sermon! After she had gasped, uttering words of disbelief, I explained that few books of even short sermons contain equally good sermons. On first hearing Barbara Brown, attending the Lectionary Homiletics Conference I remember how I was stirred emotionally, mentally, and spiritually with her dramatic imagination. I was seized by her creative images from the stories in whatever passage of scripture she had chosen.

On hearing her lectures about Job, I definitely looked forward to reading "Home By Another Way." Here I found one earlier excerpts, entitled, "Out of the Whirlwind." This is one of a few sermons in which she quotes from two sources, in those early lectures. I was impressed by friend, John Claypool's tributes to her "rare constellation of gifts: intellectual carefulness and depth," all coupled with an artistic sense of image-making. That alone speaks volumes!

With my usual skipping over a few sermons, I was most attracted to: "God's Beloved Thief, Home by Another Way, God's Ferris Wheel, Lenten Disciples, A Tale of Two Heretics, Life Giving Fear(from time in CPE) "It Is Finished, Out of Whirlwind, Bothering God." Most were notable for looking up-close at her perspective with intimate viewpoints by using tough disclaimers! They often appeared in beginings, mid-way or near her ending. There is one unique hitch in her re-telling the basic story: she often adds a touch of creative imagination to develop the problem with clever resolution relating to basic forgivness of weakness, judgement, or justice,

Placed within all ten books, I designate this one in being near the top of her Lectures and Sermons. From a semi-retired admirer and retired Chaplain, Fred W Hood

Editorial Review:

In this selection of new sermons, Barbara Brown Taylor walks us through the church year, from the expectancy of Advent to the fires of Pentecost and beyond.

The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Taylor is an outstanding writer 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I purchased the book to be used in an adult church education class. The volume is a collection of sermons based on the Gospel of Matthew. They are scholarly, yet easy to read. Taylor provides some fresh interpretation to this beloved old gospel. Her ideas make for lively in-class discussion. I recommend her work very highly.

The Seeds of Heaven, Sermons of the Gospel of Matthew 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Barbara Brown Taylor shares her sermons and insight on the typical gospel of Matthew but add so much more. This book is so impressive we have incorporated it into our Lenten program for this year. Thanks Barbara for this wonderful collection.

Editorial Review:

This wonderful collection of sermons by renowned preacher, author, and speaker Barbara Brown Taylor is based on the Gospel of Matthew. Each of the fifteen sermons, three of them appearing here for the first time in print, is based on a reading from Matthew, including Exceeding Righteousness (Matthew 5:17-20), The Problem with Miracles (14:13-21), Family Fights (18:15-20), Once More from the Heart (18:21-35), Beginning at the End (20:1-16), and On the Clouds of Heaven (24:29-44).

Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Profoundly rewarding reading. 5 out of 5 stars.
66 of 68 people found this review helpful.

In The Luminous Web, Barbara Taylor describes her own journey as an Episcopal priest (holding the Harry R. Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia) trying to learn what the insights of quantum physics, the new biology, and chaos theory can teach the Christian believer. In explaining why the church should care about the new discovers and insights into the physical world that modern science has to offer, Taylor suggest ways that Christians might close the gap between spirit and matter, between the secular and the sacred. The Luminous Web is profoundly rewarding reading.

About as enlightening as a black hole... 1 out of 5 stars.
22 of 70 people found this review helpful.

Looking to further your faith? Do NOT read this book! Looking to further your understanding of string theory, quantum physics or chaos theory? Do NOT read this book! As a Christian with an avid interest in the great science of the past century, this book was trite and terribly unrewarding - either scientifically or spiritually. I think she could have saved a lot of words and just wrote: "Gee, I don't understand it, but isn't it neat?" This book will not reward you with strong arguments to further your conviction that there is a God. And, it oversimplifies the body of science it discusses to the point of inaccuracy. If you're searching for "proof" of God, you'd be far better off to read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, for a philosophical perspective. If you want "proof" scientifically, you're better off with Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," in which the quest to find a unifying theory is clearly explained - and allows you to marvel at the intricate and elegant design of our physical world. At that point, it truly is a leap of faith: you either believe God has to be the designer who came up with the "theory of everything" in the first place, or you choose to believe that there is a random or singular physical cause that triggered the creation of the universe. Neither can be proven, so faith and science do meet after all.

Editorial Review:

An introduction to the contemporary debate between science and religion. The author describes her journey as a preacher who is trying to learn what the insights of quantum physics, the new biology, and chaos theory can teach the believer.

Bread of Angels

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Bread of Angels Will Feed Your Soul 5 out of 5 stars.
51 of 51 people found this review helpful.

You won't believe this, but this collection of sermons is a real page turner. I started it with a plan to read one essay a day for my devotional. Instead, I quit reading the fine fiction book I was halfway through and devoured Bread of Angels, reading long past my bedtime every night. The sermons are funny and touching, challenging yet encouraging. I'm now looking at old Bible stories in a new way, finding deeper meaning and real help for life. I'm going to buy copies to give to family and friends. Pick up a copy of Bread of Angels. It will feed your soul in ways you never expected.

Feed Your Soul with This Book 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 27 people found this review helpful.

It used to be, not so very long ago, that ordinary people read sermons the way they now read novels-in their spare time, for both edification and enjoyment. If this idea seems strange to you, then chances are you have not read anything written by Barbara Brown Taylor.

Taylor is an Episcopal Priest and the rector of Grace-Calvary Church in Clarksville, Georgia. Taylor University has also named her one of the ten top preachers in the English language. That having been said, you will also want to know that she is in great demand as a speaker.

Dr. Taylor is a preacher of uncommon skill, but we must not stop there. Her fresh images and stimulating ideas are so engaging that this book really can work as a personal devotional tool. It would serve equally well as a neighborhood or small group study, or something to read with one dear friend or family member and then talk about in detail over a pot of tea or by a crackling fire. For, just as you "think between the lines" during the course of a sermon, so too, in Taylor's book, you have the perfect chance to allow your own Christian experience to engage with the truths Taylor presents.

If the names of each chapter, such as, "The Trickle Up Effect," "How Not to Hinder God" and "Why the Boss Said No" begin to peak your interest, they should! Taylor has a style that is accessible; she speaks to the modern mind and heart.

Consider this passage, from the book's title sermon: "Jesus is God's manna in the wilderness, the one who reminds us day by day that we life because God provides not what we want, necessarily, but exactly what we need: some bread, some love, some breath, some wine, a relationship with this ordinary looking man, who comes from heaven to bring life to the world." (Page 11).

I suggest reading one chapter a week, reading that chapter several times in the week, and living with the insights presented there, as a spiritual discipline. Taylor's bread of angels will prove to be an excellent guide in your devotional life.

If you find this review helpful you might want to read some of my other reviews, including those on subjects ranging from biography to architecture, as well as religion and fiction.

Editorial Review:

Barbara Brown Taylor's meditations on the life of faith and her rueful accounts of the cost of discipleship offer fresh perspectives on the familiear stories of Scripture and the sometimes perplexing sayings of Jesus.

When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures, 1997.)

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Dilemma of God's Silence 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

In this book of lectures delivered at Yale Divinity School, Taylor states that the task of a preacher is not to give answers or advice but to "usher people into the presence of God who may or may not answer." She states if we have a God who always speaks, who's never absent or silent, perhaps we are worshipping or speaking to an imaginary God. "Only an idol always answers," she writes.

Taylor urges preachers not to cover for God's silence with numerous words but rather to employ a language that uses economy, courtesy, and reverence. "In a word-clogged world," she writes, "the only words that stand a chance of getting people's attention are simple, honest words that come from everyday life."

Taylor is unafraid to plunge into the mystery and dilemma of God's silence. Her reflections offer insight and guidance, not only to preachers but also to anyone who has struggled with unanswered prayer and the absence of a speaking God.

Editorial Review:

In these 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching delivered at Yale Divinity School, the author focuses on the task of those who preach and those who hear sermons in a world where people thirst for a word from God.

Gospel Medicine

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good Medicine 5 out of 5 stars.
51 of 52 people found this review helpful.

Collections of sermons often are wooden and without the life they may enjoy as part of the liturgy. However, Barbara Brown Taylor's GOSPEL MEDICINE is a group of readable meditations that seem to come to life in front of you. Examples from everyday life never seem trite or forced and even when one thinks there's nothing new to be said about a Scripture passage, she presents a new twist, often one that can be immediately incorporated into daily living. Her language is always alive and present, very fresh without being cloying. A refreshing change from so many contemporary mediations on scripture texts.

Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is a great book. I read a new sermon from the book each day before going to work. They were fresh and insightful. It really added a lot to my personal devotion time. I highly recommend it. I will definitely be purchasing similar books by Barbara Brown Taylor.

Editorial Review:

In this new collection of sermons she summons with piercing clarity and wit the Old and New Testament stories that have the power to mend our spirits, strengthen our weaknesses, and restore us to wholeness.

God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering (Teaching Sermon Series)

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Provocative like all BBT sermons, but not always consistent 4 out of 5 stars.
47 of 47 people found this review helpful.

She goes where few preachers or theologians dare, and never, ever leaves the reader without plenty to think about. Of all her books, this one is the least satisfying in some ways because of what seem to me to be some inconsistencies on key points. Maybe that's to be expected given the subject matter. What she succeeds beautifully in doing is revealing how shallow and inadequate most Christian thinking is on the subject of the passion and death of Jesus. No pat answers from BBT, ever. Good for her, and good for those who read her and are prompted to go deeper into what Good Friday means.

Excellent teaching model for divinity students! 3 out of 5 stars.
35 of 37 people found this review helpful.

I was so enthralled with the sermons written by this female minister, that I could not put the book down! I read 70 pages the first sitting, when I had intended to read only the first two sermons. This is a collection of sermons that is divided into two major categories: the first deals with the problems of pain, tribulations and suffering while we are yet alive and struggling with our spiritual journeys, the second is dealing with the pain of loss by relating it to God's pain in allowing His Only Son to choose to die for us. For anyone who wishes to learn how to make every word count, this is an excellent resource. Human suffering is often one of the hardest issues to address with congregations. This resource can definitely start you on the right foot.

Mixed Blessings

Barbara Brown Taylor

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Poet--Preacher--Teacher Par Excellence 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 30 people found this review helpful.

What would it be like...to hear Barbara Brown Taylor preaching her first sermons at All Saints Episcopal Church in downtown Atlanta? To be able to hear and see these simple yet profound illuminations of Gospel stories and parables? How often in reading her sermons, do I see and hear in my imagination the first time I heard her in the Lectionary Homiletics Preaching conference of 1995? More than a few times! Here are a few of them in "Mixed Blessings."

She is the epitome of one who can spin a new parable out of her rich creative imagination. She proves one of the demands of a good sermon coming from the overflow of days of prepararion. One of Thomas Long prescriptions of a good sermon - "the exegesis of the Text determines everything about the sermon!"

We approach our choice of Text, Parable, Translation, Outline, Flow, Income, Outcome to draw the listener into the Sermon. Professor Taylor does all of this from her shortest sermon, "The Familiar Stranger" to the longest, "After Words" taking us from Romans 8 to the roof-top of an ancient mansion, "at the end of my rope I prayed and sang to God 'point me to what You would have me do.'" It was her Calling! - All of them are WOW!

Editorial Review:

In this collection of early sermons, Barbara Brown Taylor brings her down-to-earth wisdom and keen perspective to the Bible readings of the lectionary cycle.