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Through all but a few years of his 40-year teaching career,
Joseph Webb has served part-time ministries at the same time.
On a regular weekly basis he has preached hundreds of
sermons. He is a former professor of homiletics at the
Claremont School of Theology in California. In addition, Dr.
Webb has written a number of books on homiletics and
communication theory. Fr. Gregory Heille, academic dean of
the Aquinas Institute of Theology, has called him "today's most
published theorist of postmodern preaching."

Dr. Webb's book, Preaching Without Notes, has become a
best-seller in seminaries, universities, and among clergy all over
the world. On this web site, in addition to other materials from
Dr. Webb's life and ministry, that book is brought to life with an
annotated collection of the author's sermons, all preached
without notes, just as you hear them in audio form here.

Joseph Webb received his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in
communication from the University of Illinois, the Master of
Theological Studies (MTS) degree from the Candler School of
Theology, and the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) degree from the
Claremont School of Theology.

The new contemporary or emergent worship services require a new orientation to preaching, and this
is the first book that directly and creatively addresses that. Connecting to Webb's earlier books
Comedy and Preaching and Preaching Without Notes, this one presents preaching as improvisation.

Explores how different theories and methods of biblical interpretation can be used to create
different kinds of sermons. Like Greek for Preachers, this is a handbook for clergy who want
basic help in interpretational processes, including the most up-to-date postmodern processes.

A concise, easy-to-use manual on how to use the Greek-English Interlinear New Testament for
textual study in the preparation of sermons. This is an indispensable book for those who desire to use
Greek in study but who never took it in seminary, or who took it but vowed never to touch it again.

Every author hopes for at least one book that seems to strike a nerve among readers. This one has
done that, as its remarkable sales among clergy and in seminary classrooms indicate. James Cox has
written that he wished every ministerial student and every minister would read and heed this book.

Based on the humor developed in the sermons of Fred Craddock, with whom the author studied for
two years at Candler. It includes a detailed analysis of Craddock's sermon, "When the Roll Is
Called Down Here." Paul Scott Wilson called this "the best book in recent years on storytelling."

In his book, The Divine Deli, John Berthold of Boston School of Theology described this as a "brilliant
exposition of the use of symbols in response to the new religious pluralism of the modern world. Really
shows how we can actually preach the gospel in such a situation with honesty, piety, and integrity."

One of the most important but least understood homiletical revolutions is in language theory, the
subject here; Susan Bond has described this book as "the first truly postmodern homiletic theory" and
John McClure has said its discussion of "analogies" should be "on every preacher's bookshelf."

This was one of the first textbooks about what was called in the 1960s and 70s "new journalism." It
was personal journalism. It was about "telling one's own story," championed by Norman Mailer,
Tom Wolfe and others. For Webb it became the basis for "telling one's own stories" in preaching.

Dr. Joseph Webb is 2009 President of the Academy of Homiletics, which
will meet in Washington D.C. in early December 2009. As the Academy's
president-elect this year, Webb preached the organization's annual
Saturday sermon at this year's meeting on November 22, 2008, in Boston.

Contact him at jwebb009@carolina.rr.com or by cell phone at 704-466-1543.

This is a series of published lectures on symbolic and communicative theory, lectures that appear in
greatoy expanded form as the first half of Preaching and the Challenge of Pluralism. Webb's original
theoretical concept of the "hub symbol" was the basis for an award winning book by Andrew Wisdom.

"Joseph Webb is an energizing and provocative preacher whose sermons bring
together a lifetime of reflecting on the Bible, our changing situation and
significant theological questions. The content is always provocative, and the
sermons are delivered with immediacy and vitality. He has a gift for helping us
see familar passages and themes in new ways. . . He names contemporary
questions about Christian faith with crispness and compassion. He looks the
toughest issues in the eye and does not flinch. And he does so with a heart of
steadfast love for God, the church, and the world."

"Webb is a spell-binding preacher whose sermons make us look at ourselves
and the world in unexpected ways. . . His books address themes as timely as
preaching in a pluralistic context and as practical as how to preach without
notes."