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A student and interpreter of the homiletical work of Dr. Fred Craddock, Joseph
Webb has taught communication and preaching at various colleges,
universities and seminaries over the past 30 years, all the while preaching and
writing on church and pulpit-related issues.

Fr. Gregory Heille, head of the D.Min. program in preaching at the Aquinas
Institute of Theology in St. Louis, has called Dr. Webb "today's most
published theorist in postmodern preaching."

In addition to Preaching Without Notes, Dr. Webb's other books, which are
reviewed elsewhere in this web site, are Comedy and Preaching, Greek for
Preachers (with Robert Kysar), Preaching and the Challenge of Pluralism, and
Old Texts, New Sermons: The Quiet Revolution in Biblical Preaching. His
current project for Chalice Press, to be published in 2002, is on preaching
about the Jews, Judaism and the Hebrew Bible. He is also working on a new
project on hermeneutics for preachers with Robert Kysar, also under contract
to Chalice. It will be a companion book to Greek for Preachers.

Dr. Webb's essays and reviews on preaching, homiletics, and theology have
appeared in the Quarterly Review, in the book reviews of the Journal of Biblical
Literature, and in the Papers of the Academy of Homiletics, as well as in the
annual editions of The Minister's Manual, edited by James W. Cox. He is also
widely published in communications-related journals outside of homiletics and
theology.

Dr. Webb holds two doctorate degrees, one a Ph.D. in communications from
the University of Illinois (1973) and the other a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.)
degree from the Claremont School of Theology (1994). His undergraduate
degree was in ministry from Lincoln Christian College in Illinois in 1964; he
also studied preaching for two years under Prof. Craddock at the Candler
School of Theology, where he received the Master of Theological Studies
(MTS) degree in 1988.

His teaching career spans three decades and includes work and publication in
a wide range of communications and mass media related disciplines. He taught
for a number of years in the California State University system at Northridge,
San Bernardino, and, currently, at Fullerton. He was a full professor at
Pepperdine University from 1980 through 1986, before he left to enter the
seminary in Atlanta. Since 1989, his teaching has concentrated in preaching and
homiletics, first at Milligan College in Tennessee and from 1995 to 2000 at the
Claremont School of Theology and the Northwest House of Theological
Studies in Salem, Oregon.

From 1983 to 1986, Dr. Webb was the executive director of The Center for the
Study of Christian Communication, based in Malibu, California. More than 20
of his articles and essays on preaching and church leadership appeared
monthly throughout that time in the Center's journal, An Open Letter on
Christian Communication.

His part-time, weekend ministries over the years have been at the Broadwell
Christian Church in Illinois, Agoura Hills Christian Church in California, the
West Main Street Christian Church in Johnson City, Tennessee, the Dot
Christian Church in Virginia, First Christian Church (later Church of the
Chimes) in San Bernardino, California, and the Sharon Christian Church in
West Palm Beach, Florida. At two periods in his life, he served churches
full-time. The first, early in his life, was at the Creve Coeur Christian Church in
Creve Coeur, Illinois, and then, later in life, he ministered full-time to the First
Christian Church in Hemet, California.

Dr. Webb has been a guest lecturer and preacher throughout the country. In
2001, he was the S. Jameson Jones Jr. Visiting Preacher for the Week of
Lectures at the Iliff School of Theology. Most recently, he preached and
lectured at the Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, North Carolina. In
February of 2000, he was featured on the monthly tape series of the Walter
Scott Society. An audiotape of Dr. Webb's sermon, "The Woman Behind the
Lattice," which is published in Old Texts, New Sermons, was also featured in
that tape series.