Election is a strange word when used in theology. It

brings to mind old debates about what God might or might not have done before the

foundation of the world. But viewed apart from that historical baggage, the word

election is about a central gospel idea: that in Jesus not only

does God choose to be God for us but chooses us to be for God.

The calling of the disciples in the gospels is a story of election, of how God

chooses to transform the world by choosing us to be messengers and agents of that

transformation.

So it is, says William Willimon, that election

becomes not just the content of our preaching but the means as well. God chooses

preachers. How unlikelyhow oddis it that God should entrust

the proclamation of the gospel to, well, us? This unpredictable, electing God

reaches out to save the world and then leaves it in the hands of preachers to get

the word out? Through us, through our stammering tongues and faltering hearts, the

preached word becomes the Word of God. If you wonder why you drag yourself into the

pulpit every Sunday, if you worry that your sermons aren’t reaching past the front

pew, then read this book and be encouraged. God chooses; God chooses preachers; God

chooses you.