Synopses & Reviews
Do you hear God speak? Can you put what you hear into words? Not only listening to God but also speaking of God is crucial if our vital experiences with the divine are to be remembered and shared, yet few people find this easy. In this sequel to
The God Who Speaks, Ben Campbell Johnson offers guidance for the difficult task of putting into human words the divine speech that we discern.
While most books on witnessing focus on the Bible or conversion stories, GodSpeech will help readers articulate the presence of God that they discover from ordinary daily experiences. To illustrate how others have related such experiences with God, Johnson turns to the vital encounters reported by Andrae Crouch, John Wesley, Parker Palmer, and Frederick Buechner. He draws on the field of linguistics to suggest how we can acquire a vocabulary — both verbal and non-verbal — to express our intimations of God.
Making his advice concrete, Johnson concludes by vulnerably sharing his own humble attempts to listen to God.
Table of Contents
Introduction -- Can you put it into words? -- Interpreting GodSpeech: an essential but elusive task -- What makes GodSpeech possible? -- Significant aspects of GodSpeech -- Mentoring in GodSpeech -- Putting it into words: testimony -- GodSpeech in cultural modes -- GodSpeech in everyday life -- Listening to God: translations of GodSpeech.