Lucy Berry is a writer, performance poet and United Reformed Church minister. Stephen Tomkins talked to her following the publication of her book Being a Preacher: Reflections and practical advice on speaking to be heard

How did you come to write a book about preaching?
I suddenly realised we had had no training for preaching. The first time I preached was in order to become a minister. There are people who take a very different avenue into preaching, but I hadn’t been a lay preacher. Over the last 16-17 years, I’ve been thinking: Nobody ever gave us preaching training. There is training now, particularly for lay preachers, but I’m not aware to what extent ministers are trained to preach. Luckily, I had a bit of experience of public speaking because I’d been in advertising and I’d had to pitch and persuade. I had to think through: What’s the difference between persuading and preaching, if there is one? But nobody ever told me about all the things that surround preaching which are not the sermon, which is what this book is about…

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This is an extract from an article published in the June 2024 edition of Reform

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