Improving Preaching by Listening to Listeners ─ Sunday Service Preaching in the Malagasy Lutheran Church

Austnaberg (practical theology, School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway) explores how listeners to sermons in Sunday services of the Malagasy Lutheran Church in Madagascar evaluate what they hear and whether it is significant for their lives or not. As a missionary there from 1983 to 1994, he listened to many sermons in different churches, and taught--though not homiletics--for five years in two Malagasy seminaries. His topics include political instability during fieldwork, the significance of the preacher, Malagasy rhetoric and preaching, the listeners, and the public speech-tradition (kabary) in homiletics. Annotation Ac2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hans Austnaberg, Associate Professor of Practical Theology at the School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway, was formerly a seminary teacher in Madagascar and a pastor in Norway. He received his PhD in theology from this institution, writing on exorcism as practiced and understood by the so-called shepherds in the Malagasy Lutheran Church. He has published in academic journals on the revival movement in Madagascar and co-edited a book on preaching for youths in a Norwegian setting.