Clips and Quips for Midnight Oil Sermons: And Last-Minute Sunday School Lessons Book

Writing sermons and preparing Sunday school lessons can be a very frustrating experience when you just can't seem to find the appropriate words, images, and expressions to add zest to an otherwise humdrum presentation. Douglas Bailey's collection of "verbal clip art" -- metaphors, figures of speech, visual images, and other word gimmicks -- is sure to liven up any discussion. Organized in an outline format (making it easy to locate material suited for various topics and themes), Clips And Quips is a veritable "toolchest" of items guaranteed to jumpstart the imagination and stimulate creative writing.

This is a helpful resource to enable people who seek to communicate the Christian gospel to do so with freshness and vitality. Bailey uses specific images and metaphors -- from plainclothes people to runaway trucks to bucket brigades -- to make vivid the nature and power of God in ordinary human experience.

Harry B. Adams

Professor of Pastoral Theology

Yale Divinity School

Clips And Quips For Midnight Oil Sermons And Last-Minute Sunday School Lessons challenges preachers and teachers to reach for faith language that is grounded in the timeless message of God's love but is as timely as Monday morning's newspaper. This resource is a catalyst, not a crutch. It evokes word power by showing how biblical metaphor leaps from narrative history to our biography and alerts us to scripture's connection with our lives today. Doug Bailey offers us a simple entrance to a grand theater of wordcraft that demonstrates how God's truth can set us free.

Thomas E. Dipko

Executive Vice President

United Church Board for Homeland Ministries

If you thrill to the turn of a well-crafted phrase, become excited over the use of fresh metaphors, and are engaged by open, imaginative use of language in exploration of the mystery of God, you will want to read Clips And Quips For Midnight Oil Sermons And Last-Minute Sunday School Lessons. Dr. Bailey offers the spiritual community a unique language resource that may be utilized not only in the development and writing of sermons, but also in a variety of ways to create education and communication materials. As "clip art for the soul," the word pictures in this book spark the reader's imagination far beyond the written page.

Sandra Goode Bricker

Executive Director and Campus Minister, United Christian Center

Ohio State University

An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, Douglas B. Bailey is a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A.), Yale Divinity School (B.D., S.T.M.), and the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.). In addition to serving pastorates in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin, Bailey spent over 20 years in administration for Franklin County Children's Services in Columbus, Ohio. Bailey contributed to the 1998 Daily Book of Prayer published by United Church Press, and continues to serve as a supply pastor for vacationing clergy.