If someone asked you to fashion a great preacher, the product would probably not resemble Fred Craddock. Fred is not physically imposing, and he describes his voice as sounding like "the wind whistling through a splinter on a post." But Fred Craddock can preach. And he's equally at home delivering the Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale or preaching to a rural Appalachian congregation. Perhaps that's why God, not a human designer, is the one who calls and fashions preachers.

Craddock's formal education came from Johnson Bible College, Phillips University, and Vanderbilt, his informal education from Disciples of Christ pastorates in Tennessee and Oklahoma and a lifetime of thoughtful observation. Since 1979, he has served as professor of preaching and New Testament at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.

But Fred doesn't content himself with teaching about preaching; he preaches at least as often now as he did in the parish. It is his great love.

His ...