Matthew D. Kim - Preaching with Cultural Intelligence: Understanding the People Who Hear Our Sermons

I want to acknowledge many individuals who have helped to make this book a reality. First, many thanks to the Trustees, President Dennis Hollinger, Vice President for Academic Affairs Richard Lints, and my colleagues in the Division of Practical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for generously providing the resources and space during the fall of 2015 to engage in sabbatical research. In particular, thanks to Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Patricia M. Batten, and Scott M. Gibson, my colleagues in the preaching department, for carrying my teaching load and tending to other responsibilities in the Haddon W. Robinson Center for Preaching in my absence. Jeff and Scott, Im grateful for your constructive input on the Homiletical Template at its early stages. Thank you very much, Scott, for reading the entire manuscript and for fine-tuning it.

President Paul Nyquist, Winfred Neely, John Koessler, and the entire pastoral studies department at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, thank you so much for the honor of inviting me to give your Homiletical Lectureship on Preaching with Cultural Intelligence in October 2015. Your warm hospitality and acknowledgment of my work will not be soon forgotten.

Several Byington scholars, Gordon-Conwells term for research assistants, developed a bibliography for cultural intelligence: Daniel Walsh, Tiffany Miller, Joshua Cahan, and Kyle Sandison. I cannot thank you enough for your labor and partnership.

Thanks to the MDiv and ThM students who have taken my elective, Cultural Exegesis for Preaching, as well as the Preaching to Culture and Cultures DMin cohort for serving as my guinea pigs to test and challenge the ideas in this book.

Friends and colleagues in ministry, Casey C. Barton and Jared E. Alcntara, graciously read a chapter of the book and offered their instrumental feedback. Thank you, Casey and Jared, for imparting your cultural intelligence to me.

The Kern Family Foundation provided a generous faculty grant during the spring semester of 2015 to explore the intersections of hermeneutics, preaching, faith, location, and work. Many thanks to my surveyed pastors for their honest, insightful, and thorough reflections on preaching in urban, suburban, and rural contexts.

Countless thanks are due to Robert Hosack, Eric Salo, and the entire staff at Baker Academic for seeing the merits of this project and for their tireless attention to details from start to finish in the publication process. Thanks for your patience and grace during my various trials in the course of writing this book.

I am tremendously blessed to have married into the Oh family. Much gratitude is due to my in-laws, Chung Hyun and Jung Sook Oh, whose benevolence and acts of love can never be remunerated. To my wonderful brother-in-law, Yung Oh, and sister-in-law, Suzanne Kim, who show amazing love and support to our family, your overflowing kindnesses remain deeply embedded in my heart.