Throughout history, preachers have used various models to understand the relationship between the preacher and the hearers of sermons. In recent years, homileticians have responded to the challenges of postmodernism by exploring the metaphor of conversation as a way to develop less hierarchical or authoritarian conceptions of role and authority. This dissertation moves the image of conversation beyond the metaphorical by using the linguistic methodology of conversational analysis to determine if preaching can accurately be described as a conversational genre. Having concluded that it is, this dissertation uses Herbert Paul Grice's cooperative principle and maxims of conversation to reveal some implications of the conversational model for the use of first-person pronouns (I and We) in the homiletic event. Ultimately, this dissertation identifies six kinds of we and four kinds of I that appear frequently in homiletic discourse and discusses the positive and negative implications of using each, along with the pragmatic tools that hearers use to identify which type is being used. Finally, the dissertation concludes with a summative discussion of the implications of accepting a conversational model on first-person pronoun use in the sermon. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]