Preaching · Teaching · Speaking
Forty years
in the pulpit.
Still learning
from the room.
The invitation to preach or speak is never taken lightly. Every engagement begins with understanding your community, your season, and what the moment requires. What is brought to the room is the full weight of forty years of pastoral craft, study, and presence.
Ways of Engagement
Three distinct
forms of the work.
Each form asks something different of the room and requires different preparation. Every engagement, regardless of form, begins the same way: with a conversation about who will be in the room and what they need to receive.
Preaching
Forty years in the AME tradition. Rooted in the scriptures, shaped by a lifetime of accumulated study, and sustained by daily time in prayer. The preparation for any sermon is not primarily a matter of research. It is a matter of listening. Listening to God. Listening to God’s people. Striving to see the world from where God sees it, and then standing in the pulpit to say, as honestly as possible, what has been glimpsed. Prophetic preaching does not proceed in a vacuum. It requires knowing what is happening in the world, what the congregation is carrying, and what God’s heart is toward both. The goal is never a performance. It is a transmission of what prayer and preparation have revealed. Available for worship services, revivals, special occasions, and denominational gatherings.
Teaching
Workshops, retreats, Bible studies, and formation sessions for congregations, clergy groups, seminaries, and community organizations. The teaching tends to concentrate on the practices that sustain Christian life over time: prayer, discernment, daily discipline, leadership formation, and the quiet work of paying attention. The classroom is a place to learn from the people in it as much as to offer something to them.
Speaking
Keynotes, lectures, and panel presentations for conferences, academic gatherings, civic institutions, and organizational events. As a publisher, strategist, and public theologian with institutional authority in one of the oldest Black denominations in America, the speaking addresses questions that matter: Christian formation, the future of Black religious institutions, leadership, and the possibility of communities doing work that actually endures.
Topics
Areas of concentrated
thought and practice.
These are the subjects where the thinking runs deepest. Other topics are welcome if they serve the community well.
What to Expect
Preparation is
part of the work.
An invitation to speak is not treated as an appointment on a calendar. It is treated as a responsibility. Before any engagement, there is preparation: understanding the context, the congregation or audience, and the specific season they are in. Questions will be asked. The answers will shape what is brought.
The goal is never a polished performance. It is a word that serves the moment, that meets people where they actually are, and that leaves the room different from how it was found.
“The room always teaches you something. After forty years I still walk in listening.”
Planning Resources
Materials for
your event.
If you are preparing a program, bulletin, or announcement, the following materials are available for download.
Extend
the invitation.
Use the form to share a little about your gathering and what you are hoping for. Every inquiry is read personally. If there is a fit, a conversation will follow.