Participants in the next “Equipping Preachers” workshop will explore “Preaching Jokes to Power” in a conversation about the similarities between preaching and stand-up comedy.

The free online program from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 4, 2022, will be facilitated by the Rev. Dr. Jake Myers, associate professor of homiletics at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Click here for more details about the workshop exploring two arts forms that transpire with a lone speaker addressing a more or less attuned audience on some matter of sociopolitical significance. Click here to register.

The workshop is part of a monthly series about preaching coordinated by the Synod of the Covenant as it pursues the Matthew 25 goal of supporting congregational vitality.

In June, workshop participants will explore the idea of “O Say Can You See: Images and Illustration in a Virtually Saturated World” with guidance from the Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown, the fourteenth historiographer of the African Methodist Episcopal.

The online program from 10 to 11:30 a.m.  on June 1, 2022 will provide tools for “earthing” the sermon through employing the preacher’s imagination, attention, language, context, literature and technology. Click here for program details and here to register.

Recordings of previous workshops are available here on all the topics that have been covered previous, including:

  • “Preaching in Polarized Times” with the Rev. Dr. Angela Dienhart Hancock of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Click here for a summary article.
  • Stretching into Prophetic Preaching” with the Rev. Dr. Charles “Chip” Hardwick, interim executive of the Synod of the Covenant. Click here for a summary article.
  • “Getting Helpful Listener Feedback” with the Rev. Dr. Charles “Chip” Hardwick. Click here for a summary article.
  • “Performing the Word . . . Online” facilitated by the Rev. Dr. Jana L. Childers of the San Francisco Theological Seminary at the University of Redlands. Click here for a summary article.