M. Craig Barnes – Bio
Finding the Congregation in the Text

While careful exegesis always honors what the text says, the challenge of the preacher is to peer beneath the text to discover the confessional claims of the Gospel.  This workshop will work through some portals in the biblical texts that lead to the discovery of our own lives with and without God. This isn’t an exercise in making the Bible relevant or applicable, but about making the church relevant to the biblical understanding of life as a new creation.

Casey Barton – Bio
Preaching As Eschatology

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann writes, “The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set, the glow that suffuses everything here in the dawn of an expected new day,” (Theology of Hope, 16). While we may tend to think and speak about eschatology as a theology of end times, the doctrine is more than millenniums, lamp stands, and dragons. Eschatology is more broadly, and more practically, a theology of time, wherein the last page of the story gives frame and focus to every moment that comes before. This workshop will explore preaching in its eschatological context as proclamation that invites listeners to participate in the new creation even now, under the conditions of the present.

Martha Burns – Bio
Speaking from the Heart (and other organs)

How do we engage our bodies to help us be expressive speakers?
This workshop offers simple tools to connect words and thoughts to the wisdom and expansiveness of our bodies.  An opportunity for the mind to be guided by the heart, the breath and the imagination.  Participants are asked to bring excerpts from their own sermons.

Maximum 12 participants

Sarah Han – Bio
Renewed Preaching for a Digital Age

There are rapid changes in the digital realm that have forged new frontiers for engaging God’s Word in impactful and creative ways. With the growth of social media platforms, virtual reality, the gaming industry, and artificial intelligence, the call to share a message of being a “new creation” in these digital spaces has become increasingly urgent. This workshop will address how Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha are engaging in new ways of sharing the Word of God in the digital world and what this means for the renewing of preaching for the next generation.

Karoline Lewis – Bio
New Creation and Preaching John’s Theology of Resurrection

The Christian promise of the resurrection centers our belief in God’s ongoing new creation. The Gospel writers present four very different accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Unique to the Gospel of John is Jesus’ extended interpretation of his resurrection on the last night he spends with his disciples. In his Farewell Discourse (John 14–17), Jesus reflects on his ministry, commissions his disciples, testifies to the Paraclete, prays for his followers, and helps his disciples see the promises of the resurrection before it happens. This workshop will explore how the viewpoint of Jesus’ departing declarations makes a difference for preaching the resurrection, especially the possibility of new creation through his, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Jerome J. Washington – Bio
From Ancient Scrolls to Modern Souls: Preaching from the Prophets

The presentation will delve into the timeless wisdom contained in the words of the Old Testament prophets. It will provide sermonic insights relevant to the contemporary life of the preacher and the listener from prophetic teachings. Those ancient messages offer invaluable guidance from the prophets for navigating the complexities of the human experience. We will discover pathways to personal growth, societal harmony, and spiritual fulfillment.

Two Open Sessions available for all to attend. NO NEED TO REGISTER!

Panel Discussion
Sermons That Catch
What are the keys in casting a sermon that not only catches the attention, but also the spirit, vision and imagination of our hearers and leads to an encounter with the Living Word?

Led by: Michael Knowles, Scott Hoezee, and Katie Givens Kime

Performance Masterclass
Actors’ Tools for Speaking and Listening
Martha Burns and R.H. Thomson share practical and enriching exercises to connect the body with the mind for effective public speaking.

Paula Gooder – Bio
The Bible, Imagination and Storytelling

One of Jesus’ favorite methods of teaching was storytelling.  He used parables of many different kinds to bring to life all sorts of ideas and questions.  In this seminar we will explore the power of storytelling and the Bible— looking both at Jesus’ parables and at how we can use storytelling today both to understand the Bible better but also to communicate its message.

Jason Byassee – Bio
Preaching in the Future Perfect Tense

When we write or preach, we usually speak of Jesus in the past tense, but Jesus isn’t just a long ago figure far, far away. His words and deeds are not just set down for the historical record. He is raised, alive, and going ahead of us. He did not just say and do certain things once upon a time. He still does them, present-tense. And he dreams about a future-perfect tense, when the nations will have been healed, by his work and word first, not ours. In this seminar we will imagine the possibilities, and risks, of preaching of Jesus in the future perfect tense—whether it can take the pressure off of us, in our work, and place it upon much more capable shoulders.

Jeff Crittenden – Bio
Pilgrimage Preaching

With the rise of people engaging in pilgrimages throughout the world, Jeff will explore Greek, Roman and Jewish expressions of pilgrimage juxtaposed with the early churches’ practice of pilgrimage.  A Homiletic of Pilgrimage, ancient and today, will then be explored.

Laura de Jong – Bio
Body and Soul: Enacting the Gospel at a Christian Funeral  

The hope of new life and new creation is professed nowhere so much as at a funeral. Over the last few decades, however, funerals have increasingly come to be seen primarily as a means of grief management and comfort for the bereaved, and less about a community of faith rehearsing the drama of the gospel story of life out of death. In this workshop we will explore how not only our preaching, but also the rituals of the funeral liturgy, can help the worshipping community declare the hope of the resurrection for the deceased in such a way that the living are called into a deeper eschatological hope.

Michael Knowles – Bio
The Spirituality of Preaching

In contrast to strategies that emphasize rhetoric and the responsibilities of the speaker, this workshop will invite participants to consider the role of God in preaching. Focusing on Paul’s cruciform vision of Christian ministry, we will explore spiritual identity as an essential feature of the homiletical task and reflect together on ways of listening for the voice of God in prayer, Scripture, and the world around us.

R.H. Thomson – Bio
Searching for our Authentic Voice

Public speaking is in many ways a private experience―the speaker must experience and live into what is said. R. H. Thomson will attempt to describe the actor’s tools for speaking, not loudly but authentically. The pursuit to find moments when mind, emotion, spirit and body are united through the words we speak, is lifelong. Poems will provide the gymnasium for the workshop’s word work.

Maximum: 12 participants

Lennett Anderson – Bio
From Pulpit to People: Empowering Advocacy in Community Through Preaching

This workshop will focus on prophetic preaching, by illuminating the rich tapestry of oratory and social justice advocacy within the African Nova Scotian community. The riveting narratives and powerful messages explore the intersection of faith, justice, and community empowerment, inspiring action and solidarity. Join us as we honor this legacy and harness the spirit of prophetic leadership to ignite change and create a more just and equitable world.

Emily Bisset – Bio
Generative Preaching

With good reason, preachers often end up spending too much time and energy trying to explain the Bible or impart knowledge about it. As a result, the congregation can become passive and preachers can fall short of their calling. However, when the Good News is proclaimed, sermons can invite people into an experience of holy possibility, and transformative imagination. This workshop will explore how both congregation and preacher can share an experience of the new thing that God is doing now, among us.

Scott Hoezee – Bio
Preaching the Gospel of John

John’s Gospel, even more than the three Synoptic Gospels, is shot through with a kind of realized eschatological sense.  For John The Kingdom of God is very near and it breaks forth into our present world.  Even John’s Book of Signs conveys this-the miracles of Jesus are for John like arrows that point to the nearness of the kingdom and its ability to make itself present to us in the here and now.  In this workshop we will consider the contours of John and the challenges and opportunities that face the preacher when making sermons from this Gospel.

HyeRan Kim-Cragg – Bio
Preaching for the Planet

This workshop will explore the challenges faced by those who wish to address the climate crisis from the pulpit. These challenges range from choosing scripture and interpretating it, to the predominance of human-centered theology, as well our consumerist lifestyle.

We will explore five homiletical strategies using the acronym of E.A.R.T.H. which stands for: the Elements of Life, Animals in the Bible, Rhythm of Life, Tree of Life, and Hesed (God’s unconditional love). The final strategy culminates with a look at the nature of God, whose love and mercy is at work healing the world.

Jennifer McKenzie – Bio
Preaching with Bent Elbows: Bringing the text closer and being surprised by God

God’s Word is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. Do we allow the Word to teach us something new? Preaching with ‘bent elbows’ anticipates the preacher’s own conversion. By bringing the text ever closer, and expecting to be surprised by God, we allow ourselves to read the Biblical text afresh, as if for the first time, every time. We will propose practices and techniques for preparing to preach with bent elbows that include engaging the congregation in both the preparation and delivery of the sermon.

Fine-Tuned Preaching is a bonus session which offers constructive and encouraging support in a small group of peers with an established leader.  Each participant is expected to deliver a twelve-minute sermon or twelve-minute portion of a sermon. Registration is limited to five participants per group.  As the groups fill there may be an additional group or groups added.  The sessions end by 4:30 p.m.

There is an addition cost to participate in this session.

Group 1 led by Scott Hozee and Emily Bisset
Group 2 led by Sarah Han and Michael Knowles
Group 3 led by Jason Byassee and Gail Ricciuti