Preaching Excellence
Program II
Preaching Excellence Program II for Active Clergy
This program is a unique opportunity for active clergy to continue to hone their preach craft and to be responsive to the dynamically changing mission field. A week long in person conference or virtual setting is greatly subsidized by EPF and offers outstanding and imaginative faculty from many denominations. Small groups and appreciative feedback for prepared sermons, remain the backbone for the EPF approach to formation.
Preaching is:
- The #1 factor when selecting a place of worship (Studies by the Pew Center and Gallup).
Preaching is:
- The most frequently cited attribute by parishes calling a new minister
Sunday is fast approaching, and the rest of your life won’t stop!
We’ve all been there. Balancing the needs of pastoral work, administrative tasks, worship planning, and the small matter of having family, friends, and a life—where and how can we find time and space to nurture our preaching lives when we can barely catch up with life itself? The Episcopal Preaching Foundation hosts a weeklong learning retreat to consider the ways that our preaching lives are born from our lives themselves, in all their fullness and messiness and chaos. How can God use our lives to serve as rich texts from which we can preach Good News?
This unique experience offers respite for preachers after the rigors of Advent and Christmas and before the demands of Lent. Intimate preaching groups, workshops, and special guests assist preachers in finding their lives again…and hopefully some sermons too.
Preaching Excellence Program II
Current and Past Faculty include:
Stephen Smith
Dean of Faculty
Nikki Mathis
Rector, Saint Gregory the Great Episcopal Church
Athens, Georgia
Christine Parker Burkett
Professor of Speech
Duke Divinity School
Nathan Kirkpatrick
Associate, The Episcopal Church of the Advocate
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Kate Spelman
Rector, All Saints Episcopal Church
Western Springs, Illinois
Thomas G. Long
Bandy Professor of Preaching
Emory Candler School of Theology
Sample program schedule
