Date: June 29, 2022
From June 5-10, we welcomed 20 participants to the Deep Calls to Deep preaching residency. Deep Calls to Deep is a program designed to nurture preachers for the challenging and vital ministry of proclamation. The program is housed in Lifelong Learning and funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment.
Deep Calls to Deep focuses on four themes: spirituality, embodiment, the preaching imagination, and forming a community of preachers. The program involves a yearlong commitment to preaching in peer groups, beginning and ending with an on-campus residency.
We were delighted to be back on campus for our residency for the first time in three years. During our week together the participants shared Sabbath time, worshiped together, and shared meals and fellowship. Speakers gave presentations on preaching on reparations, encouraging lay preaching, and preaching on racism. I taught a session on embodied presence and performative exegesis of Scripture, and the Rev. Mark Jefferson, Ph.D., associate director of the program, led a session on strategic preaching. The preaching peer groups met together to form a covenant for their work together during the year. In between these sessions, participants met with a preaching guide one-on-one to discuss their goals for their preaching during the year ahead. It was a nourishing and inspiring week together.
The Rev. Ruthanna B. Hooke, Ph.D.
Program Director, Deep Calls to Deep