The course also aims to help preachers to offer to hearers the reality of divine transformation as the heart of the gospel proclamation.

It is based on the book Good News Preaching: Offering the Gospel in Every Sermon by Gennifer Benjamin Brooks (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009).

This course is built on videos filmed during the 2022 Workshop of the Styberg Preaching Institute. The course is free to all (with registration) because of the generosity of the Styberg Preaching Institute in celebration of its 20th anniversary.

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October 7 – 9, 2025 at Garrett Seminary

In a world increasingly shaped by authoritarianism, nationalism, and historical revisionism, the call to preach with steadfastness, mutual accountability, courage, and clarity has never been more urgent. Faithful Preaching for Our Times is a homiletics conference that gathers pastors, theologians, scholars, and activists to explore just and liberative approaches to proclaiming the gospel. Together, we will examine how preaching can confront the forces that distort truth, suppress justice, and silence the vulnerable—while embodying a faith that resists, liberates, and restores in sustained ways. Through workshops, plenaries, and worship, this gathering invites preachers to engage their prophetic vocation with theological depth and bold imagination for the challenges of our time.

Visit garrett.edu/styberg2025 to learn more.

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Presented by Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount on the Occasion of the Launch of the Center for Ecological Regeneration

The history of centers and institutes at Garrett-Evangelical begins with the creation of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience. Instituted in 1970 as one of the primary emphases of the seminary, the Center for the Church and the Black Experience has been a beacon of hope and inspiration for Black students, pastors, churches, and communities for nearly five decades. It has been instrumental in fusing Black people and Black religious life into the entire seminary community.

In 1984, the Center for Asian and Asian American Ministries was formed to serve the needs of Asian American students, pastors, and churches. It continues today as a vital home away from home, a haven, for our Asian descent students. The Center for Asian and Asian American Ministry invites our Asian descent students to explore, critically reflect, and thrive spiritually, academically, and experientially at Garrett.

The Hispanic-Latinx Center was established in 1988 to bring Hispanic-Latinx culture and experience into the life of the seminary. The Center’s mission is to meet the needs of Hispanic-Latinx students, pastors, parishioners, and community leaders in creative, insightful, useful, and organic ways.

In 1997, The Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values was developed in order to draw together seminary resources, graduate professional schools, area pastors, and laity to address the compelling ethical issues facing contemporary society. The Styberg Preaching Institute was launched in 2005 to partner with the church by preparing persons for vital, effective Christian preaching. And in 2012, the Rueben P. Job Institute for Spiritual Formation was established as an initiative for continuing education in spiritual formation of laity and clergy.

We share this with you today to acknowledge the key role our centers and institutes play in the history of and expanding vision for who God is calling us to be as a seminary. Not only do our centers and institutes enrich seminary life through lectures, workshops, conferences, and supporting our students, but they also offer new perspectives, resources, and continuing education opportunities to the wider community outside of the seminary.

We are pleased that the Center for Ecological Regeneration joins this history and look forward to the ways in which it will both work alongside our existing centers and institutes, as well as provide new spaces for the work of ecological regeneration and environmental justice.

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91PORN will welcome Rev. Dr. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough as assistant professor of liturgical studies, Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, and Styberg Teaching Fellow, beginning June 15, 2021. Having completed her doctoral program at Vanderbilt University this spring, Yarborough comes to the seminary as 2021-2023 Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow and the 2021-2022 Styberg Preaching Institute Teaching Fellow in Homiletics.

Yarborough is an ordained minister, a poet, an enneagram enthusiast, and a lover of leadership development. Her research interests include expanding genre in both homiletics and liturgics. She is committed to interrogating normative and traditional ways of thinking about preaching, liturgy, and exploring black liturgical theology. Her interests in preaching push against spatial demarcation for the sacred in order to include a wider canon of worship and preaching expressions.

Yarborough received her doctor of philosophy in homiletics and liturgics with a minor in practical theology from the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University. Her dissertation is titled, “That’ll Preach”: Decentering the Pulpit through the Non-Pulpit Homiletical Practice of Black Women. As a doctoral candidate she received numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including two doctoral fellowships from The Forum for Theological Exploration. She holds a master of divinity from Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a bachelor of arts in political science from Elon University.

“I am excited to join the faculty of Garrett as I continue my journey as a practitioner, professor, and scholar,” Yarborough said. “I look forward to imagining new horizons alongside the faculty and students and being a part of such a dynamic community.”

Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Louisville Institute’s Postdoctoral Fellowship provides fellowships to support two-year, visiting professorship at a North American theological school, college, or a university. As part of the Institute’s Vocation of the Theological Educator Initiative, Louisville Postdoctoral Fellows are accompanied by an academic mentor and pastoral mentor. Louisville Fellows also participate in a peer cohort that meets six times over two years.

Louisville Institute is funded by the Religion Division of Lilly Endowment Inc. and based at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (Louisville, Kentucky). The Louisville Institute’s mission is to bridge Church and academy through awarding grants and fellowships to those who study North American religious institutions, practices, and movements, and thereby promoting scholarship that strengthens Church, academy, society, and contributes to the flourishing of the Church.

The Styberg Teaching Fellow in Homiletics

As a teaching fellow, Yarborough will gain hands-on classroom experience through participation in teaching both introductory and advanced preaching courses under the supervision of and in collaboration with the homiletics faculty at Garrett-Evangelical and will have the opportunity to develop skills in course planning, and syllabus design as well as in providing instruction in a multicultural context.

The Styberg Teaching Fellow is one component of the Styberg Preaching Institute’s initiative, A Partnership in Effective Proclamation, which has been funded by Lilly Endowment, Inc. This initiative also includes peer learning groups for active pastors under the direction of trained facilitators and preaching support for seminarians and new pastors. To learn more about this initiative, visit Garrett.edu/StybergPreaching.

Founded in 2005, the Styberg Preaching Institute has established an intentional and persistent agenda of addressing the need for relevant, effective preaching in the church. Its motto, The Seminary and the Church: Partners in Proclamation, speaks to the mandate of the Seminary to equip pastors for transformative ministry and recognizes preaching as a critical aspect of that mission.

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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