Preaching and Lean Cuisine
Wes Allen was featured in a recent UM News article, “What preachers can learn from Lean Cuisine” by Sam Hodges. “Preachers need to know the Bible and how to offer pastoral care, and it helps if they can read a budget and drive a church van,” Hodges wrote. “They would also do well to become students of advertising. That’s the case made by the Rev. O. Wesley Allen Jr. and Carrie La Ferle, faculty members at Southern Methodist University, in their recently published book Preaching and the Thirty-Second Commercial: Lessons from Advertising for the Pulpit.” Read the story here.
Gingles Column in The Dallas Morning News
A column by Dallas Gingles, “What Bonhoeffer Can Teach Us About Courage, Faithfulness and Ukraine,” appeared in the op-ed section of The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, May 1. Reflecting on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian executed in Nazi Germany in 1945, he wrote, “Martyrs are vivid reminders to us that we are creatures whose lives have meaning beyond death, and thus that how we live on our way to death has real meaning as well. The exceptional faith of the martyrs informs the everyday moral lives we lead.” In light of the crisis in Ukraine, Gingles wrote, “It isn’t easy to see how these challenges will be resolved, much less how this threat will be defeated. But, in our own little way, we can think with Bonhoeffer about how to take responsibility for our time, and perhaps even join him in praying for a miracle.” The column previewed the upcoming 21st Annual Bonhoeffer Lectures in Public Ethics, which take place on the Perkins campus in Dallas May 19-21. Gingles is Site Director of the Houston-Galveston Extension Program. Dallas Morning News subscribers may read the column here.
Priscilla Pope-Levison is Featured Speaker
Priscilla Pope-Levison was the featured speaker at the 2022 Wesleyan-Pentecostal Symposium: Women in the Holiness and Pentecostal Traditions, held on April 26 at Tyndale University in Toronto. She will also be the featured speaker at the Fellowship Community 2022 National Gathering, May 17-19 at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. The event’s theme is “Reclaim/Proclaim: Evangelism 2022.”
An opinion piece by Pope-Levison, “Challenges and opportunities for evangelism today,” appeared on the Baptist News Global website on April 26. She writes, “Evangelism … evokes the image of selling God like vinyl siding. It isn’t easy to be enthusiastic about evangelism today, given the wide range of challenges mitigating against it. At the same time, golden opportunities exist as well.” Read the article here.
Pope-Levison is professor of practical theology at Perkins, author of seven books and a United Methodist pastor. Her 2020 book, Models of Evangelism (Baker Academic) was recently released in a Spanish language version, Models de Evangelismo, by Wesley Heritage Foundation.