Perkins Center of Preaching Excellence

In this  webinar Dr. Wes Allen, Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology, will guide participants through themes and strategies for preaching in Advent, focusing on the Gospel of Mark.

Location: Online via Zoom

Cost: $25

Q: What makes for a creative, compelling sermon series? A: The same qualities that make for creative, compelling sermons!

This workshop is designed for both lectionary preachers and preacher’s choice preachers. It will highlight strategies for crafting effective series, as well as

offer specific sermonic topics that will keep people coming back, week after week.

Date: April 29, 2021 10:00AM-2:00PM

Registration cost is $25. We do not accept checks, just online payments.

Humor, often thought of as trivial, is a universal and essential part of human social life. Hence, the saying, “Whenever two or more are gathered, there is a joke!” Recent research in the field of positive psychology highlights the benefits of humor, noting it can promote empathy, buffer stress, forge connections to the world, and deal with the incongruities of everyday life.

Exploring the use of humor in sermons has a more ambitious goal than helping preachers be funny and entertaining. It is to help us harness the power of humor, in its various forms and functions, in service of offering our congregations deeper, more challenging, and more delightful engagement of God’s good news with their lives and the wider world.

Date: April 25, 2022 9:00AM-3:30PM

This workshop aims to boost preachers’ cinematic literacy and seek convergences between filmmaking and homiletics for the purposes of enlivening the preached word, communicating the gospel, and impacting hearers and their/our world.

Date: April 17, 2023 9:00AM-3:30PM

Location: Perkins School of Theology, The Great Hall

Registration Cost: $50

A five-session webinar sponsored by the Central TX Conference and the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU

Dates: October 11 2023 – February 7 2023

Registration cost is $100. We do not accept checks, just online payments.

“Experiential Preaching!”

 A Virtual Class Sponsored by the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU (PCPE)

Faculty: Dr. O. Wesley Allen, Jr.

Date: January 7, 2025

Time: 10-1:30 Central Time

Registration Fee: $75

Description of "Experiential Preaching":

For the proclamation of God’s good news to be transformative for congregations, sermons must engage not only the mind but also the heart. In this workshop, participants will learn how to approach each task of sermon preparation to develop a message that invites listeners to experience the gospel personally instead of only learning about it from a distance. The Instructor, Dr. O. Wesley Allen, Jr.,is Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics, Perkins School of Theology at SMU. Contact preaching@smu.edu with specific questions.

Certificate in Preaching Excellence (CPX!)

Experiential Preaching" is the first class in a series of online offerings from the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence that make up the new Certificate in Preaching Excellence -CPX, designed for pastors with experience and formal training (MDiv or equivalent). It can be taken as a standalone seminar or as part of the more expansive CPX which includes 4 virtual courses (which do not all need to be taken in the same year) and, following the completion of 4 courses, 3 one-on- one coaching sessions. Future classes in the first year of the program will deal with preaching and creativity, preaching the parables and preaching and trauma. Stay tuned for more details. (https://pcpe.smu.edu/ and follow us on Facebook).