Preaching is the centerpiece of many Christian worship services, and Bethel College will bring to campus a national leader in the study of preaching, called homiletics.
The occasion is the biennial Worship and the Arts Symposium, “Preaching Good News in a Troubled World,” Nov. 2-4 on campus, with the Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, dean of Duke Chapel, and professor of homiletics and African American studies at Duke Divinity School and Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, all at Duke University.
The guest visual artist is Merrill Krabill of Goshen, Ind. Krabill taught at Bethel from 1989-2001 before moving to Goshen College, from which he retired as professor of art in 2024.
The symposium is fully underwritten by the Reimer-Boese Worship and the Arts Endowment and all events are free and open to the public, but registration is requested at https://www.bethelks.edu/academics/worship-and-the-arts-symposium/ for planning purposes.
Powery will preach at Bethel College Mennonite Church on Nov. 2 at 9:30 a.m. and speak in Bethel’s convocation on Nov. 3 at 11 a.m. in Krehbiel Auditorium in Luyken Fine Arts Center.
On Nov. 4, he will give a preaching masterclass that is geared for preachers but open to everyone.
The opening reception for Krabill’s exhibit, “Between Earth and Sky,” is at 3 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Regier Art Gallery in Luyken Fine Arts Center.
That is followed immediately by Bethel’s annual fall choral showcase, “Bethel Sings,” at 4 p.m. in Bethel College Mennonite Church.
Dr. Russell Adrian will lead the Bethel College Concert Choir, Chamber Singers and Chapel Choir, with performances by the small a cappella groups Open Road (tenor-bass) and Woven (soprano-alto).
Powery began his higher education studying music at Stanford University, from which he has a bachelor’s degree in music with a concentration in vocal performance.
He went on to earn an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, and has a doctoral degree in homiletics from Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto, where his dissertation was on “The Holy Spirit and African American Preaching.”
Since his teen years, Powery has also served in a variety of church appointments, as a music director, youth worker, chaplain and pastor, in Miami, San Jose, Calif., Toronto, New Haven, Conn., and Zurich, Switzerland, among others.
He was ordained by the Progressive National Baptist Convention in 2000. He has served as dean of Duke Chapel since 2012.
Music, especially the spirituals, are an important part of Powery’s preaching, scholarship and Christian faith.
Spirituals “are musical memorabilia created on the anvil of misery in the crucible of inhumane slavery,” Powery says, that have become “a wellspring of wisdom quite distinct from so many other sources of knowledge at a university.”
In a recent Duke podcast, Sounds of Faith, Powery spoke of how “the spirituals connect with the human condition of hope, of healing, of suffering, of joy and spontaneity” (listen at https://chapel.duke.edu/news/podcast-episode-dean-powery-wellspring-wisdom-spirituals/).
In 2024, Powery received the Raymond Gavins Distinguished Faculty Award, given for his leadership in the study of homiletics, for ensuring that Duke Chapel is a centerpiece of the community both at Duke and in the wider Durham, N.C., community, and for exploring the connections between preaching, music and culture, particularly the expression of the African diaspora.
The award is named after the late Duke history professor known for his mentorship and support of colleagues and young scholars, and presented by the Samuel DuBois Cook Society, founded in 1997 to honor the first Black faculty member hired and tenured at Duke University.
Powery is an author or co-author of eight books, most recently Living the Questions of the Bible (Cascade, 2023). His book Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race (Westminster John Knox, 2022), was named the 2023 Book of the Year by the Religious Communication Association and the Academy of Parish Clergy.
The title of Bethel’s symposium comes from Powery’s 2023 book Getting to God: Preaching Good News in a Troubled World (Cascade, 2023), with Jon Rottman and Joni Sancken.
See the symposium schedule at https://www.bethelks.edu/academics/worship-and-the-arts-symposium/, where you can access the registration form and read more about Luke Powery and Merrill Krabill.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel is ranked #25 in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Regional College Midwest for 2026. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu
