I closed the 2009 Conference on Preaching with the following
Announcement of Hope and Benediction:

What’s next?

After this year’s conference ~ with its marvelously substantive presentations and interactions ~ what three of you who’ve attended all 12 conferences on preaching beginning in Rochester have labeled “the best yet” ~ What’s next?

Like a book you’ve written, having composed the last chapter and sent it off to the publisher, finished and complete, it can become the bridge to something more and an even larger project.

So we close the Conference on Preaching, a source of fresh joy and stimulating satisfaction. Imagine if we’d required this of first year ministry students, we’d triple our preaching majors because they could meet you and see you doing this. What they might catch from us!

So I am very pleased to announce that this year’s conference is a bridge into an initiative encouraged by this university’s president and created and articulated by John York, who has been in serious conversations with Lipscomb and church leaders to set forth a proposal that is courageous enough to acknowledge the growing disaster that has arisen amongst us: our shrinking churches and the drying stream of young persons entering congregational ministry.

This vision from Lipscomb University and John York is healthy enough to propose that we re-create how we prepare persons for ministry by partnering the academy with the congregation. No longer threatened or irrelevant, no longer imposing or distant ~ but the church and academy as partners in our common task.

John has made remarkable progress. He has hit a nerve and the conversation continues and it is very serious and promising.

What I now can report is that the quality you’ve experienced in the Conference on Preaching ~ it’s blend of theory and praxis ~ intelligent scholarship and imaginative biblical preaching will be at the heart of what’s next!

So, stay tuned!

May the Lord bless you and keep you
May God’s face shine upon you
May the Lord’s continence be lifted up
And give you peace
In the ministry of Jesus Christ

~ David Fleer