Everyone Can Preach Good News! Communicating the Transformative Message of the Gospel

Gennifer Benjamin Brooks holds the Styberg chair in Preaching and is the tenured Ernest and Bernice Styberg Professor of Preaching, the first black clergy woman to hold a chair at a United Methodist seminary. She is the Director of both the Styberg Preaching Institute and the Doctor of Ministry Program at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Dr. Brooks is also the Dean of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS) Doctor of Ministry in Preaching program.

She is an ordained elder and full clergy member of the New York Conference of the United Methodist Church, and has pastored local churches in rural, suburban, urban and cross racial settings. Prior to going into full-time ordained ministry, Dr. Brooks had a successful career in corporate America as a designer and development manager of business computer systems.

Dr. Brooks holds Business degrees including an MBA from Pace University, NY, MDiv and DMin degrees from New Brunswick Theological Seminary, NJ and a PhD from Drew University.

She is well-known and sought-after workshop and retreat leader in the area of homiletics and worship, and notable for her emphasis on good news as essential to the sermon. For Dr. Brooks, the good news goes beyond the salvific love of God in Jesus Christ, to being God’s active, transformative presence in human life and endeavors. She had led preaching workshops across the USA, as well as in her native Trinidad. Her preaching voice has been heard in beyond the USA in Jamaica, Trinidad, St. Vincent, South Korea, South Africa, Panama, Sweden, and Myanmar.

She is the author several books and articles, including Bible Sisters, 365 daily devotions on the women of the Bible (Abingdon, 2017), Unexpected Grace: Preaching Good News from Difficult Texts (Pilgrim Press, 2012), Good News Preaching: Offering the Gospel in Every Sermon (Pilgrim Press, 2009) Praise the Lord, a book of liturgy. She is the editor of Black United Methodists Preach! She has been a contributor to several commentaries, including Preaching God’s Transforming Justice (Westminster John Knox Press 2011, 2012, & 2013), The New Interpreter’s Theological Companion to the Lectionary (Abingdon, 2013), Feasting on the Gospels, Working Preacher and Connections. She has also written the lyrics for several songs in Zion Still Sings: For Every Generation. She has been guest editor for an issue of Liturgy magazine.

Her current interest focuses on the issue of marginality and the call of the church and preachers to bring good news to those on the margins of society and is also actively in the process of research focusing on worship rituals of a community that is part of the African diaspora.

Andrew Wymer is assistant professor of liturgical studies at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Prior to coming to Garrett, he served as assistant professor of preaching and worship, director of the Mast Chapel, and assistant dean at New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA, and his research engages sacred rhetoric and practices with attention to race, power, and justice.

Wymer holds a Master of Arts in worship studies from Southern Seminary, and he studied liturgy and homiletics at Drew University Theological School. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in liturgy and homiletics from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Publications include contributions to The International Journal of Homiletics, Liturgy, Practical Matters, Worship, and The Yale ISM Review, several guest-edited journal issues, and two co-edited volumes, Unmasking White Preaching: Racial Hegemony, Resistance, and Possibilities and Worship and Power: Liturgical Authority in Free Church Traditions (forthcoming).

Bishop Dwight S. Riddick Sr. serves as Pastor of the Gethsemane Baptist Church, Newport News, Virginia. In September 2019, F.L.A.M.E. Inc. unanimously voted and elected him to the Office of Bishop, which is an elevation that he most humbly and reverently accepted. He was consecrated as the Presiding Prelate for F.L.A.M.E. Inc. on November 13, 2021.

Bishop Dwight S. Riddick, Sr., a native of Chesapeake, Virginia, graduated in 1982 from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, VA, where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science. In 1991, he received the Master of Divinity Degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia. In 2005, he earned the Doctor of Ministry Degree and the School of Divinity’s Leadership Award from Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia. In May of 2016, he received a Doctor of Ministry Degree from the A.C.T.S. Doctor in Preaching Program through Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL.

Bishop Riddick has distinctively served in numerous positions including serving as the 40^th President of the Hampton University Ministers’ Conference, President of the Baptist General Convention of Virginia and member of the Board of Trustees for Virginia Union University. Additionally, he was nominated for the Daily Press Newspaper’s Citizen Award in 2001 and received the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities Humanitarian Award in 2012.

Bishop Riddick is certainly a voice for our time. As referenced in his first published book, “Does Preaching Have a Future? A Call to Join the Conversation,” he challenges preachers to broaden their worldview and creative implementation of the preached gospel as only he can. In his newest published work, “Reflections: Life Lessons I Learned from My Dad,” Dr. Riddick extracts practical life principles that were poured into his life by the unconventional ways in which his dad reared him.

Bishop Dwight S. Riddick, Sr. and his lovely wife Vera are the proud parents of a son, Reverend Dr. Dwight Riddick, Jr. and his wife, Reverend Dr. Jennell Riddick, a daughter, Mrs. Tiffany Foreman and her husband, Mr. Mitchell Forman. They are also the proud grandparents of five lovely grandchildren: Dwight III, Amber, Jasmine, Rhyan and Tyler.