The Office of Black Church Studies will sponsor its 2012 Gardner C. Taylor Lecture Series on September 25-26.

This year, Pastor Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. will preach and lecture, and the Rev. Clarence Laney Jr. will also deliver a sermon.

The Gardner C. Taylor Lecture series features lectures and sermons that bring outstanding black preachers to Duke Divinity School, and is named for the Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, pastor emeritus of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dr. Holmes is Pastor Emeritus of St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, where he served for 28 years. He was an adjunct professor of preaching at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University for 24 years. Known as much for his community activism as his preaching and teaching, Dr. Holmes was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from 1968-1972, while he also served as United Methodist District Superintendent. He is the author of Reaching for Renewal (1991), Encountering Jesus (1992), and When Trouble Comes (1996). Dr. Holmes has also written chapters for Our Time Under God Is Now (1993) and Power in the Pulpit: How America’s Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons (2002).

Rev. Laney is a Duke Divinity alumnus and pastor of Monument of Faith Church in Durham, N.C. He will preach on Tuesday morning in a sermon titled "Deep Roots in Shallow Places."

Pre-register for the events and get a parking permit.

Schedule of Events

For more information about the lecture series, please email the Office of Black Church Studies, or call 919-660-3461.