Will Willimon, a retired United Methodist Church bishop and a professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, will be the keynote speaker for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemoration in Ferguson, Mo., on Jan. 16.

The commemoration is being sponsored by the multicultural congregations of Wellspring Church in Ferguson and The Gathering in Clayton, Mo., in partnership with The Walker Leadership Institute at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.

The event will include a gathering for students and a session for local clergy, during which Willimon will speak on strategizing to promote Christian conversation and action related to race in churches. In the evening, he will be the featured speaker at a community-wide service.

Willimon served as the dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University for 20 years. He returned to Duke after serving as the bishop of the North Alabama Conference from 2004 to 2012. He is the author of 70 books. His latest, Who Lynched Willie Earle? Confronting Racism through Preaching, will be published in February. His 2016 release, Fear of the Other: No Fear in Love, is a book calling Christians to love others even when people see the world in very different ways.