2020 Convocation & Pastors' School Webinars

William Willimon
Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School

A bishop in the United Methodist Church, Professor William 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. Willimon is a graduate of Wofford College (B.A., 1968), Yale Divinity School (M.Div., 1971), and Emory University (S.T.D., 1973). He has served as pastor of churches in Georgia and South Carolina. A prolific and internationally known author, he has published more than 70 books with more than a million copies sold. His Worship as Pastoral Care was selected as one of the ten most useful books for pastors in 1979 by the Academy of Parish Clergy. His Pulpit Resource is used each week by thousands of pastors in the USA, Canada, and Australia. A 2005 study by the Pulpit and Pew Research Center found that Bishop Willimon is the second most widely read author by mainline Protestant pastors.

 

L. Gregory Jones
Dean of the Divinity School; Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Distinguished Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry

The Rev. Dr. L. Gregory Jones is the Dean of Duke Divinity School, a position he also held earlier from 1997-2010. Jones also is the Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Distinguished Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry, a senior fellow at the Fuqua-Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, and a senior fellow at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. Jones is dedicated to cultivating strategic and visionary leadership and innovation in partnership with individuals and institutions. His focus on leadership and innovation builds on his scholarly work in forgiveness and reconciliation, as well as his years of leadership in higher education. He founded Leadership Education in 2008 and directed its work until 2010 when he began service as Duke’s chief international strategist to advance and coordinate the university’s global engagement. In 2016-17, Jones served as executive vice president and provost of Baylor University, helping lead the university through a year of challenges as well as several key leadership transitions. He is the author or editor of 17 books, including Christian Social Innovation, the co-authored Forgiving As We've Been Forgiven: Community Practices for Making Peace (with Celestin Musekura, in 2010), Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping Faithful Christian Ministry (with Kevin R. Armstrong, in 2006) and the widely acclaimed Embodying Forgiveness (1995). Jones has published more than 200 articles in a variety of publications. He is an ordained United Methodist pastor and is married to the Rev. Dr. Susan Pendleton Jones.

Laceye Warner
Royce and Jane Reynolds Associate Professor of the Practice of Evangelism and Methodist Studies; Associate Dean for Wesleyan Engagement at Duke Divinity School

The Rev. Dr. Laceye Warner is an ordained elder in the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and currently serves as the associate professor of the practice of evangelism and Methodist studies and associate dean of Wesleyan engagement. Before coming to Duke in 2001, Warner taught at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary at Northwestern University as the E. Stanley Jones Assistant Professor of Evangelism. She has served urban congregations in the Methodist Church of Great Britain. Warner’s research interests in the historical theology of evangelism seek to inform and locate contemporary church practices within the larger Christian narrative. These interests are reflected in two books published in 2007: Saving Women: Retrieving Evangelistic Theology and Practice (Baylor University Press) and The Study of Evangelism, co-edited with Dr. Paul Chilcote (Eerdmans Publishing Company).

 

Alma Tinoco Ruiz
Lecturer in Homiletics and Evangelism; Director of the Hispanic House of Studies at Duke Divinity School

Professor Alma Tinoco Ruiz is currently working on her Th.D. degree at Duke Divinity School and is the first recipient of the Lilly Endowment Inc. fellowship for Hispanic-Latino/a students in the Th.D. program in homiletics. She was awarded the Denman Fellow of the Foundation for Evangelism (FFE) in 2016, the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) Doctoral Fellowship in 2019, and the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI)/Lilly fellowship in 2020. Professor Tinoco Ruiz is a practical theologian whose work centers on the intersection of homiletics, pastoral care, and evangelism. She is a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church.

 

Warren Kinghorn
Esther Colliflower Associate Research Professor of Pastoral and Moral Theology; Co-Director, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative; Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center

Warren Kinghorn, M.D., is a psychiatrist whose work centers on the role of religious communities in caring for persons with mental health problems and on ways in which Christians engage practices of modern health care. Jointly appointed within Duke Divinity School and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Duke University Medical Center, he is co-director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative and is a staff psychiatrist at the Durham VA Medical Center. He has written on the moral and theological dimensions of combat trauma and moral injury, on the moral and political context of psychiatric diagnosis, and on the way that St. Thomas Aquinas’ image of the human as wayfarer might inform contemporary practices of ministry and mental health care. 

Regina Graham
Associate Director, Office of Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School

The Rev. Regina Graham is the associate director of the Office of Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. Her diverse experience of 25 years runs the gamut from sports marketing and business development to pastoral ministry and chaplaincy. In her current role, she provides direction in program management, pastoral ministry, pastoral care, mentoring, and academic student support. Graham is an ordained minister with the National Baptist Convention, USA Inc. and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Drew University, a Master in Business degree from Fordham University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications degree from Loyola University Chicago.