Available Now On-Demand
What’s next for us? What does it look like for a Methodist leader (or congregation) to respond to God’s call now? What biblical texts, stories from our past, and core Wesleyan convictions can guide us from this point? And are we at Good Friday or at Easter?
In Will Willimon’s new book, Don’t Look Back: Methodist Hope for What Comes Next, he draws from conversations, his own experience, and reflections on the state of the Church. It is frank, clear-eyed, and deeply theological. It offers practical, actionable guidance and firm handles for leaders and congregations to grasp as they move forward.
In this webinar, Willimon will be joined by Rev. Dr. F. Douglas Powe, Jr., Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary; Dr. Olivia Poole, pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church in Enterprise, Alabama; and Haley Jobe, seminarian at Duke Divinity School pursuing a Master of Divinity.
Join us for this informative and challenging discussion as Will Willimon and guests explore Methodist hope and what comes next.
"We have hope amid our present struggles, not because we’ve got certainty about the future but because we are clear about who God is and what God is up to. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. Our hope is not wishful thinking, it’s reasonable expectation based upon all that we know of God – Jesus Christ."
- Will Willimon
BISHOP WILL WILLIMON
The Reverend Dr. William H. Willimon is a lifelong Methodist. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke University Divinity School and retired Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, after serving for twenty years as faculty member and Dean of the Chapel of Duke University. As Bishop, he led North Alabama's 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors. He has authored roughly a hundred books and is widely recognized as one of Methodism's most insightful, inspiring, and challenging voices.
HALEY JOBE
Seminary Student
Duke Divinity School
Duke University in Durham North Carolina
Haley Jobe is a graduate of Davidson College and is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity Degree from Duke Divinity School as the Lipe Leadership Fellow for the class of 2024. While at Davidson, she heard a call to ordained ministry while serving as the youth and college ministry intern at Davidson United Methodist Church and the student leader of the Wesley Campus Ministry.
She is currently the pastoral intern at Edenton Street UMC in Raleigh, NC. Haley is seeking ordination as an elder in the North Carolina Conference.
DR. OLIVIA POOLE
Pastor
St. Luke United Methodist Church in Enterprise, Alabama
A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Olivia Poole was raised in the congregation of First United Methodist Church where her family is actively involved and her mother continues to teach Sunday school. She attended Auburn University and received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration before going to Emory University's Candler School of Theology. She received her doctorate from Duke University with an emphasis on proclamation and leadership.
Olivia is married to Reverend Steve Reneau who is the pastor of Elba United Methodist Church. Steve and Olivia have two children, Granham and Ennis-Hartley.
DR. F. DOUGLAS POWE, JR.
Director
The Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. F. Douglas Powe, Jr. is an ordained elder in the Baltimore/Washington Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. He is the Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership and the James C. Logan Professor of Evangelism (in an E. Stanley Jones) at Wesley Theological Seminary. He has authored several books including, Sustaining While Disrupting: The Challenge of Congregational Innovation and The Adept Church: Navigating Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
Powe is committed to helping urban congregations and congregations in transitional areas to flourish through community partnering. His research interest are church revitalization, urban theology, and Methodist theology. He holds an MDiv from Candler School of Theology and a PhD in systematic theology from Emory University.
DON'T LOOK BACK VIDEOS AVAILABLE ON AMPLIFY MEDIA
