At AND: Being the Church at church at Home and Everywhere In Between, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from women and men who have helped make fresh expressions of Church a growing worldwide phenomenon. We’re excited that the new dean of Duke University’s Divinity School is joining as a featured speaker.
Elaine Heath is a thoroughly accomplished theologian, pastor, author, and the next dean of Duke Divinity School. She has served as McCreless Professor of Evangelism at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas and is a fellow at A Foundation for Theological Education (AFTE).
Although Elaine had given her life to Christ during her teenage years, it was in her early thirties that she heard the call to ministry “when she was awakened by visions in the night…she learned – quite to her consternation – that she was to become a pastor and a teacher working for the renewal of a mainline denomination” (“Elaine Heath: Teaching laity and clergy to lead missional communities“).
That call has lead her to a prodigious career in ministry, learning both the academic and practical aspects of what it means to be the church. Elaine received her Ph.D. in systematic theology from Duquesne University, her M.Div. from Ashland Theological Seminary, and holds a BA from Oakland University. An elder in the United Methodist Church, Heath has an extensive background both researching and leading missional and new monastic communities, such as those associated with New Day and the Epworth Project.
She and her students created the Missional Wisdom Foundation in order “to influence the heart of United Methodism…as more annual conferences are financially supporting laity and clergy who want training to bring missional vision and practices to their churches.” This work has proven to be a model of many features of the Fresh Expression movement, all while respecting the traditions she honors so deeply, revealing both her apostolic insight and her pastoral depth. From the MWF website:
The Missional Wisdom Foundation provides opportunities for adults, both clergy and laity, to learn how to live in intentional community and how to develop missional communities in diverse social contexts in order to help the church become more faithful in bearing the gospel into the world.
A Foretaste of AND…
Forming Missional Communities
Christian Mysticism
What It Means to Be Missional
Heath, The Author
In addition to a CV replete with academic and professorial experience, her research and scholarly pursuits have produced books covering issues such as modern monasticism, the emergent church, historical mysticism and its present relevance, evangelism, and gender issues.
