Certificate in Preaching Excellence (CPX)
Four online courses (3.5 hours each) will be offered per year. They do not need to be taken sequentially or all in one year. They can also be taken as stand-alones. After the completion of four courses participants will register for three one-on-one mentor consultations with an expert homiletician.
Cost of the certificate- $75 per virtual course $100 per coaching session. (Total $600.)
Visit our website to find out more about CPX and to register for the 2026 courses listed below. You can also email preaching@smu.edu for more information.
2026 Courses
April 23, 2026: Preaching and the Human Condition
Preachers struggle with how to acknowledge the bad news of a corrupt world while proclaiming the good news that will eventually prevail against it. We can veer between the prosperity gospel that ignores the bad news, or grace-less preaching that doesn’t do justice to the good news. This course equips preachers to proclaim how God’s good news addresses the human condition, and to preach genuine Christian hope amid the realities of human striving and suffering.
This course is taught by Dr. O. Wesley Allen, Jr., the Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics, and is based on his 2016 book Preaching and the Human Condition.
September 9, 2026: Preaching and Spirituality
This seminar will take a pneumatological approach to the ongoing discussion about race and racism in the church by focusing on the Holy Spirit. The overarching question we will consider is, “How does the Spirit move us through and beyond racialization toward humanization, and what does this mean for preaching and ministry today?"
This course is taught by Dr. Luke Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel and Professor of Homiletics, Duke Divinity School.
October 5, 2026: Preaching as Performance/Embodiment
Preaching is far more than the “delivery” of content. Creating experiences of the gospel demands the full involvement of the preacher in finding their voice and embodying the good news. This course will explore the literal and metaphorical power of finding one’s voice in proclaiming the gospel with conviction and passion.
This course is taught by Dr. Nancy Lammers Gross, Arthur Sarell Rudd Associate Professor of Speech Communication in Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, and draws on her book, Women’s Voices and the Practice of Preaching (2017).