Festival of Homiletics: Nashville, TN (Day 1-Monday)

I begin by giving thanks to the Lilly Foundation for Craig's Sabbatical Grant for providing the funding for both of us to attend this Festival!  After just the first evening, I can already say this has been worth the trip... and for those of you who know how much I LOVE to FLY (insert sarcastic laugh here), that truly is saying a lot!  I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store!

This morning Craig and I headed to RDU to fly to Nashville, TN for the Goodpreacher.com sponsored Festival of Homiletics.  This is a National (and Canadians, the only other country I've seen so far) preaching conference for pastors, and there are over 2000 people here from all over the country representing many, many denominations.  After arriving and getting checked into the hotel, Craig and I walked over to First Baptist Church, the main location for the week.  We are also being hosted by the other downtown churches (First Lutheran, McKendree United Methodist, Christ Church Cathedral--Episcopal, and Downtown Presbyterian), and the various workshops and concerts are being held in these different venues.  Everything is a short walk from our hotel.   

[The view of the skyscrapers near our hotel, and the CMT TV headquarters]

[The famous Ryman Auditorium, the old home of the Grand Ole Opry, and also current home of it since the flooding.  It's on our street just down from the hotel.]

After checking in to the Festival, grabbing BBQ dinner at Jack's BBQ on Broadway Ave, we headed to the opening worship for the evening.  WOW!  Susan Phillips lead us in liturgy, prayer, assurance of pardon, and confession of faith.  We also enjoyed wonderful music by both Ashley Cleveland and Beth Nielsen Chapman.  And the 75+ member First Baptist Church Choir and very small brass band (7 members-great musicians, but not the 50+ folks from RMC that I'm used to) led us in worship. Susan had many great ways to enliven worship and make it more experiencial and multi-sensory.  I can already tell she's a kindred-soul and someone who I look forward to learning lots more from!

[This is the sanctuary view from the back row.  It's huge!]

[The altar up front--it's "living water" with plants and a fountain and water running down through it when Susan took a pitcher and poured it while reading Isaiah 12.  It was really powerful and really awesome!]

Then it was time for one of the highlights of the evening.  Bishop Vashti McKenzie from the African Methodist Episcopal Church was the guest preacher for the opening worship service this evening. She spoke about Moses' call from God to speak the truth with power in her sermon "Speaking Truth to Power" based on Exodus 4:10-17, specifically focusing on verse 12.

[Here is Bishop McKenzie preaching.  She was so dynamic and brought the Word of God with truth and power!  See my next blog posting for notes from this sermon!]

[It's hard to see in this photo, but the spray-painted sign on the side of the house says, "Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes." It was the photo on the screen during the Bishop's sermon and fit so well with Moses' conversation with the Great "I Am Who I Am" and call from God.]

After worship we heard a brief concert by Jazz Sax protogee Grace Kelly.  She was excellent.

 [Grace can be seen in this photo in the purple dress near the left edge.] 

The last order of the agenda for the evening was a lecture by Dr. Anna Carter Florence, a professor of preaching from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, GA.  She talked about Mark 5 and the 3 Superheros for the Preacher found in this chapter of the Gospel.

NOTE: I took lots of notes to include here from both speakers tonight, but bedtime is here, so I will post them tomorrow!

Thanks for reading along.  Goodnight from Nashville!  I'm looking forward to tomorrow!