Preaching Foundations (TEL Cohort) FA26

Pacific School of Religion

Group-Based Medium Level Intentional Creation, Theological Imagination
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Preaching Foundations (TEL Cohort) FA26

About This Course

This course is one of nine course in the Theological Education for Leadership (TEL) Learning Path for the  Ministry Leadership track.   This course introduces students to the foundational practices of preaching and worship, with no prior preaching experience required, and  and is one-quarter of the full-term course of the same name which is considered the introduction to the introductory overview of Preaching Foundations. Students will learn the basic practices of biblical interpretation, sermon construction, contextual application, and effective delivery while exploring how preaching communicates theological meaning within particular communities and social contexts. Through engagement with artistic forms such as poetry, music, movement, drama, and visual art, students will explore multiple ways of interpreting biblical texts and communicating their meaning. The course provides a foundation for graduate-level study of preaching by helping students develop the interpretive, theological, creative, and communicative skills necessary to move from biblical text to proclamation.

Course Components

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📋 9 Lessons
📚 0 Resources
✍️ 0 Quizzes
📖 0 Assignments

How to Engage with this course

Learning Objectives

In this TEL course, you will learn:

  1. Interpret biblical texts by attending to their historical, literary, social, and political contexts and considering how social location informs interpretation.
  2. Construct a sermon with a clear theological focus and an intentional structure that connects biblical interpretation to proclamation.
  3. Connect biblical texts with contemporary contexts by identifying ethical, social, pastoral, and theological concerns relevant to particular communities and audiences.
  4. Communicate sermons effectively through the intentional use of voice, language, embodiment, presence, and other foundational practices of oral delivery.
  5. Use artistic and creative forms as resources for biblical interpretation, preaching, and worship, including poetry, music, movement, drama, and visual art.
  6. Reflect critically on preaching and worship as theological practices shaped by culture, community, social location, and the experiences and perspectives of both preacher and congregation.
Instructor Your Instructor

Joshua Bartholomew

Dr. Joshua S. Bartholomew is Assistant Professor of Theology, Race, and Social Justice at Pacific School of Religion and a licensed Baptist preacher. His teaching and ministry bring together preaching, biblical interpretation, Black theology, social ethics, and the lived realities of communities. He has served in ministry at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and approaches preaching as a theological, creative, and socially engaged practice.  

Outside of ministry, he is a scholar and educator whose work explores the intersections of Black theology, Black radicalism, economic justice, and social ethics. He is the author of Black Theology and the Black Panthers (Bloomsbury, 2023), which examines the Black Panther Party’s survival programs as an economic model of racial justice and liberative praxis. 

Dr. Bartholomew earned his MDiv from Union Theological Seminary and his PhD in Religious and Theological Studies from the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology.

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