St Mark’s is part of PreachFest!, an inaugural conference to inspire your preaching. PreachFest! is on in Canberra and Sydney from 1 to 3 June. BOOK NOW.
Refresh your preaching skills.
If you preach regularly and miss hearing others preach, here’s your chance.
PreachFest! is a 3-day conference where you can listen to and learn about preaching through a mix of live-stream and in-person sessions in Sydney and Canberra. We’ve lined up a wide range of experienced and renowned local and international preaching practitioners such as Mike Raiter, Sarah Agnew, Mike Frost, Sam Wells, and more.
Designed with practising preachers and teachers in mind, this is a great opportunity to be ‘on the other side of the pulpit’ and to hear others preach, share ideas and resources, be encouraged and inspired, and refine your gift.
Come and Explore
- What is the point of preaching?
- Is the art of preaching dead?
- Can preaching change anything?
- How can God use your preaching in your local church?
All sessions will be streamed concurrently online.
Tuesday 1 June 2021
| 9:00am | |||
| 9:30am | A Parable Universe (Matthew 4:12-25) Live-streamed from the US |
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| 10:30am | |||
| 11:00am | Eavesdropping on the Bible – Sermons as Dialogue In Wesley Canberra and live-streamed | What does it mean to preach on Aboriginal Land Brooke Prentis will seek to bring the importance of locating preaching in the context of land we stand on in reconciliation week as a matter of justice. In Sydney and live-streamed |
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| 12:00pm | Enjoy the local eateries around our venue |
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| 2:00pm | On preaching: what stays the same when everything changes The lecture will address the question of the extent to which changes in our wider social and political environment affect the substance of what we preach. In particular, the question will be explored: So far as the gospel is concerned, have we encountered a ‘new norm’ to which the ministry of preaching must respond? Some scepticism will be expressed about the purported newness of our times! In-class teaching and streamed | We Need to Celebrate! In 2021, the need for celebration in our proclamation is greater than ever. Not superficial fluff to boost people’s spirits, but a profound shared celebration of what God is doing in us, among us, around us and through us. The father in Jesus’ most famous parable literally begs his older son to join in that kind of celebration. What does that plea say to us as preachers and to the communities in which we serve? Watch Live Stream at St Mark’s |
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| 3:00pm | |||
| 3:30pm | The Importance of an Introduction There are three types of preachers: those to whom you cannot listen; those to whom you can listen; and those to whom you must listen. During the introduction the congregation usually decides the kind of preacher addressing them that morning. Watch Live Stream at St Mark’s | “I am the Resurrection and the Life” John 11-1-45 Watch Live Stream at St Mark’s |
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| 4:30pm | |||
| Online Evening | Prophecy and Disability: a study of Isaiah 45, highlighting its significance for disability and vocation Online session live-streamed from the UK |
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Wednesday 2 June 2021
| 9:00am | |||
| 9:30am | Being The Church As Best We Can, Matthew 16: 13-19 Nobody knew or knows how to be the church in this pandemic – come and hear about Wayside Chapel’s Story of life, death and re-birth. In Wesley Canberra and live-streamed | A Year with the Old Testament How can we bring the stories of the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible alive in preaching? What difference might this make to the discipleship journey of a faith community? Watch Live-stream at St Mark’s |
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| 10:30am | |||
| 11:00am | In Wesley Canberra and live-streamed | The Idea of Home The Idea of Home: Jesus, the hometown crowd and the struggle between good news and comfortable news. Rev Carolyn Francis brings a sermon on Luke 4 while Rev Radhika Sukumar-White curates a worship experience of music and prayer to invite us to grapple with the possibility that the good news might just take us to the very edge of what is comfortable, expected or accepted. In Sydney and live-streamed |
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| 12:00pm | Enjoy the local eateries around our venue | Dr Ruth Powell The importance of preaching: church attenders and leaders share their views What do church attenders think of the preaching? How well equipped do leaders feel to preach and teach? This half-hour presentation draws on National Church Life Survey results. We learn how preaching is highly valued by attenders. We also find out who gets to preach and what topics have received attention most often. Further, we learn if local church leaders feel adequately trained and equipped for preaching and whether local churches have offered training for laypeople in this important area of ministry. In Wesley Canberra and live-streamed Enjoy the local eateries around our venue | Enjoy the local eateries around our venue |
| 2:00pm | Embodied Preaching – Present with our whole selves The craft of preaching fulfills its potential when the preacher takes seriously their physicality, their emotions, and those of the congregation; when the preacher embraces the embodied nature of the gathering (even via online streaming), and of the relationship between preacher and congregation. Sarah draws on her practice as a biblical storyteller and performance poet, and will engage with scholars such as Jana Childers, Charles Sherlock, and Ahmi Lee, to consider preaching through the lens of performance. Sarah will also share insights from her own book Embodied Performance (2020), which introduces Embodied Performance Analysis, an approach to engaging with the Bible that utilises body, emotion, and relationship as interpretive tools. In-class teaching and live-streamed | Cultural Exegesis Watch Live-stream at St Mark’s |
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| 3:00pm | |||
| 3:30pm | Illustrations: The Power of Story Why Use Illustrations? Illustrations aid understanding, attract and maintain attention, and enhance retention. We all love stories, and illustrations also contain the emotive power of the story we are trying to tell. Watch Live Stream at St Mark’s | Vision Casting Preaching provides a unique opportunity to cast a compelling vision that invites a community to more fully participate in the mission of God. Grounded in Luke 4:16-20, Stu will invite us to consider what it means to follow Jesus with soft hearts, sharp minds, hard feet and open hands. In Sydney and live-streamed |
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| 4:30pm | |||
Thursday 3 June 2021
| 9:00am | |||
| 9:30am | What Poets Can Teach Preachers About Surviving, Thriving, and Talking About What We Do This has been a year when preachers have had to draw on wisdom wherever we can find it. Poets, who might be a preacher’s closest cousins, are a rich source of that wisdom, with much to teach us about the work we share, the life we seek, and the words that shape the journey. Live-streamed from the US |
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| 10:30am | |||
| 11:00am | Back into the Architect’s Hands: a sermon about John 3:1-21 In Wesley Canberra and live-streamed | What is preaching for? Lecture: Not lecturing, not entertaining, not seeking to be relevant – What is preaching for? In Sydney and live-streamed |
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| 12:00pm | Enjoy the local eateries around our venue |
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| 2:00pm | Narrative Preaching for a Worshipping Community This lecture looks at how narrative preaching can be formative for a worshipping community. The stories we tell, and how we tell them, recreate the world. In-class and live-streamed | Watch Live-stream at St Mark’s |
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| 3:00pm | |||
| 3:30pm | Getting the Application Right This session looks at the features of a good application, the important of right applications, why we should apply the Word faithfully, and how to let the text determine the application. Watch Live Stream at St Mark’s | Watch Live-stream at St Mark’s |
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| 4:00pm | Rev’d Fran Barber and Rev’d Liam Miller In this webinar a panel will discuss their big takeaways from Preachfest. What provoked and compelled, what threads emerged between numerous talks and sermons, what didn’t we hear that we thought we might, and how might we go about grounding the learning in our own contexts and work? Online Session |
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| 5:00pm | |||
St Mark’s National Theological Centre
15 Blackall Street BARTON ACT 2600Wesley Uniting Church, Canberra
20-22 National Circuit, Forrest ACT 2603St Stephen’s Uniting Church, Sydney
197 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000- Early Bird price until 30 April — $99.00
- Full 3-day Conference – $125.00
- Virtual Ticket — $50
About The Speaker
Rev’d Michael Raiter is a gifted, internationally recognised speaker of the Christian faith. Born in Liverpool, England and raised in New South Wales, Australia, Mike began his career as a high school teacher in Sydney and Pakistan. He studied at Moore Theological College in Sydney, becoming the head of the Department of Missions in 1997. On concluding his study at Moore, he returned to Pakistan to teach at the Zarephath Bible Institute. Subsequently, he worked with Church Missionary Society Australia and Interserve in Pakistan. From 2006–2011, Mike served as the principal of the Melbourne School of Theology, an evangelical theological college.
Mike is currently the Director of the Centre for Biblical Preaching, an organisation that seeks to train and equip churches around the globe in expository preaching. Mike is also the author of a number of books, including Stirrings of the Soul: Evangelicals and The New Spirituality, which won the 2004 SPCK Australian Christian Book of the Year Award.
Rev’d Dr Sarah Agnew is a storyteller, poet, and minister – this three-fold vocation and identity giving shape to a life guided by Christian spirituality.
Sarah has particular skills as a storyteller and poet, and as a teacher and facilitator of workshops. Her PhD explored the way performance – oral storytelling – leads to interpretation of biblical texts. While in theological college in Adelaide, she was involved in many fresh expressions/alternative worship projects.
Sarah is a published author and poet. Her liturgy has featured in Seasons of the Spirit (Woodlake), Fig Trees and Furnaces, Winter, and The Wild Goose Big Book of Liturgies volume 2 (Wild Goose), and as e-liturgies for Wild Goose Publications.
Dr Michael Frost is an internationally recognised Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker.
Since 1999, Dr Frost has been the founding director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. He has also been an adjunct lecturer at various seminaries in the United States.
He is the author or editor of nineteen theological books, the best known of which are the popular and award-winning, The Shaping of Things to Come (2003), Exiles (2006), The Road to Missional (2011) and Surprise the World! (2016). Frost’s work has been translated into German, Korean, Swedish, Portuguese and Spanish.
Rev’d Dr Sam Wells has been Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields since 2012. He has served as a parish priest for 20 years – 10 of those in urban priority areas. He also spent 7 years in North Carolina, where he was Dean of Duke University Chapel.
Sam is also Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College. He is a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He has published 35 books, including works on Christian ethics, mission, ministry, scripture, liturgy, and preaching.
Sam is married to Jo Wells, who is Bishop of Dorking. They have two children.- Dr Anna Carter Florence (US)
- Rev Dr Sam Wells (UK)
- Rev Dr Peter Hobson
- Rev Dr Peter Walker
- Rev Carolyn Francis
For More Information
For more information on this event, contact Rev’d Anna Boxwell.
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