1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
In this seminar Jennifer Ackerman will discuss the vital role of peer learning to keep preachers fresh, even as she highlights a number of resources being used by the Micah Group project of peer learning groups. Neal Plantinga and Frank Thomas will also present ideas from their experience of resourcing preachers. Plantinga will speak of his role in leading the “Imaginative Reading for Creative Preaching” seminars and Thomas of his work with the “Preaching as Celebration” digital lecture series. Together the presenters will give seminar participants hands-on ideas on how to engage the resources and opportunities that are available.
Participants: Jennifer Ackerman, Cornelius Plantinga Jr., and Frank A. Thomas, moderated by Scott Hoezee
Pastor-scholar Andrew Wilkes shares how his worshiping community, Double Love Experience Church, prayed and sang the psalms during the troubling times of 2020. The psalms gave them language and support for praise and lament, and Wilkes asserts that lament is the evidence of faith because we are bringing our troubles to God.
Author and pastor-scholar David Taylor shares how he came to appreciate the psalms and how he encourages people to bring their full, unedited selves to God in prayer and experience a richer and more honest life of faith.
Old Testament scholar Nancy deClaissé-Walford has spent her career studying the ordering of the Psalter. Most of the psalms, she says, are not tied to a particular situation, allowing us to sing and pray them honestly in our own contexts.
Pastor-scholar Andrew Wilkes shares how his worshiping community, Double Love Experience Church, prayed and sang the psalms during the troubling times of 2020. The psalms gave them language and support for praise and lament, and Wilkes asserts that lament is the evidence of faith because we are bringing our troubles to God.
Author and pastor-scholar David Taylor shares how he came to appreciate the psalms and how he encourages people to bring their full, unedited selves to God in prayer and experience a richer and more honest life of faith.
Old Testament scholar Nancy deClaissé-Walford has spent her career studying the ordering of the Psalter. Most of the psalms, she says, are not tied to a particular situation, allowing us to sing and pray them honestly in our own contexts.
A Psalm Talk by Jared E. Alcántara recorded at the 2026 Psalms 150 conference, with a visual prayer and embodied response from artist Dea Jenkins.
