Pulpit & Pew
Pulpit & Pew: The Duke Center for Excellence in Ministry, is a divinity school program that supports and advances the practice of healthy, holistic and imaginative Christian ministry throughout the Church.
Funded primarily by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Center builds upon an earlier research effort—Pulpit & Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership—that identified some of the most critical issues facing pastoral ministry today. Drawing upon those studies and the work of other projects throughout the divinity school and elsewhere, the Center works to improve the practice of pastoral ministry in light of theological understandings of excellence.
Much of the Center’s work is focused on Advancing Pastoral Excellence, a four-year Lilly grant aimed at implementing real change in the Church in the United States. As part of that effort, the Center is:
- Convening working groups of national leaders to design action strategies for change in such areas as clergy compensation, clergy health, pastoral placement, assessment and evaluation, and pastoral call.
- Commissioning new research and pilot projects that show particular promise for advancing pastoral excellence.
- Holding national forums to disseminate and test project findings with selected leaders who are positioned to help transform the landscape of pastoral ministry.
- Creating a broad communications program aimed at conveying findings to the public and cultivating new patterns of writing and communicating about excellent ministry.
In addition, the Center for Excellence in Ministry also administers the divinity school's longstanding Ormond Center program and participates in the educational life of the divinity school, providing classroom instruction to seminary students and, in conjunction with the Office of Continuing Education, to working pastors.
Nathan Kirkpatrick, M.Div.
Director, Pulpit & Pew
(919) 660-3423
John B. James, Jr.
Project Coordinator
(919) 660-3482