Each Wednesday during the Lenten Preaching Series, an evening event featuring a Lenten Preaching Series' speaker will be held in Calvary's Great Hall from 6:30-7:30 pm. There is no charge for admission. Childcare for children five and under will be available in Calvary's Orgill Room during the Wednesday Great Hall events. A dinner is served at 5:00 pm in the Mural Room.
2009 Evening Event Speakers
MARCH 4 at 12:05 pm and 6:30 pm
Wednesday
THE REV. DR. SCOTT MORRIS
Founder & Executive Director
Church Health Center, Memphis, TN
Dr. Scott Morris, a family practice physician and ordained United Methodist minister, founded the Church Health Center in 1987, to provide quality, affordable healthcare for working, uninsured people and their families. Thanks to a broad base of financial support from the faith community, and the volunteer help of doctors, nurses, dentists and others, the Church Health Center Clinic has grown to become the largest faith-based clinic of its type in the country. Along with St. John’s United Methodist Church and other community partners, Morris has promoted the intersection of faith and health with the annual “Faith & Health” series which brings well-known speakers to Memphis each spring and fall.
MARCH 11 at 12:05 pm and 6:30 pm
MARCH 12 at 12:05 pm
Wednesday and Thursday
SARA MILESFounder & Executive Director of St. Gregory's Food Pantry & Author of Take This Bread
San Francisco, CA
Author Sara Miles is the Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and works with churches and community groups to connect liturgy and service. Her book, Take This Bread, recounts how she was raised an atheist, lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and writer, and how early one morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. "I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian," she writes. "Or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut." But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed. Inspired by the experience of her conversion, Sara Miles founded The Food Pantry, which offers free groceries to over 750 hungry families a week and organizes poor people to feed each other.
Wednesday
THE REV. DR. DAVID BRECKENRIDGE
Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, Memphis, TN
The Rev. Dr. David Breckenridge is the new Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church, Memphis, a congregation that has chosen to stay in its original location and focus ministries on the inner-city rather than moving its congregation to the suburbs. Each Sunday, at 11:00 a.m., the church broadcasts its morning worship service live on WREG (Channel 3).
Dr. Breckenridge is from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. His previous churches include Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, KY; Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, AR; and Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA.
A Thursday evening event will be offered on March 19.
MARCH 19 at 12:05 pm and 6:30 pm
MARCH 20 at 12:05 pm
Thursday and Friday
THE RT. REV. GENE ROBINSON
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire
Concord, NH
Although he has been a focus of controversy in the Anglican Communion, Bishop Robinson’s real ministry is about preaching the Gospel and helping congregations in the Diocese of New Hampshire to be faithful witnesses to the love of Christ in their communities. After his graduation from the University of the South and General Seminary in New York City, he founded Sign of the Dove retreat center in Temple, New Hampshire, and served as youth ministry coordinator for Episcopal churches in New England. He has consistently worked in AIDS education and prevention, civil rights programs, and programs to combat poverty and promote the Millennium Development Goals, both in New Hampshire and internationally.
MARCH 25 at 6:30 pm
Wednesday
Director of The St. Martin de Porres Shrine & Institute
Associate Pastor of St. Peter Catholic Church
Memphis, TN
The Rev. John Pitzer, O.P., a native of Texas, has been a member of the Dominican Order since 1994. He is a graduate of Sterling College in Kansas, and finished his theological training at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.
APRIL 1 at 6:30 pm
APRIL 2 and 3 at 12:05 pm
Wednesday Evening and Thursday and Friday
MEGAN McKENNA
Author, Theologian, Storyteller, & Lecturer
Albuquerque, NM
Megan McKenna is an internationally-known author, lecturer, retreat leader, and spiritual director. Since the 1970s, when she taught at Loyola University, she has championed the power of connecting our biblical heritage with personal experience. She received her doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and has taught in Dublin, Ireland, Asia, South America, Chicago, Marshall Islands, Thailand, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she currently lives. She is the author of more than 30 books, including And Morning Came - Scriptures of the Resurrection, Praying the Rosary, Send My Roots Rain, The New Stations of the Cross, On Your Mark - Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross, and the recently released, Harm Not The Earth.