Hello!

I am the Instructor of Preaching at Bexley Seabury Seminary. I guide students through the nuances of effectively communicating the gospel across diverse contexts, emphasizing attention to marginalized communities and contemporary societal issues.

I teach Introduction to Preaching and a Preaching Lab, as well as electives in Preaching Imagination that focus on rhetoric, form, and public proclamation. I lead a course called Learning from Alabama that explores the Civil Rights sites in Alabama and considers the role of place and memory in proclamation. Additional courses taught include Constitution and Canons, Reading Walter Brueggemann, and Reading Pauli Murray.

My academic and professional training includes a Bachelor of Arts in History, a Juris Doctorate, the National Criminal Defense College, Education for Ministry through Sewanee, and the Alabama Ministry School. I am a homiletic peer coach, having completed the David G. Buttrick Graduate Certificate Program in Homiletic Peer Coaching through Vanderbilt Divinity School. I have also completed the Teach Leadership program through the Kansas Leadership Center. I am a trained Thriving in Ministry mentor-coach. In 2024, through Bethany Theological Seminary, I completed a Master of Arts in Theopoetics and Writing with honors in Theological Studies and distinction for my portfolio, “A Preaching Theopoet: Afrofuturism, Theopoetics, and a Labyrinthine Journey.” I am a student at the Candler School of Theology at Emory, pursuing a Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Interpretation and Proclamation.

I was ordained as a deacon in October 2011 and served churches in Fayette, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Fairfield. My diaconal ministry included directing the Episcopal Tornado Recovery Cooperative, a collaborative effort of the Episcopal churches in Tuscaloosa to respond to the devastating April 2011 tornadoes. I was ordained a priest in November 2020 and have served churches across the diocese, including in Birmingham, Heflin, Greensboro, Alabaster, Roanoke, and Chelsea. For fifteen years, I served as a spiritual director for the Diocese of Alabama Vocare Community. I have served on various diocesan committees, including the Standing Committee, the Bishop’s Committee on Generous Pastoral Response, the Department of Campus Ministry, and the Young Adult Ministry Steering Committee. I served as the Lead Documentarian for the Alabama State Committee of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Previously, I served as the Canon for Vocations and Community Engagement in the Diocese of Alabama. In this role, I worked with leaders (lay and ordained) and with those in discernment and formation for ordained ministry. I also served as the Communications Coordinator for the Diocese of Alabama. Before joining the diocese, I practiced law as a public defender, in private practice, and as the interim director of a legal clinic at the University of Alabama School of Law.

My spouse, Shanti, is a poet, writer, and professor. We live in Birmingham, Alabama, with the “Ginger Brothers” — an orange cat named Julien and a corgi named Brother Juniper. I serve part-time as Associate Rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Homewood, Alabama.