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Will Willimon ’71 M.Div., Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School, presented the three-part Beecher Lectures at YDS September 14-16, 2021.

Dr. Willimon presented the three-part Beecher Lectures as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of his graduation from YDS. The theme for his lectures is “Preachers Dare: Speaking for God.” His second lecture is “Preaching: God Getting What God Wants.”

Will Willimon earned degrees from Wofford College (B.A.), Yale Divinity School (M.Div.), and Emory University (S.T.D.). A dozen colleges and universities have awarded him honorary degrees. He is the author of roughly 90 books and has served as Bishop of the United Methodist Church. One of his most recent books is Accidental Preacher: A Memoir, which portrays his formative years at YDS. For 20 years he was Dean of Duke University Chapel. Earlier this year, Will’s preaching was the subject of a PBS documentary, “A Will to Preach.”

The recipient of the YDS Distinction in Ordained Ministry Award in 1992, Will, along with his wife, has established the Will and Patsy Willimon Scholarship at YDS.

One of the most distinguished lecture series on preaching in the world, the Divinity School’s Lyman Beecher Lectureship was founded in 1871 by a gift from Henry W. Sage of Brooklyn, N.Y., as a memorial to “the great divine whose name it bears,” to sponsor an annual series of lectures on a topic appropriate to the work of the ministry.