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Fall Convocation | November 10-11, 2025

Online Registration: September 15, 2025 - October 30, 2025

 Perkins Fall Convocation is an annual gathering highlighting various intersections of faith and culture through relevant lectures, presentations, workshops and liturgical expressions around a selected theme. Formerly Ministers Week, Fall Convocation offers a broad learning community for church and community leaders alike.

Monday, November 10, 2025

10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. | The Fondren Lecture in Christian Mission & Community Engagement with Dr. Monika Ardelt

• How is wisdom related to religiosity and spirituality and how do they affect individual well-being?
  
  After attending this presentation, participants will be able to understand how wisdom, religiosity, and spirituality are defined and measured and how wisdom is related to religiosity and spirituality. Participants will also be able to describe how wisdom, religiosity, and spirituality affect psychological and subjective well-being and attitudes toward death. Moreover, participants will learn how relatively low and high wisdom and religious spirituality manifest in four older individuals’ lives.

12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. | Lunch & Learn - The Barton Lecture in Hispanic Theology & Ministry with Dr. M. Daniel Carroll R. (Rodas)

•  A Light unto My Path? Discerning Prophetic Words for the Latino/a Church Today
  
  We find ourselves once again in complicated times. Can the Old Testament offer a relevant word from God today for the Latino/a church and from the Latin/o church to the broader society? How and where might this be found? This lecture seeks to identify and explore passages that might shed light on possible ways forward en esta coyuntura desafiante.

2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. | The Tate-Wilson Lecture in Faith and Public Life with Rev. Dr. Almeda M. Wright

•  Improvising a Better World: Black Religion, Activist Education and Radical Social Change 
  
  This lecture explores the improvisational pedagogy and leadership of 20th-century educators as a means of exploring the interconnections of faith, education, and social change. We will explore underacknowledged exemplars of faith and social change: community leaders and teachers. For example, the lecture makes connections between the type of leadership development that was essential to the Citizenship Education program of the Civil Rights movement, alongside earlier movements that empowered youth and young adults to faithfully respond to the calls to work for change. Figures like Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Clark initially seem to be an unlikely inspiration for ministry leaders; however, like many other 20th-century African American women teachers, they embodied an unwavering faith in God, in their cause, and in themselves that pushed them to continue working for justice despite efforts to thwart them.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. | The Peyton lecture in Preaching

12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. | Lunch & Learn - The United Methodist Studies Lecture in Wesleyan History and Contemporary Engagement