The Reverend Dr. J. Warren Smith of Duke Divinity School will be teaching at Genesis UMC Sundays, January 13, 20 & 27, 2019 @ 10:10 AM
Smith discerned a call to ministry while he was in high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Emory University,and during graduate school he knew his ministry would take the form of teaching. While studying for his master’s degree at Yale Divinity School, he took a year off to teach at a United Methodist mission school in Zimbabwe.
“That really solidified my sense of my calling to be a teacher,” Smith says. “I love teaching.”
For the past five years, Ellen Allen, director of adult ministries at Genesis UMC in Cary, N.C., has called on Smith to do what he loves at her church. “I give my facilitators a break in January,” she said . “I bring in a speaker during our Christian education hour. Warren is the best!”
Smith will teach for three or four Sundays in a row on various topics. “He will take a topic that is rather tough for us laypeople and make it understandable,” Allen says. “He’ll explain what it is and provide a whole new meaning to what he’s talking about. He’s engaging. And he’s funny. He’s real.”
Dr. Smith will teach on The Beatitudes in January.