Advancing the Vision 2024

The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery is the Dean of Duke University Chapel and Professor of Homiletics and African and African American Studies. He holds faculty appointments in Duke’s Divinity School and the Department of African and African American Studies in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. A national leader in the theological study of the art of preaching (homiletics), Dean Powery regularly delivers sermons at Duke Chapel as well as churches throughout the United States and abroad. He is often a keynote speaker and lecturer at educational institutions, conferences, symposia, and retreats.

His teaching and research interests are at the intersection of preaching, pneumatology, music, and culture, particularly expressions of the African diaspora. His book, Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race, received the 2023 Book of the Year from the Academy of Parish Clergy. He is also the author of Spirit Speech: Lament and Celebration in Preaching; Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death, and Hope; Ways of the Word: Learning to Preach for Your Time and Place (with Sally Brown); Rise Up, Shepherd! Advent Reflections on the Spirituals; Were You There? Lenten Reflections on the Spirituals; Getting to God: Preaching Good News in a Troubled World (with John Rottman and Joni Sancken); and most recently, Living the Questions of the Bible. He is a general editor of the nine-volume lectionary commentary series for preaching and worship Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship.

He is married to Gail Powery, and the couple has two children.