WomanPreach! Inc. is an outgrowth of a course taught at Memphis Theological Seminary by Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman and a workshop she co-taught at the Washington Cathedral College with Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes, dean of Yale Divinity School. The session, following the course, trained women’s voices to preach and helped them learn literary and historical references on which to lean when dealing with sexist and other marginalizing behaviors. The course aimed to provide women with tools for preaching to the whole church, especially members who are often dismissed, overlooked or minimized by preachers who do not take justice issues seriously.

As women committed to the proclamation of the Good News are emerging from churches and academic institutions that have often been insensitive and/or inhospitable to their vocation, gifting, and voice, it becomes paramount that additional intimate, practical training and a nurturing space that empowers women preachers for public proclamation is created. An environment that acknowledges the socio-political, cultural, and religious context from which they come and through which their unique persons and stories have been shaped provides an ideal setting to nurture women preachers to hone their voices for public proclamation with a particular eye toward Womanist/Feminist concerns of justice. WomanPreach! Inc. will offer programs that allow women preachers to receive women-specific, personal instruction and care and will strengthen the voices of trained women called to declare God’s word. It will fill a unique and important niche by being among the few organizations that seeks to bring preaching women into full prophetic voice around issues of equity and justice both in the pulpit and in the public arena.