Mark Labberton of First Presbyterian Berkeley assumes strategic new position
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06/24/09
Fuller Seminary announces the appointment of Mark A. Labberton to the newly established Lloyd John Ogilvie Chair in Preaching. In this role Dr. Labberton, most recently the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, will also serve as director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching in Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. The chair and institute are named for celebrated preacher, author, and former U.S. Senate Chaplain Lloyd John Ogilvie.
“We welcome Dr. Labberton, a pastor and scholar who brings a wonderful blend of experience to this important new chair,” says Fuller President Richard J. Mouw. “He will help us continue and further the significant contributions of Lloyd John Ogilvie to the preaching arts.”
“With the coming of distinguished pastor and preacher Mark Labberton, Fuller's preaching department is now poised to provide dynamic leadership in preaching in North America and around the world,” agrees Clayton Schmit, Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Professor of Preaching and academic director of the Brehm Center. “We are thrilled to have this brilliant pastor-scholar join us in preparing the next generation of bold and passionate preachers.”
A Fuller alumnus, Labberton brings to his new role a passion for communicating the Word of God and over 30 years of ministry experience. He hopes the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute for Preaching can equip and inspire ministers during what he sees as a critical time of uncertainty, instability, and relativism. “Faithful preaching,” he believes, “has to affirm the gospel while engaging these varied issues of context with humility and confidence. The Church needs proclamation that seeks to form lives and communities of sacrificial love, wisdom, and justice after the likeness of Jesus Christ.”
“When I was a student at Fuller, I greatly benefited from Dr. Ogilvie’s thoughtful preaching ministry at First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood,” Labberton also shares. “He has been a faithful, bold, courageous, biblical preacher for many decades, and I feel deeply honored to be asked to occupy a chair and lead an institute established in his name.”
Labberton was senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California for the last 16 years. He has also taught at New College Berkeley for Advanced Christian Studies and served as plenary speaker at numerous conferences and events for the Presbyterian Church (USA), InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and the International Justice Mission. He has authored the books The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice (InterVarsity Press, 2007) and The Injustice of the Heart, forthcoming this year.