Meg’s academic inquiry comes from lived experience. Meg Jenista is an ordained pastor in the Christian Reformed Church of North America, serving two churches for a total of 15 years. Pastoring in Washington DC from 2012-2023, she is eager to better understand the role of preaching in relation to political discipleship. Standing at the intersection of public and practical theologies — specifically the disciplines of political theology and preaching — she finds compelling resources for her research interests (1) in the Neo-Calvinist tradition, especially the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, (2) in decolonial hermeneutics and homiletics and (3) in the field of public theology more broadly. In conjunction with her PhD studies, Meg serves as the Project Director for The Center for Public Justice’s 5 year 1.25 million dollar Compelling Preaching Grant Initiative, entitled: Church Reforming: Preaching for a Pluralistic Age.
Calvin Theological Seminary
BA in Communications, BA in Christian Education of Youth
Homiletics, Public Theology, Neo-Calvinism
Preaching While White: Addressing Race in the Evangelical Pulpit
2019, Lester Randall Preaching Fellowship in Toronto, Canada
Dear colleagues entrusted with the ministry and responsibility of the pulpit, thank you for the opportunity to share what I have learned and am continuing to learn as a pastor in Washington DC in 2019: – That the church today struggles with a diseased social imagination because the church — from the very start of its existence — has succumbed to the temptation of “a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.” – That faithful preaching can, in fact, cure a sick or atrophied imagination. – That faithful preaching can shape theologically literate congregations who move beyond a transactional model of salvation who recognize sin as systemic and embodied who celebrate the multiplicity of Biblical metaphors for our salvation. – Therefore, that preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is political. May this truth set you free in your pulpits. May it expand the gospel imaginations of our congregations. To the glory of God and the faithfulness of God’s people in the world. Thank you.
Building a Church for the World: Kuyper's Contextually Adaptive Ecclesiology
Abraham Kuyper’s theology of the church is not poured in concrete or delivered to us as a prefabricated kit — some assembly required. Abraham Kuyper believed that, in every generation, new needs arise. Every culture raises new questions. New interpretations and understandings lead to new disagreements requiring adjudication. In Kuyper’s own words, “Everything that truly lives undergoes gradual development, and a church that fails to understand this and refuses to make adjustments becomes impoverished and petrifies.” It is my claim that Kuyper’s ecclesiology allows, even requires, considerable contextual adaptability. It is this contextual adaptability that makes Kuyper’s theology of the church relevant to the topics of this conference: business, the academy and society. In other words, contextual adaptability makes Kuyper’s ecclesiology not just relevant to, but necessary for, Kuyper’s public theology.
Preaching What You Practice: Homiletics for the Faith and Work Movement
In 2020, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory Willson wrote Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy believing that Christian worship has the power to disciple the social imaginaries of God’s people, particularly in relation to their work. However, it is notable that a Neo-Calvinist book on worship would not — as the Reformation taught us to do — center the pulpit. As a homiletician/public theologian in training, this is my gap in scholarship to fill! My intention for the remainder of our time together is (1) to summarize the finding of my lit review related to work and preaching; (2) to draw on Abraham Kuyper’s contextual theology (or theology of context?) As a potential resource for preaching that honors the vocational lives of our hearers and (3) finally, to offer suggestions to preachers and next steps in developing an intentional faith and work homiletic.
