Senior Pastor
Historic Hill First Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Allison Henderson-Brooks is a 4th generation licensed and ordained Baptist preacher. She was baptized at the age of ten by the late Rev. Dr. Howard W. Creecy Sr. and has been proclaiming the good news since she was 15 years old.

The second child of the late Gregory and Cynthia Henderson, Allison is a graduate of Spelman College receiving her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 2008 and the Candler School of Theology at Emory University earning a Master of Divinity in 2019. In May of 2024, she earned her Doctor of Ministry from Memphis Theological Seminary in Womanist Preaching. This cohort was the inaugural cohort concentrating on womanist preaching in the country led by the Rev. Dr. Gina Marcia Stewart, Pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, TN and the first woman to lead a Black Baptist Denomination.

Currently, Dr. Henderson-Brooks serves as the Assistant Dean of Students at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Prior to beginning her academic career, she served in three of the world’s iconic hospitality companies in the disciplines of Operations Management, Revenue Management, and Performance Analytics. In November 2022, she was elected to serve as Senior Pastor at the Historic Hill First Baptist Church in Athens, GA. She is the first woman elected to serve North Georgia’s oldest Black Baptist Church in their 159-year history. She is a sought-after preacher who travels and preaches across the country and abroad. Her ministry and academic accomplishments are too numerous to notate. However, in 2023, she was inducted into The Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and in April of 2025 she was inducted into the Bishop Alford G. Dunston Jr. College of Preachers at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC. Her greatest joy is being happily married to Andrew Brooks and being the proud mother of their inquisitive and adventurous 14-year-old son.

In addition, Allison is a proud and active member of Nu Lambda Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She embodies her grandmother’s favorite hymn, “Only what you do for Christ for Last” in all her endeavors. Her goals, dreams, and aspirations are captured in the quote by Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays that states, “In all that you do, strive to do it so well that no man living, no man dead, and no man yet to be born can do it better!”

Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ

Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill., Dr. Otis Moss III is a preacher, activist, and author. Over the last two decades, Dr. Moss has practiced and preached a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problems of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality. A third-generation warrior for civil and human rights, Dr. Moss is committed to preaching a prophetic message of love and justice, which he believes are inseparable companions that form the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These very touchstones are taken up in his latest book project, Dancing in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times, released in November 2022.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Moss is an honors graduate of Morehouse College, and earned a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Doctor of Ministry from Chicago Theological Seminary. Dr. Moss has a passion for preaching and exercises his homiletical muscle as a professor of homiletics at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University. In this role, Dr. Moss is positioned to help up-and-coming preachers build and strengthen their own preaching ministries. The work and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the pastoral ministry of his father, Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. of Cleveland, Ohio, are fundamental in his spiritual formation.

Proclaimers Place; President
Joel Gregory Ministries

Reverend Joel C. Gregory, Ph.D., is an internationally respected preacher, teacher, scholar of preaching, and mentor to pastors. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Baylor University; a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; a Master of Theology with Merit from Oxford University; and a Ph.D. in Religion from Baylor University. His ministry has included student pastorates, congregational pastorates, teaching appointments, and decades of itinerant preaching across churches, colleges, seminaries, conventions, and conferences.

Dr. Gregory has served as a professor of preaching at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, where he was the initial holder of the George W. Truett Chair of Preaching. He also served as the inaugural director of the Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching and helped shape the school’s work in preaching, including the development of a doctoral program in preaching. Baylor recognized his teaching through the Outstanding Professor designation, and he has been honored for a lifetime of faithful service to the church and academy.

In 2005, Dr. Gregory founded Proclaimers Place, a seminar ministry designed to equip and strengthen preachers through intensive instruction, modeling, mentoring, and apprenticeship in the task of proclamation. Proclaimers Place has served pastors and preachers across the United States and internationally. Through Joel Gregory Ministries, he has preached and taught in numerous churches and conferences annually and has spoken in settings across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond.

Dr. Gregory previously served as preacher on the International Baptist Hour, a syndicated radio broadcast aired on hundreds of stations, and served two terms as president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. His preaching ministry has included significant national and international moments, including the Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa, and the citywide memorial message in Charleston, South Carolina, on the second anniversary of the deaths of the Emanuel Nine. He is widely recognized for his contribution to the practice and theology of preaching.

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie
President and General Secretary
National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie is a preacher, conference speaker, author, documentarian, dynamic leader, and much more. She is the President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, representing 37 denominations and 30 million people worldwide advocating for social justice, peace and ecumenical unity.

Under her leadership, the NCC received a $5 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. through its National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life. She is the first African American woman to serve in this position, as well as, the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Bishop McKenzie is an active leader in social justice, having served on the White House Commission of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and named one of the 50 Most Powerful Women Religious Leaders by the Huffington Post.

She is also the founder of Selah, The Leadership Encounter for Women, and the author of six books on leadership and personal growth. A graduate of the University of Maryland, Howard University, and United Theological Seminary, she is a passionate mentor and global educator who leads with unwavering faith, wisdom, and dedication to service in everything she does.

Reverend Dr. Gabby Cudjoe-Wilkes
Senior Pastor
Double Love Experience Church

Rev. Dr. Gabby Cudjoe Wilkes is a public theologian, author, and innovation strategist redefining how faith, media, and culture shape the public square. As Director of the Technology, Innovation & Digital Engagement Lab at Union Theological Seminary and founding co-lead pastor of The Double Love Experience Church in Brooklyn, she stands at the forefront of a new era of spiritual leadership.

Dr. Gabby is the co-author of the best-selling book, Psalms for Black Lives: Reflections for the Work of Liberation and a national voice on how theology can inform justice, creativity, and community building. Her work has been featured in Essence, Forbes, The New York Times, and PBS’s GOSPEL with Henry Louis Gates Jr.

A graduate of Duke, Yale, NYU, and Hampton University, Dr. Gabby embodies transformative, justice-centered leadership rooted in love and imagination. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the Board President of Yale Divinity School Alumni Association, a member of the prestigious Morehouse College MLK Board of Preachers and the Chaplain for the North Atlantic Chapter of the Hampton University Alumni Association.

Distinguished Professor of Divinity
Beeson Divinity School
Samford University

Reverend Dr. Robert Smith, Jr. is Distinguished Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, where he served for more than twenty-five years as professor of Christian preaching and held the Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity. Before joining Beeson, he served as the Carl E. Bates Associate Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is widely regarded as a preacher, teacher, scholar, and mentor in the field of Christian proclamation.

An ordained Baptist minister, Dr. Smith served for twenty years as pastor of New Mission Missionary Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and earned his Ph.D. while serving as a pastor. His vocation joins pulpit and classroom, pastoral leadership and scholarship, theological depth and homiletical imagination. He is recognized as a popular teacher and preacher and received Southern Seminary’s Findley B. Edge Award for Teaching Excellence in 1996.

Dr. Smith has made significant contributions to the study and practice of preaching. He is the author of Doctrine That Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life, which won Preaching magazine’s 2008 Preaching Book of the Year Award and was recognized by Christianity Today’s preaching.com as the 2009 Preaching Book of the Year. Preaching magazine later named Doctrine That Dances one of the twenty-five most influential books in preaching over a twenty-five-year span. He has also written The Oasis of God: From Mourning to Morning and Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus in Joshua.

Dr. Smith has contributed to and edited works focused on Christian ministry, preaching, worship, and theological formation, including resources connected to African American church ministry and preaching in honor of Gardner C. Taylor. In 2017, he was named a Living Legend by the E. K. Bailey Expository Preaching Conference. He has spoken at more than 135 universities, colleges, and seminaries across the United States, Great Britain, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean.

Founder and Executive Director
Equal Justice Initiative

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. A widely acclaimed public interest lawyer, he has dedicated his career to serving the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has pursued major legal challenges addressing excessive and unfair sentencing, wrongful convictions, abuse of incarcerated people and people with mental illness, and the prosecution of children as adults.

Mr. Stevenson has argued multiple cases before the United States Supreme Court and has won major rulings, including a landmark 2012 decision that banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children age seventeen or younger and a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia. He and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release for more than 140 wrongly condemned death row prisoners and have secured relief for hundreds of people who were wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced.

Beyond courtroom advocacy, Mr. Stevenson has led major public education and truth-telling initiatives that confront poverty, racial inequality, and the legacy of slavery, lynching, segregation, and mass incarceration. He led the creation of EJI’s Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, and Montgomery Square. These sites invite the public to reckon with the historical roots of racial injustice and their connection to contemporary systems of punishment and inequality.

Mr. Stevenson is the author of the bestselling book Just Mercy, which has been adapted into a major motion picture. His work has received numerous honors, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize, the American Bar Association Medal, the ACLU National Medal of Liberty, the Right Livelihood Award, and the National Humanities Medal. He has received more than sixty honorary doctoral degrees and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Senior Pastor
Mount Ararat Baptist Church

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. William H. Curtis accepted the call to ministry at the age of 17. For seven years, he served as the Senior Pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church in York, PA; however, since1997, he has served as the Senior Pastor at Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, PA.

Dr. Curtis has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards. In 2009, he was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College. In the spring of 2010, Dr. Curtis moved from the speaking arena into the publishing arena with his first book, “FAITH -- Learning to Live Without Fear,” which is currently in its fourth printing. His second book, “Dressed for Victory: Putting on the Full Armor of God” was released in April 2015 and is currently in its second printing. And, his third book “Mentor Shift” was published in May 2019. “One Day Closer” a compilation of his mediations during the Pandemic shut-in from March 2020 thru May 2021 was published in June 2021; and it was followed by “One Day Closer”–Volume 2 which was published in June 2022.

Dr. Curtis is an Instructor at the United Theological Seminary and has graduated several groups of doctoral students at the institution. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Virginia Union University. Aside from pastoral instruction, he is Co-Owner of The Church Online, a successful technology and full-service marketing firm that provides top of the line services to ministries all over the world.

Dr. Curtis holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Morgan State University, a Master of Divinity Degree from Howard University School of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry Degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Curtis is married to the former Christine Y. Richardson, and they are the proud parents of one lovely daughter, Dr. Houston M. Curtis.