About Us
Program Co-Directors
Matt Fitzgerald
Matt Fitzgerald is an award winning preacher and essayist. He has led churches in Chicago for twenty of his twenty five years as a preacher, serving as the Senior Pastor of Saint Pauls UCC since 2012. Matt is a contributor to various publications including Poetry Magazine, the Journal for Preachers, and the Christian Century, where he hosted the “Preachers on Preaching” podcast.
He has taught preaching with Cynthia Lindner at the University of Chicago Divinity School and lectured on the topic at his alma mater, Yale Divinity School. He lives in Chicago with his family. They root for the Boston Celtics.
Cynthia Lindner
Cynthia Lindner is Director of Ministry Studies and Clinical Faculty for Preaching and Pastoral Care in the Divinity School, where she teaches courses in the arts of religious leadership and practice.
She has worked as a congregational pastor, a hospice chaplain, and is a pastoral psychotherapist at the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy. Her book Varieties of Gifts: Multiplicity and the Well-Lived Pastoral Life, explores the inner lives of pastors, particularly the phenomenon of pastoral “multiple-mindedness,” and is also a tribute to this complicated, powerful calling.
Lindner admires the courage, imagination, and commitment of the religious leaders she has known, and is grateful for the Lilly Endowment’s initiatives that support and encourage innovation among clergy. She was one of the directors of the Divinity School’s Chicago Commons Project, an early-career pastoral leadership development program funded by the Lilly Endowment, and she is excited by this opportunity to collaborate with Matt Fitzgerald, along with our participating artists and preachers, as we explore risk and experience in preaching.
The Divinity School
The Divinity School at the University of Chicago is pleased to collaborate with the Lilly Endowment and Chicago area clergy in the “Risky Preaching” program, an exploration of the power and practice of preaching in our time. A global leader in the study of religion, the Divinity School approaches religious studies and religious leadership with attention to inquiry, innovation, and awareness of how scholarship impacts questions of public and contemporary concern.
The Divinity School brings together—and pioneers—multiple perspectives and approaches to religion. We teach the critical skills that are necessary for relating to the evolving and complicated roles religion plays in the worlds we inhabit, in meaningful, responsible, creative, and adaptive ways. Work here is deeply informed, intellectually curious, and honestly engaged.
This program is funded through a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative. The aim of the initiative is to foster and support preaching that inspires, encourages, and guides people to come to know and love God, and to live out their faith more fully.
Lilly Endowment, Inc.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.
A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe
You’re invited to apply.
Please also read our About and Guest Artists sections. If you’re excited by the challenge, and feel you have the openness and energy to explore and expand the unknown future of preaching, please apply.