Monday, September 10, 2001

WILMINGTON – The Pastoral Summit, based at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, is launching an exciting speakers series this fall that will feature some of history’s greatest spiritual role models.

The inaugural “Spiritual Masters” series, hosted at five downtown churches, will feature presentations on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Evelyn Underhill, Henri Nouwen and Martin Luther King, Jr. “Our hope is that these inspiring spiritual role models can, each in his or her own way, speak to our lives and the life of this community,” said Paul Wilkes, Pastoral Summit Project director who also teaches in UNCW‘s creative writing program.

The series begins Sept. 25 and runs through Nov. 13 with presentations given every other Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Each host church will provide a free dinner prior to the presentation where an expert will talk about the life and thought of one of the spiritual masters.

. “Churches are powerful forces — sometimes tapped and sometimes untapped — and the Pastoral Summit wants to do everything possible to encourage and applaud them,” said Wilkes, a popular religious writer and documentary filmmaker. “Here we have five churches – of vastly different traditions – who are opening their doors to all seekers. These churches are truly reaching beyond their walls to the larger community.”

The Pastoral Summit is an outgrowth of a UNCW-based national study of church excellence, which was funded by the Lilly Endowment. “What we continually found in our study,” Wilkes said, “was what unites churches far outweighs what separates them, and the Spiritual Masters series makes a bold statement of that right here in Wilmington.”

The purpose of the Pastoral Summit is to discover and disseminate examples of local church excellence wherever they might be found and to assist churches in pursuing their own excellence.

Spiritual Masters Series Schedule

Tuesdays, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

September 25 - First Baptist Church, 5th and Market

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Presenter: Jayne Davis)

October 9 - St. Mary Catholic Parish, 5th and Ann

Thomas Merton (Presenter: Paul Wilkes)

October 23 - Trinity United Methodist Church, 14th and Market

Henri Nouwen (Presenter: David Brownlee)

November 6 - St. James Episcopal Church, 3rd and Market

Evelyn Underhill (Presenter: Dr. C. Steven Teague)

November 13 - St. Luke A.M.E. Zion Church, 7th and Church

Martin Luther King, Jr. (Presenter: Dr. Freddie I. Barnes)

(For further information, contact the Pastoral Summit office at 910-962-7225 or visit our web site at www.findagreatchurch.org)