The Incarnational Preaching Project A yearlong experience for preachers

Each IPP annual cohort will assemble up to 30 preachers. “Preachers,” in this case, needn’t be people with the word “pastor” in their job title; however, preaching should be a significant and ongoing part of IPP participants’ ministry.

In the firm belief that more and broader perspectives are necessary to perceive and respond to the movement of God's Spirit, IPP intentionally assembles cohorts that are diverse across denominational, racial/ethnic, geographic, and gender lines. We welcome participants from all Christian backgrounds, all ordination statuses, and all pastoral ranks and specialties; participants should expect to learn and benefit from interaction with branches of the Christian family that are quite different from their own.

By the terms of our funding agreement, IPP is open to preachers who live and work in the United States, either temporarily or permanently.

The Incarnational Preaching Project is intended to help preachers contextualize, understand, and develop their preaching in ways that connect it more authentically to the human experience of the preacher and their community of hearers. We do this in conversation with a peer community of preachers, with liberal-arts faculty from many academic disciplines, with diverse laypeople, and with select hearers from preachers’ own congregations.

The centerpiece of the program is a four-day workshop (Monday-Thursday) at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA. That workshop will include:
 

• Opportunities for participants to locate themselves in the broad landscape of Christian preaching, for instance by encountering and responding to preaching in a variety of traditions;
   
• Opportunities for participants to explore the big human questions that animate preachers and hearers, for instance in conversation with liberal-arts faculty who approach those questions from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives (philosophy, theology, and history, for instance, but also art, biology, psychology, music, and other angles);
   
• Opportunities for participants to engage and seek wisdom from their hearers, for instance in dialogue with diverse laypeople from the Santa Barbara area about the value and hope that they find in Christian preaching.
   
• Opportunities for participants to consider the real needs and opportunities of the congregations to which they preach, for instance in conversation with senior preachers and cohort members about the common and particular dynamics of churches as learning communities.

During the cohort year following the workshop, participants will continue to develop their preaching through:

• One or several yearlong experiments with new incarnational habits in their own preaching, accompanied and supported by an intentionally diverse cohort of other preachers;
   
• Online small-group cohort meetings (approximately 5 or 6 meetings, depending on group size);
   
• Conversation with a small Home Feedback Team in participants’ own contexts (Home Feedback Teams consist of two hearers; up to four meals over meetings with the Home Feedback Team can be reimbursed by Westmont).

2026-27 Project

Opening Workshop: September 14-17, 2026 | Santa Barbara, CA

Cohort Year: September 2026-August 2027

Thanks to the generosity of Lilly Endowment Inc., Westmont College is able to provide this program to preachers at no cost. Travel, lodging, food, and all program activities are included for free with registration, and we offer some support for caretaking expenses incurred by participants (for childcare, pet-sitting, house-sitting, etc.). See our travel and reimbursement policy for additional details.

We're now accepting applications for the 2026-27 IPP cohort. You can download the application here; in order to receive full consideration, please submit your application by June 19, 2026. Contact the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts at libarts@westmont.edu for more information.