Sr. Minister Nancy Taylor returns to alma mater for visitorship

April 20, 2016

This week, I will be at Yale Divinity School as the Luccock Visitor. As the Luccock Visitor I will co-teach a class on Reformed Worship, lead several focused discussions, lead worship in Chapel, and share a great many meals with different groups of students and faculty. My subjects include leading public prayers in civic venues, working with a church staff, prayer in the life of a spiritual leader, and appreciating genre as a key to understanding the Bible.

It is an honor to have been invited to this visitorship and I accept the honor on behalf of Old South Church, for we share this together. We share this together Old South Church because you are on the map as a rocking church. God is here. Ministry is happening here. This church is on fire! If you were not at Old South Church this past Sunday, know this: we hosted the world!

About Halford E. Luccock. Born in 1885, Luccock was a prominent American Methodist minister, a prolific writer, and published author. He served as professor of homiletics at Yale Divinity School from 1928 to 1953.

In his own words:

We have a moral obligation to be interesting, for our gospel is loaded with life-and-death interest for people.

And this:

The aim of preaching is not the elucidation of a subject, but the transformation of a person. Our task is the sharing of intense faith and experience.

And this:

We will never be brought to confusion, even in such a baffling and muddled world as ours, if we have a faith in a God of love as the ultimate power in the universe. The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned.

In 1938, the Reverend Professor Luccock warned:

When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'. It will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called 'Americanism.' The high-sounding phrase 'the American way' will be used to cover a multitude of sins such as lawless violence, teargas and shotguns, denial of civil liberties? There is an obligation resting on us all to dedicate our minds to the hard task of thinking in terms of Christian objectives and values, so that we may be saved from moral confusion.

I am glad to make the acquaintance of Halford E. Luccock and pray to serve as a small vessel of his Christian wisdom.

-Rev. Nancy S. Taylor