Leadership Team for Preaching Center Announced
Lee University has announced the Executive Leadership Team for the new Paul L. Walker Center for Pentecostal Preaching (PLWCPP). The team includes Executive Director Dr. Steve Hall, Executive Assistant Madison Chastain, and Field Director Drew Eastes.
“We are excited about the potential of the PLWCPP under this leadership team,” said Lee President Dr. Mark Walker. “They share a love for students, ministers in the field, the local church, and the ministry of preaching. We could not have asked for a better team.”
As executive director of the PLWCPP, Hall will chair the steering committee, develop a minor in preaching, and recruit mentors for participating preachers.
Hall, who will remain as an associate professor of pastoral ministry at Lee, brings a wealth of preaching experience and leadership to the Center. He joined the School of Theology & Ministry faculty in 2023 following 37 years in ministry at the local church level. He has served as a youth, associate, and lead pastor in urban and rural churches on the east and west coasts, ranging from 30 to 1000 member congregations. He earned his doctorate in spiritual formation from Ashland Theological Seminary, a master’s degree in pastoral counseling from Loyola University in Maryland, and his bachelor’s degree in biblical education from Lee. He and his wife LaDon Hall also serve as the executive directors of Ministry Oasis, a soul health ministry for ministers and their spouses.
Chastain, who began her role in October 2023, serves as a member of the executive team for the Center and will now assist Hall with managing the Center and event planning. A theology graduate of Lee, Chastain formerly served as secretary to the chair of Lee’s Christian Ministries.
Eastes, who will continue his role as lead pastor of the Ministry Center Church of God in Lebanon, Tennessee, will represent Lee University and the PLWCCP “in the field.” As field director, he will also identify and train mentees for the Center’s programs, assist in the development of a new minor in preaching, and teach in Lee’s preaching classes on occasion. Eastes will fulfill these duties on a
part-time basis, as he continues in his current pastoral role in Lebanon.
Prior to his current appointment with the Ministry Center Church of God in 2022, Eastes spent 14 years as a full-time evangelist, preaching over 3,000 times in a wide range of cultural and denominational contexts. He earned his Master of Divinity from Duke University and his Bachelor of Arts in theology from Lee. He is currently nearing the completion of his Doctor of Theology at Duke, where he is specializing in preaching and worship.
The Paul L. Walker Center for Pentecostal Preaching is the core of Lee’s plan to cultivate exemplary Pentecostal preaching among experienced and young Church of God preachers. The Center will act as a hub for programs that will foster transformational preaching.
According to Dr. Bob Bayles, associate dean of Lee University’s School of Theology & Ministry, the Center, which launches March 1, will serve as the focal point of all program activities. The Center will include three primary components: an undergraduate 18-hour minor in preaching, an Institute for Exemplary Preaching, and the Center’s website, which will be an integrated educational platform. The program will include campus-based activities for ministerial students, institute cohorts of participants and mentors, workshops, sermon construction webinars with peer feedback, preaching resources, and an annual Exemplary Preaching Conference.
“The School of Theology & Ministry is excited to launch this new endeavor,” said Dr. Terry Cross, dean of Lee’s School of Theology & Ministry. “The Center will be a hub of activity radiating out from our School to various regions in the United States, garnering relationships among seasoned preachers and newly minted ones. This program has the potential to invigorate Pentecostal preaching by deepening its roots into engaging the culture through the preached word as well as extending the resources of the School of Theology & Ministry out to the local church. The personnel involved in launching and maintaining the Center are themselves seasoned preachers with extensive experience in the pulpit.”
For more information about the Paul L. Walker Center for Pentecostal Preaching, email [email protected] or call (423) 303-5080.
