Anchor Point
with Anna Carter Florence
We believe that one of the most life-giving elements of Summit is the opportunity to come together as a large community for Anchor Point where we enjoyed a meal together, a time of communal worship led by United Voice Worship, and a plenary session with noted scholar and author Anna Carter Florence.
SPECIAL GUEST: ANNA CARTER FLORENCE
Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and holds degrees from Yale University (B.A.) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div. and Ph.D.). Before joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Anna served as an associate pastor for youth and young adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis.
Anna’s books include Preaching as Testimony, Inscribing the Word, Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community, based on her 2012 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School, and A is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scripture (2023). She has also published articles and chapters in numerous books and journals, including a year’s worth of lectionary text commentaries for www.WorkingPreacher.org.
Anna’s research focuses on testimony, preaching pedagogies, and creative strategies for communities to engage and encounter the biblical text for our present context. She is a frequent preacher and teacher in the U.S. and abroad, which gives her plenty of opportunity to do what makes her happiest: sitting around a table with a group of people, a big passage of Scripture, and a big block of time to dive into it. She and her husband, the Rev. David Carter Florence, have two grown sons, Caleb and Jonah. They also have two dogs, two cats, and way too much knitting yarn.
Worship
United Voice Worship is a bridge-building a cappella music ministry composed of diverse worship pastors and praise leaders from Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. Dedicated to honoring Jesus Christ, their vision is focused on “bridging life together” by using the powerful gift of the human voice and, even more, by modeling what it means to celebrate differences and to call one another family. You can follow UVW on social media (@unitedvoiceworship) and listen to their music on all major streaming platforms. www.unitedvoiceworship.org