Phone: 314.434.4044
Email: faculty@covenantseminary.edu

Dr. Thurman Williams

Director of Homiletics

Assistant Professor of Homiletics

Dr. Thurman Williams was named Director of Homiletics in 2021. He also currently serves as Pastor of New City Fellowship–West End, a church plant and new site of New City Fellowship in St. Louis. Prior to that, Dr. Williams was Associate Pastor at Grace & Peace Fellowship (PCA) in St. Louis from 2013 to 2018, and was Pastor of New Song Community Church (PCA) in the Sandtown community of inner-city Baltimore, Maryland, from 2000 to 2013. He was previously Minister of Outreach and Youth at Faith Christian Fellowship Church (PCA), also in Baltimore, for five years, and served four years on staff with the ministry of Young Life.

Thurman holds a Master of Divinity (MDiv) from Chesapeake Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry (DMin) from Covenant Theological Seminary, completed in 2011 with a dissertation titled “Christ-Centered Preaching in Hip-Hop Culture.” He has served as a Visiting Instructor in Homiletics at Covenant since 2014 and has also taught a City Ministry course for the Seminary. He was the featured speaker for the 2020 Covenant Seminary Preaching Lectures focused on the topic “Spirit-Empowered Preaching in a Powerfully Divided World.”

Thurman served for several years as Chairman of the PCA’s Mission to North America Committee and also as a member of the Credentials Committee and the Reconciliation and Kingdom Justice Committee of Missouri Presbytery. He and his wife, Evie, have been married for 23 years and have been blessed with four beautiful children who reside here in St. Louis—Charvez, Shaquana, Joshua, and Caleb—and one who lives in Baltimore—Moenira Baker.

Dr. Williams notes that Covenant’s focus on Christ-centered preaching and engaging our world with apologetic wisdom and sensitivity has had a tremendous influence in shaping who he is as a preacher. He has also been profoundly impacted by growing up in the African American church and by some of the distinctive emphases found there—preaching consistent and enduring hope in the midst of chronic suffering; emotive and interactive engagement with the congregation; applying the Word directly and practically to body and soul; and what is typically called “the celebration,” which brings together the sermon’s main ideas to point to and celebrate their fulfillment in Christ. He looks forward to blending these emphases with the already great preaching foundation established at Covenant as he helps to shape future preachers for the church.

Education

Faculty member since 2021

Select Courses

• Communicating the Scriptures