The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery is the Dean of Duke University Chapel and Professor of Homiletics and African and African American Studies. He holds faculty appointments in Duke’s Divinity School and the Department of African and African American Studies in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. A national leader in the theological study of the art of preaching (homiletics), Dean Powery regularly delivers sermons at Duke Chapel as well as churches throughout the United States and abroad. He is often a keynote speaker and lecturer at educational institutions, conferences, symposia, and retreats.  

Dean Powery was ordained by the Progressive National Baptist Convention and has served in an ecumenical capacity in churches throughout Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. He is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, for which he has served as Secretary; the American Academy of Religion; the Society for the Study of Black Religion; the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality; and the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education. He served as a member of the executive lectionary team for The African-American Lectionary and is the recipient of numerous scholastic fellowships and awards.