ASSOCIATE MINISTER RUSH MEMORIAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST ATLANTA, GA

Reverend Dr. Martha Simmons resides in Atlanta, GA. She is a native of Tchula, Mississippi and an associate minister at Rush Memorial United Church of Christ in Atlanta, GA. She is the surrogate mother to Steve McDonald and James Gray, two boys she took into her home as high school students.

She stands among the veterans in ministry. For more than 30 years, she has preached throughout America and in Africa and served in a variety of ministerial capacities. For the past twenty years, her primary ministry has been the codification, preservation, and elevation of African American preaching for present and future generations and assisting women of color in ministry. Through her work in homiletics, she provides theories and approaches that promote excellence in preaching and ministry. Through her work with women of color in ministry, she seeks to provide them advocacy, mentorship, and educational support.

For the past fifteen years, Dr. Simmons has served as a coach to ministers around the country and as a Lay Leader trainer for churches of various denominations.

Since 2017, Dr. Simmons has hosted a weekly FB Live broadcast titled Preaching and Preachers - To date, these sessions have collectively garnered more than 300,000 views.

Currently, she is a D.Min. Mentor at Mercer University (McAfee School of Theology) in Atlanta, GA. In spring 2018 she served as a Doctor of Ministry Professor at Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, TN, and as an Adjunct Professor at Mercer University (McAfee School of Theology).

She is the creator of The Women of Color in Ministry Project. Begun in fall 2013, this national project offers women of color clergy job assistance, education assistance, advocacy, and mentorship. The collaborative partners for the project are Union Theological Seminary of NY and American Baptist Seminary of the West. Online at (www.WomenofColorinMinistry.org).

She is the Creator of The African American Online Lectionary, a project begun in 2007. It is the first African American Lectionary in the 50-plus year-history of lectionaries. The website contains 220,000 (two-hundred and twenty thousand) pages of free material for clergy, Christian educators, laity, and worship leaders. (www.TheAfricanAmericanLectionary.org). Although the lectionary concluded in 2014, it remains online, and as of June 2018, it has garnered more than 14 millions views.

For 13 years, she served as President and Executive Editor of The African American Pulpit Journal (informally known as TAAP). TAAP is the only African American owned, non-denominational, homiletics and ministry journal in history.

She completed all classwork in pursuit of the Th.D. degree at Boston University, Boston, MA. She received her Jurist Doctor from New College of California School of Law (now John F. Kennedy School of Law, Berkeley, CA). She received her Master of Divinity from Emory Univ. (Candler School of Theology), Atlanta, GA and a Bachelor of Science from Bradley University, Peoria, IL.

Although the African American faith community has long been and remains male-dominated, Rev. Simmons has arisen as the spokesperson and scribe for the codification of African American preaching. Her writings, lectures, and workshops have made her a homiletics authority; whooping is one of her areas of homiletical expertise.

She is the co-author of the Christian Minister’s Manual for the Pulpit and Public Square for All Denominations (2017), co-author, Willie D. Francois III. (This is the first Minister’s Manual produced for African Americans in 56 years). Online at www.Amazon.com.

She is the author of Doing the Deed: The Mechanics of Twenty-First Century Preaching (2012). This was the fastest selling preaching study guide on Amazon for 2012-2014. Online at www.Amazon.com.

She is one of two general editors of Preaching with Sacred Fire: African American Sermons 1750 to the Present. This historic 960-page offering is the only Anthology of African American preaching, (2010), W.W. Norton Publishers, New York, NY. Online at www.amazon.com and WWNorton.com.

She is also the co-editor of additional books.