Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Diocese of Arizona
Phoenix, AZ
The Rev. Mark Andrew Jefferson earned a B.A. in Political Science from Norfolk State University (NSU) concentrating in Public Administration. While at NSU, he served as the President of the political science honor society Pi Sigma Alpha, received the Vince Lombardi Most Outstanding Football Athlete Award, and was named a Coca-Cola Academic All-American.
Upon graduating from Norfolk State, he entered the Candler School of Theology at Emory University where he graduated with a Masters of Divinity degree. During his time at Candler, he served as President of the Black Student Caucus while pursuing academic an academic concentration in homiletics and earning a certificate in Black Church Studies. He was awarded the W. E. B. Du Bois Noomo Award by the Black Church Studies Program at Candler in 2012. He is currently at Emory finishing his Ph.D. in religion. He was awarded a Doctoral Fellowship from the Forum for Theological Exploration. He is a doctoral candidate who will be defending his dissertation examining the influence of W. E. B. Du Bois and the idea of the “Talented Tenth” upon the preaching imagination of African American homiletics. In 2017, Jefferson was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College.
While pursuing the Ph. D. degree, he has been active as a teacher. He co-facilitated a preaching conference for lay pastors in the Bahamas that was featured in The Nassau Guardian. His areas of academic interest include African American preaching traditions, Hip Hop culture, and the future of theological education. He currently serves as Visiting Professor of Homiletics at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), in Alexandria, Virginia. He also serves as Associate Director of the Deep Calls to Deep preaching program, an initiative supported by a Lilly grant to cultivate embodied preaching. He is also a presence on social media blogging extensively with posts being featured on Urban Cusp and The Root.