(MURFREESBORO) Prominent Yale theologian, author, and internationally known speaker Dr. Miroslav Volf will present an ecumenical lecture on Sunday, September 8 at 3:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 200 E. Main Street in Murfreesboro as part of the church's Dr. Martin McCullough Lecture Series.

In addition to the afternoon presentation, Dr. Volf will serve as guest minister at the church's 10:30 a.m. service as First Baptist holds joint worship with St. Paul's Episcopal Church. The church invites all members of the community to the worship service as well as to the lecture.

Professor Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the founding Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. His books include Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996), a winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award; and After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (1998), winner of the Christianity Today book award.

A member of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. and the Evangelical Church in Croatia, Professor Volf has been involved in international ecumenical dialogues and interfaith dialogues and is an active participant in the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum. A native of Croatia, he regularly teaches and lectures in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and across North America.

Participating partner congregations include St. Paul's Episcopal Church, First Baptist Church on Castle Street, Advent Lutheran Church, First Presbyterian Church, Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and First Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Martin McCullough was a member of First Baptist Church and a superlative educator who passed away in 2016. The lecture series established in his name seeks to enhance Christian education at First Baptist Church and in the community by hosting distinguished scholars to speak on important topics pertaining to Christian faith. Dr. McCullough's brother Hubert McCullough sponsors the series.

Founded in 1843, First Baptist Church is an intergenerational congregation in the heart of downtown Murfreesboro that combines an illustrious history with a modern-day mindset to fully engage the surrounding community while remaining mindful of the wider world. Mission work of the church includes housing homeless men in the church building on cold winter nights and annual mission trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as well as local, regional, and international youth and student mission work. The church also hosts Insight Counseling Centers. Community educational work includes a Fine Arts Academy and the church's WEE School weekday preschool program.

For more information on the ministries of First Baptist Church or on the Dr. Martin McCullough Lecture Series, contact First Baptist Church Minister of Christian Formation Phil Potratz at ppotratz@fbcmboro.org, or call (615) 893-2514.