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Michael J. Gehring

Visiting Professor and Wesleyan Scholar-in-Residence

Expertise

• Practical Theology
• Evangelism
• C.S. Lewis Studies
• John Wesley and United Methodist Studies

Education

• Ph.D., University of Manchester (UK), 2014.
• D.Min., Southern Methodist University, 2002.
• Th.M., Duke University, 1992.
• M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1988.
• B.A., Evangel University, 1983.
• Subiaco Academy, 1979, a Roman Catholic Benedictine Prep School.

Michael Gehring is an Elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, having served medium and large membership churches for thirty-four years and, before that, a small membership church in the North Arkansas Conference. He was a Fellow and then Senior Fellow of the Polycarp Community of the Center for Evangelism and Missional Church Studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University from 2001–2021. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre (Manchester, UK). Dr. Gehring served on the Design Team/Steering Committee that created the Royce and Jane Reynolds Academy for Leadership, Evangelism, and Discipleship. He was honored to be nominated by the late Dr. Joe Hale, former General Secretary of the World Methodist Council, to be a member of the Order of the Flame, (Faithful Leaders as Mission Evangelists), an evangelism and leadership ministry of World Methodist Evangelism.

Professor Gehring, along with Andy Kinsey, is an editor and contributor to William J. Abraham: A Theological Profile, which was published by Baylor University Press in November of 2024. The book is a collection of essays by scholars and writers attempting to assess William Abraham’s contribution to the academy and to the church. Dr. Gehring coedited and contributed to, along with Andy Kinsey and Vaughn Baker, The Logic of Evangelism Revisited (Pickwick Publications, Wipf & Stock, 2019), which examined William J. Abraham’s seminal contribution to the field of evangelization studies evaluating its continued relevance.

In 2017, Cascade Press (Wipf & Stock) published his book The Oxbridge Evangelist: Motivations, Practices, and Legacy of C.S. Lewis. It was also published by Lutterworth Press in Cambridge, England. Dr. Gehring is also the author of two memoirs: As the Broken White Lines Become One (2018), a spiritual autobiography, and Losing Church: The Decline, the Pandemic, and Social and Political Storms (2022), a pastoral memoir reflecting on the challenges of leading a church in the current age. Both memoirs were published by Resource Publications (Wipf & Stock).

Professor Gehring is a member of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education, the Wesleyan Theological Society, and the Order of Saint Luke (a sacramental and liturgical renewal movement within the United Methodist Church).

Denomination

United Methodist

Contact

mgehring@hoodseminary.edu