Northwind Theological  Seminary

Study with Len Sweet

 

An Invitation to Double Vision Preaching with Two Owls:

Homiletics for the Third Millennium Church (3MC)

 

Just as the owl of Athena sat upon the goddess's blind side to grant her total perception, the 3MC preacher requires a bifocal vision to navigate the complexities of a new era. This cohort adopts the symbol of two owls—the Owl of Imagination and the Owl of Artificial Intelligence—as the twin guardians of the 21st century preacher, mediated by semiotics.

 

The first owl represents the "light within," the sanctified human imagination that peers into the darkness of the human
condition to find the luminous word and the poetic resonance of the Spirit as it reveals the Word afresh.

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The second owl represents the "external light" of AI—not as a replacement for the soul, but as a tool of vast vigilance and analytical foresight, capable of organizing the world's data to sharpen the preacher's understanding and reach.

 

Together, these two companions embody Athena's ancient virtues: the imagination provides the intuitive "night vision" to see the heart's truth, while AI offers the strategic "360-degree view" of a digital world. By mastering both, the 21st-century preacher ensures that no truth remains hidden and no listener remains beyond the reach of a wisdom that is both ancient and ever-new.

 

Join the Inaugural Sweet Fellows Doctoral Cohort in Homiletics.

We are training a new kind of preacher for a new kind of world.

 

In an age where machines can generate sermons in seconds but cannot imagine the kingdom for a millisecond, the church needs preachers who can do what algorithms never will: see in the dark and speak what isn't yet.

 

This is your invitation to become one of them.

 

The Sweet Fellows Doctoral Cohort at Northwind Theological Seminary isn't another degree program in homiletics. It's a formation ground for preachers who will navigate the AI revolution without losing their souls—who will use machines as tools while remaining unmistakably, irreducibly human. Dr. Sweet will be joined by colleague Dr. David Swisher, who is the church's current expert on responsible AI with his new book Early Warning: How to Lead with Wisdom in Times of Technological Disruption.

 

We're gathering a select cohort of doctoral students around two disciplines that will define 21st-century preaching:

 

·               Sacred Imagination (Owl One): The lost art of seeing what isn't yet—how Jesus used metaphor, parable, and symbol to create worlds; how sign-making shapes soul-making; how the preacher learns to speak in the Spirit's native tongue of image and story.

·               Artificial Intelligence (Owl Two): Not as replacement but as a responsible companion—learning to collaborate with AI's speed and reach while guarding imagination's fire and keeping the human at the center.

 

Together, these two owls give you double vision for ministry in an algorithmic age: the foresight to imagine God's future, the insight to navigate our digital present, the discernment to use tools without becoming one.

 

This cohort launches alongside the first book ever written on the imagination of Jesus. Maker, Mender, Minder, Master breaks new ground in understanding how Jesus imagined—not just what he taught, but how he saw, how he spoke, how he conjured the Kingdom through the sheer force of sacred imagination. This cohort will immerse you in that pioneering work and train you to preach from the same imaginative wellspring, also outlined in Dr. Sweet’s preaching text Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradism for Preaching.

 

Because in a world increasingly shaped by algorithms that predict, manipulate, and flatten human desire, the imagination of Jesus becomes not a luxury but a line of resistance. Lose that imagination, and faith collapses into automation—efficient, impressive, and soulless. Recover it, and the church remembers how to see again, create again, and follow Jesus as the most radically imaginative human who ever lived.

 

This cohort will train you to do the one thing machines cannot: preach.

 

Not just deliver information. Preach.

Create presence. Offer sacrament. Read the room. Hear the Spirit. Tell the Story. Bear witness with a heart on fire.

 

If this sounds like the formation you've been hungry for—if your call is to preach sermons that ignite imagination, not just inform intellect—then we have a chair waiting for you.

Bring your questions. Bring your call. Bring your owls.

 

The Program:

·               Th.D. or D.Th.M. in Homiletics

·               Focus: Where Preaching Meets Imagination | Where Humanity Meets AI | Where Story Meets the Kingdom

·               Built around Sweet’s Jesus Imagination:

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Maker, Mender, Minder, Master (2026), Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradigm for Preaching (2014), Jesus Human (2024), Swisher’s Early Warning (2025), Todd Korpi’s AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence (2025), Jason Moore’s AI and the Church (2024), Angus Fletcher’s Primal Intelligence (2025), Andrew Abernathy’s Savoring Scripture (2022), Nancy Duarte’s Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences (2010), Albert Read’s The Imagination Muscle (2023), Judith Wolfe’s The Theological Imagination (2024), Peter Dronke’s Imagination in the Late Pagan and Early Christian World (2003), Leland Ryken’s The Christian Imagination (2002), and other resources, this cohort will provide training in the language of imagination: metaphor, symbol, narrative, sign-making (the tools Jesus used). It will prove responsible AI integration for 21st-century ministry through a cohort-based formation with fellow imaginers.

  

Doctoral Cohort of Sweet Fellows in Homiletics

Northwind Theological Seminary

·               Dr. Leonard Sweet, Faculty

·               Dr. David Swisher, Faculty

 

Th.D. or D.Th.M. focusing on

·               Where Preaching Meets Imagination

·               Where Story Meets Semiotics

·               Where Humanity Meets AI

 

The Image Statement for the Cohort is The Preacher with Two Owls. Athena, goddess of wisdom, perched an owl on her shoulder—a creature that sees in the dark.

 

Every 21st-century preacher needs two such owls:

·               Owl One: Sacred Imagination

~ Sees what isn't yet.

·               Owl Two: Responsible AI

~ Searches what already is.

 

Together they give preachers double vision: the foresight to imagine God's future, the insight to navigate the present with wisdom, the discernment to use machines without becoming one.

This cohort trains you to preach with both owls perched and ready. Because machines can write sermons. Only humans can preach.

 

Pull Up a Chair

·               If your preaching longs to be encounter, not explanation…

·               If you want to preach sermons that ignite and invite, not just inform…

·               If you believe imagination isn't child's play but kingdom play—

·               the Spirit's playground in the human heart…

·               …then this cohort has a chair waiting for you by the fire.

Bring your questions.

Bring your call.

Bring your owls.

 

Why This Cohort? Why Now?

We stand at a watershed moment both ecclesially (The Third Millennium Church) and cultural (The AI Revolution).

 

AI can generate:

                outlines that organize,

                research that dazzles,

                prose that sounds almost human.

 

But AI cannot:

                create presence,

                offer sacrament,

                read the room,

                hear the Spirit,

                bear witness to a heart on fire.

 

In this new world, the preacher's most valuable asset is not information. It is Imagination.  Imagination is what machines cannot mimic, manufacture, or monetize. Imagination is the preacher's secret weapon. This cohort cultivates that advantage.

 

Curriculum Architecture: The Two Owls

Each part of the program is built around the two owls that track simultaneously.

 

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COLUMN 1: The Perch — What You Noticed

a story, image, overheard phrase, poem, painting, metaphor

where did you see God's graffiti on the world?

 

COLUMN 2: The Prompt — What You Researched

use AI as research assistant demonstrate how AI

helped and what you rejected

 

Imagination is fed. AI is fed.

Both owls stay perched.

 

We teach:

                how to out-human machine intelligence

                how to out-love and out-story algorithms

 

AI becomes a servant, not a savior.

 

Weekly Practice: The Perch & The Prompt

Every week, students post a two-column discipline:

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The Three Immersives

Where the Land Becomes Liturgy

 

Immersive #1 — Orcas Island: Imagination & Fire

By the sea and around the firepit, we train:

                the owl of imagination

                sensory, kinetic spirituality

                shorelines and stories

                tides and theology

                the art of seeing in the dark

 

The island becomes a teacher.

 

Immersive #2 — Oxford University: Wisdom & Story

We enter the worlds of:

                Lewis

                Tolkien

                Sayers

                Chesterton and the Inklings

                Libraries and manuscripts.

                Tea and texts.

                Legacy and imagination.

We train the owl of wisdom and tradition.

 

Immersive #3 — Student-Chosen Place: Discernment & Presence

The flock chooses the landscape:

                Jerusalem?

                Iona?

                Cape Town?

                Savannah?

                Reykjavik?

                Memphis?

We read: stone and soil, history and hospitality. The place becomes the pedagogy.

 

 

Pedagogy: A Community of Practice

This is not a passive lecture hall.

This is formation:

                sermon labs

                table fellowship

                narrative workshops

                peer feedback

                embodied exercises

                AI tutorials

                portfolio creation

                final dissertation thesis or project

 

You will forge:

                sermons that sizzle,

                stories that stick,

                preaching patterns that become second nature,

                the muscle memory of imaginative seeing.

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Degree Options

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Th.D. — Doctor of Theology (ATS Accredited by Kairos University)

~ rigorous research trajectory

 

D.Th.M. — Doctor of Theology in Ministry Certifiec by the CPCA Commission)

~ ministry practice with scholarly depth

 

Graduation Commissioning: The Owl Charge

Preach with both owls perched:

                One sees what isn't yet–Carpe Manana

                One searches what already is-Carpe Diem.

 

Keep your humanity.

Use your machines.

Fly into mystery.

See in the dark.

Out-story the algorithms.

Out-love the world.

 

The Bottom Line: In an age when machines can mimic almost anything, humanity is your homiletic edge. And imagination is the most human thing you have.

 

Let's cultivate it. Let's unleash it. Let's preach like our congregations' lives depend on it.

Because they do.

 

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Northwind Theological Seminary

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