MOULTRIE, Ga. — Union Missionary Baptist Church and its pastor, the Rev. Freddie Williams, will celebrate Women and Men’s Day at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 24. The theme will be “Let Your Light Shine,” and the Speaker will be the Rev. Veronice Miles, associate professor of preaching at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.

Miles is a preacher, teacher, writer, and mentor who is committed to a life of ministry in the church and in the academy. She is the daughter of the late Rev. William Arthur Miles and Mrs. Ollie L. Miles Johnson. After her father’s death in 1965, Orlando Johnson became a devoted stepfather to the Miles children. Miles’s family and church community nurtured her in the Christian faith, emphasizing the centrality of the gospel message and God’s fidelity to a just and life-affirming existence for all people, according to a press release from Union Missionary Baptist Church.

Deeply influenced by the example of her parents, Miles answered the call to ordained ministry in 1994. In July 1994, she became the first woman to be licensed without contestation in a Missionary Baptist Church in Alachua County, Florida. She was ordained in 1999.

Miles has been involved in various facets of church and community ministry for more than 40 years. She has also taught preaching for the past 13 years, joining the faculty  in 2016 after teaching 10 years at Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

“Attentive to the formative and transformative potential of preaching, Dr. Miles is committed to teaching and preaching that invites individuals and communities to discover pathways for living the life of faith in word and deed,” the press release said.

Miles has preached and taught extensively in both the church and the academy. She has also contributed to various journals, commentaries, and books. Her current research, “Preaching an Embodied Theology of Hope (working title),” proposes an embodied theology of hope with attention to the power and potential of preaching to awaken individuals and communities to the voice of hope.

Miles earned the Doctorate of Philosophy in Religious Education and Homiletics from Emory University’s Graduate Division of Religion in Atlanta and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University with certificates in Religious Education and Black Church Studies. She also earned the Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Master of Education in Counseling, and Education Specialist in Student Personnel Services, all from the University of Florida.