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Monday September 28, 2026 | 5:00 P.M. | In-Person and Livestream Theron Room, Wright Library 25 Library Pl, Princeton, NJ 08540
Our human need for a companion who will always support us and never move away is deep, abiding, and intense. It creates a quest that lasts throughout our lifetimes. Beginning with the phenomenon of children’s imaginary friends, this lecture explores a portrait gallery of parasocial (non-reciprocal) relationships of adolescent and adult life. They include “Dear Diary” relationships, novelists’ creation of characters, celebrity fandom, and imagined conversations with deceased loved ones, and, most recently, AI chatbots. We will look at the benefits we derive from our relationships with these companions and the means we employ to cultivate them. We will explore the psychological and social factors that give rise to them and point toward their deeper spiritual roots.
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Presented by: The Rev. Dr. Alyce M. McKenzie
The Rev. Dr. Alyce M. McKenzie is the George W. and Nell Ayers Le Van Professor of Preaching and Worship at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She joined the Perkins faculty in 1999. McKenzie, an ordained United Methodist elder, is a member of the Horizon Conference of the United Methodist Church.
McKenzie received her Bachelor of Arts in the History of Religions from Bryn Mawr College, her Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School, and her PhD in Theology and Communication in Preaching from Princeton Theological Seminary. From 1980-88 she served as associate pastor at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in York, Pennsylvania. From 1994-98 she served as visiting lecturer in homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary. While teaching at Princeton Seminary, McKenzie served as interim pastor at several United Methodist congregations in eastern Pennsylvania. From 2011-19 McKenzie served as preacher-in-residence at Christ United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas, where she preached several times a year and served as preaching coach to members of their clergy staff.
McKenzie is founder and co-director of the Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU, a center formed in 2013 dedicated to fostering excellence in preaching through innovative courses, workshops, peer groups, and online resources. The center has started dozens of preaching peer groups around the southwestern U.S.A. and beyond over the past 12 years.
One of her passions is helping a new generation of preachers gain competence and confidence in their vocation of sharing God’s word. She is frequently called on to be guest teacher and preacher at various lay and clergy gatherings, and to consult with groups of clergy around the country on creating initiatives to foster preaching excellence.
In 2015 she was Yale Divinity School’s Lyman Beecher Lecturer, the longest running homiletical lecture in the United States, first begun in 1871. The Academy of Homiletics awarded McKenzie its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025.
McKenzie is the author of 10 books and numerous articles, both for scholarly and popular audiences. Her early research focused on preaching the wisdom literature of the Bible: Preaching Proverbs: Wisdom for the Pulpit (1996), The Gospel of Matthew (1998), Preaching Biblical Wisdom in a Self Help Society (2002), Hear and Be Wise: Becoming a Teacher and Preacher of Wisdom (2004), The Parables for Today (2010), and Wise Up! Four Biblical Virtues for Navigating Life (2018). Her books for preachers and lay audiences are often used in Bible studies and as the basis for sermon series in local churches.
Her more recent focus has been on the role of the imagination in preaching and on what preachers can learn from novelists and screenwriters. (Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons, 2010). In 2011 McKenzie co-authored a textbook on preaching with Dr. John C. Holbert entitled What Not to Say: Avoiding the Common Mistakes that Can Sink Your Sermon. To address the issue of shortened attention spans, McKenzie wrote Making a Scene in the Pulpit: Vivid Preaching for Visual Listeners (2018). Her most recent book is entitled Humor Us! Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit (2023), co-authored with Professor Owen Lynch, a humor scholar from Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. She is currently working on a book entitled Real Presences: Cultivating the Invisible Companions of Our Inner Lives. It compares and contrasts relationships we create in our imaginations and interact with through AI with the real but invisible presence of God within and around us. It is under contract with Cascade Books to be published in 2027. Her Macleod Lectures are an exploration of its homiletical implications.
McKenzie and her husband, Murry, live in Allen, Texas. They have three grown children, Melissa, Rebecca, and Matthew. They are the doting grandparents of Graham, Silas, and Owen. They are active in First United Methodist Church of Allen where they sing in the Chancel Choir and are members of the Journey Sunday School Class. The McKenzies enjoy travel, music, theater, musicals, and spending time with family and friends.
