Chelsea Brooke Yarborough joined the ATS staff in April 2024 as the associate director of leadership development. She works closely with the director of leadership development to support a holistic approach to the Association’s leadership development programming through the cultivation and facilitation of robust communities of practice within the ATS membership.
Having previously taught at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Yarborough comes to ATS from Phillips Theological Seminary where she was assistant professor of African American preaching, sacred rhetoric, and Black practical theology. Her research reimagines the nature and purpose of preaching and worship through the rhetorical and ritual practices of Black women throughout history and aims to decenter normative systems of power and paradigms of proclamation by considering platforms beyond the pulpit for the voices of preachers. She has published several journal articles and is a contributing author in multiple books.
Yarborough is a preacher, an ordained minister in the Baptist tradition, a poet, and an enneagram coach. She received her Master of Divinity degree from Wake Forest University School of Divinity and her PhD in homiletics and liturgics from Vanderbilt University.