Donna Giver-Johnston

The Rev. Dr. Donna Giver-Johnston is director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a position she has held since 2023. She is an Ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) with more than 20 years of experience in pastoral ministry. She is also an experienced theological educator and writer. Her areas of expertise include homiletics and liturgics, practical theology, feminist scholarship, and theological education.

Giver-Johnston earned a bachelor of arts from Westminster College (Pa.), a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and both a master of arts and doctor of philosophy from Vanderbilt University. She also has a certificate of teaching from the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. She was awarded the John T. Galloway Preaching Award by Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996, and was named the Field Education Supervisor of the Year by Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2013.

She is the author of Claiming the Call to Preach: Four Female Pioneers of Preaching in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart (Fortress Press, 2021), in addition to several published journal articles and book reviews.

Giver-Johnston is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Academy of Religion.

Claiming the Call to Preach: Four Female Pioneers of Preaching in Nineteenth Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Writing for the Ear, Preaching from the Heart (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021).

For Every Matter Under Heaven: Preaching for Special Occasions, with Beverly Zink-Sawyer, co-author (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022)

Book Review of Her Preaching Body: Conversations About Identity, Agency, and Embodiment Among Contemporary Female Preachers by Amy P. McCullough, 2018. Homiletic, Vol. 44, No. 1 (2019).

“The Psalms in Worship and Preaching,” Connections Commentaries Years A, B, and C (Westminster John Knox, 2018-2019).

Book Review of A Nation with the Soul of a Church: How Christian Proclamation Has Shaped American History by O.C. Edwards Jr. with James Dunkly, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology (January 2016).

“The Stones Would Burst into Cheers: Easter Worship for All the Senses,” Journal for Preachers (Easter 2015).