Duke Chapel Student Preacher to Deliver Sermon on Trustworthy Leadership

As this year’s Duke Chapel Student Preacher, Isaac Frank will deliver the sermon in the Chapel’s Sunday morning service on March 1 at 11:00 a.m. A senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, Frank is part of the Duke community as both a Robertson Scholar and a Duke Chapel Scholar, taking some of his classes at Duke and participating in Chapel programs.

The service is open to the public; free parking is available in the Bryan Center Parking Garage at 125 Science Drive. The service will also be broadcast live on the radio on 620 AM and streamed live on YouTube.

In his sermon, Frank will take up the topic of trustworthy leadership, drawing on a passage from the Gospel of Matthew that describes Jesus’s disciples having a mystical experience of him on a mountain.

“In our time right now, there is increasing distrust in institutions, religion, even parents, and any type of authority figure,” Frank said. “I think that this is because our entire generation is seeking something that only Christ could fulfill.”

“The way forward that this passage points to is following and listening well to Christ,” he said. “And then as we follow well, we can start to really understand his model of leadership and how he embraced servant leadership.”

A committee of Chapel staff members selected Frank’s sermon out of a pool of submissions.

“Isaac’s stood out because of its thoughtful and timely engagement with the scriptural text, specifically the story of Jesus’s transfiguration, as well as its practical application for Christian life,” said the Rev. Bruce Puckett, assistant dean of the Chapel. “His sermon speaks clearly to the life of discipleship, which is particularly impactful during the season of Lent.”

Rev. Puckett is among the people preparing Frank to preach at the Chapel. Another is Christine Parton Burkett, a consulting faculty member at Duke Divinity School, who is coaching Frank on the delivery of his sermon.

Frank is from Dublin, Ohio. At college, he is double-majoring in computer science and Chinese at UNC and pursing a certificate in innovation and entrepreneurship at Duke. He leads a men’s Bible study through the campus ministry Every Nation Campus and participates in the UNC chapter of Simple Charity, a nonprofit that seeks to inspire solidarity with people experiencing poverty and injustice.

“I'm still very early in my faith journey and very young in the faith,” Frank said. “I'm speaking from my experience that where I have been able to listen to Jesus, I've just seen this radical transformation.”