Historically, the Black Church was culturally responsive to the needs of their community. In order to meet the needs of African American adult learners, the church had to assume many roles one of which was that of educator. Like many informal institutions of learning, the Black Church has been overlooked as a site for adult education research. Ten sermons of African-American preachers were analyzed to identify culturally relevant themes and their applicability for use in adult education classrooms. These five themes that relate to different aspects of African American life were revealed: (1) self-ethnic personalities/experiences; (2) self-ethnic social experiences; (3) self-ethnic psycho-cultural; (4) Africentric affirmations; and (5) self-ethnic metaphors. These conclusions were drawn from the thematic analyses: (1) African American sermons can provide adult educators with culturally relevant names that reflect self-ethnic personalities with which learners can identify; (2) negative self-ethnic social and psycho-cultural experiences of learners can be mitigated by educators made more aware; and (3) the polyrhythmic cadence of African-American sermons grow out of an oral tradition; and (4) affirmation themes are one way to mitigate against negative self-image. (A glossary of the five themes is included. The bibliography lists 27 references). (AJ)