While the final plans are underway for the first Festival of Young Preachers (scheduled for January 2010), initial planning for the second festival has begun. It is planned for January 6-8, 2011, also in Louisville, Kentucky.
The first festival is being hosted by St. Matthews Baptist Church. All 96 young preachers (see the list elsewhere on this site) will be assigned a venue on the campus of the church: sanctuary, chapel, fellowship hall or music suite. The festival is free and open to the public.
The second festival will also be held in Louisville during the first week of January in 2011. A new venue for the festival is being sought, not because the St. Matthews campus is inadequate but primarily to signal the ecumenical mission of the Academy. The young preachers at the festival represent the widest range of Christian communities, from Pentecostal to Orthodox, from Church of the Nazarene to United Church of Christ, from Roman Catholic to Southern Baptist.
The Academy is looking for an organization, institution, or congregation that would like to host the festival in 2011.
Within the next week, letters will be sent to prospective hosts seeking a letter of interest from them. We are looking for a host with adequate facilities, yes, but also a host with a spirit of hospitality, one with a supply of volunteers eager to assist with the wide range of responsibilities involved in hosting such an event. It is estimated that registered attendance at the first festival will exceed 2000.
If you know of a place that would be ideal (or even adequate) to host such an event, please call our Executive Director, Dr. Dwight A. Moody (859-229-8642) or write him a letter at The Academy of Preachers, 3515 Grandview Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, 40207.