Today we posted a PRAYER CALENDAR to this web site. See the link to the right. Join us in prayer as we continue our preparation for the Festival of Young Preachers, scheduled for January 7-9, 2010, in Louisville, Kentucky.
This is a guide for the next 50 days, beginning Wednesday, November 18, 2009. There are 3 items for each day, including the names of 2 young preachers registered for the Festival. Also listed are all 6 members of the steering committee, the 16 preaching session conveners, and the 8 preaching circle facilitators.
Please use this guide in your private and daily devotions. Use it also as you have opportunity in public settings, as in small groups where there is a call for prayer, congregational prayer meetings where things can be listed on a prayer sheet, or through national and international prayer chairs. All of these are opportunities to undergird the work of the Academy of Preachers with prayer.
The Festival of Young Preachers is a gathering of 96 young preachers who are coming to St. Matthews Baptist Church to preach. This event is unique in American Christianity and may be unique in the entire history of our faith. The purpose is to honor and bless those who sense a call to preach as a vocation; it is to tell them we support them and pray for them and pledge to open doors for them to follow the purposes of God.
The Festival is a public event; it is free and open to all; and we issue an invitation to everyone to attend and support these young people. All people who attend will be registered and the young preacher who has the largest support group (aka fan club, aka entourage, etc) will receive a $1000 scholarship prize (and there is also a second place prize of $500).
But before you come: pray. Print out this prayer guide and place in the place where you are most likely to remember it. God will bless you as your pray, and God will bless these young preachers because you pray.