Preaching Starts in 93 Days!
The Countdown Clock on the AoP web site announces that the preaching begins in 93 days. It promises to be a blessed event.
Once the blessing starts it will not stop until all 125 sermons have been preached. That amounts to 2,000 minutes of gospel preaching, or a little over 33 hours.
Fortunately, no one person will listen to all of this preaching. The 125 young preachers will be assigned one of 5 venues at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel in Louisville; which means if you choose one of these venues and remain there for the duration of the festival, you will hear 25 sermons, none longer than 16 minutes.
The theme this year is "The Sermon on the Mount." Every one of these 125 sermons must arise from, or intersect with, some part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). But a careful Bible reader know that every page of the Bible relates to that Sermon in some way; so we could hear a very wide range of sermons this year.
Of course, all of us will gather in the plenary sessions to hear our seasoned preachers. Tuesday will begin with morning worship featuring Dr. Dan Boone, president of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville. Trevecca has been one of our staunch institutional partners from the very beginning.
Tuesday night we will walk across the street to the Cathedral of the Assumption to hear their new pastor, Dr. Jeff Nicholas. The Archbishop of Louisville, Joseph Kurtz, is a Founding Partner, and will preside at this service.
Wednesday morning our preacher will be Dr. Otis Moss, III, pastor of the famous Trinity UCC Church in Chicago. He was one of the first persons I spoke with about the AoP during the summer of 2008 when both of us were at Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Thursday morning, once again in the Cathedral, our final preacher will be Dr. Safiyah Fasua, Director of Transformational Preaching Ministries for the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church. She attended the Festival last year and went home to Nashville converted to the cause!
Forty exhibits will be on display at the hotel introducing, recruiting, selling, talking, listening, and giving away all kinds of stuff to the Young Preachers. Preaching session conveners, sermon evaluators, mentors, volunteers, musicians, staff, friends, family, and people walking in off the street will swell the Festival crowd to more than 600 people.
A new feature this year is the Workshop session on Monday afternoon, January 2. When you register for the National Festival, you can sign up for one of 3 workshops: Hosting a Campus Festival, Coaching a Young Preacher, or Preaching a Better Sermon. Space in these is limited, and there is a small workshop fee.
This third National Festival of Young Preachers promises to be the best ever. Check the web page "Whose Coming to the Festival" to track the registration progress. And remember: Blessed are those who attend the National Festival of Young Preachers!
