My old friend Z. Allen Abbott and his wife Conda met me for lunch at The Pecan in College Park, Georgia. Twenty years ago this summer he served an internship with me in Pittsburgh. He has had a good ministry in the American Baptist Churches and now he is a regional representative for their famous retirement plan, the M&M Board. We were both interested in exposing young preachers to the importance of long range financial planning.
Then to The Luce Building, near the campus of Emory University, for a conference with Trace Haythorn, president of The Fund for Theological Education. The Fund is a primary benefactor of ministry students at the high school, college, seminary, and doctoral level, so their mission overlaps that of the Academy of Preachers in a substantial way. He introduced me to resources at The Fund, to organizations and recourses centers around the country, and to several crucial ideas, all of which spurred my thinking in new directions. For instance: the Academy needs to develop right now a sophisticated data base of our young preachers and track their journeys through school and into congregations and institutions.
Finally, on toward dinner time, I drove to the other side of the Emory campus to the school of theology, Candler. I wanted to speak with Tom Long, professor of preaching and to David Keys, director of the Baptist studies program, but neither were on campus. But I did tour the chapel and crash the welcome-back-to-school-cookout after I ran into former GC student and now third-year Candler student Ashley Tackett. I took the sandwich, chips, and drink and found a seat among students and talked about the Festival of Young Preachers. “You know what I fear most about preaching?” one young student said to me; and before she could answer her own question, I pulled out my Flip camera and recorded her terrific confession. I will post it as soon as I return to Lexington. It was wonderful.
In between these planned and unplanned conversations, I talked on the phone to a series of young preachers completing their Festival registrations, organizational leaders looking for ways to partner with the Academy, and the long list of collaborators back in Kentucky working out endless details for the first ever, in the history of Christianity perhaps, Festival of Young Preachers.
What a life!!