Today, the mail brought a letter of endorsement from the Northeast Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Brian Wright is the pastor and Scott Claybrook is a new member of the congregation and ministry team; Scott is a student at McAfee School of Theology but more importantly a member of the Young Preachers Leadership Team of the Academy of Preachers.
Northeast becomes the 28th organization (and only the second congregation) to become a Founding Partner of the Academy of Preachers. Our goal is to have 50 by April 1 of 2010.
Founding Partners are institutions, organizations, congregations, even entire denominations that wish to endorse the vision of the Academy, to collaborate with us in certain ways, and to encourage participation by their staff, faculty, employees, or students in the various programs of the Academy. Elsewhere on this web site is a link to the complete list of Founding Partners and description of the various ways that a Partner can assist in the work of the Academy.
Because of the generosity of our first Partner, the Lilly Endowment, we ask for no money from our Founding Partners; however, we do accept donations, either to our operating budget or to our endowment. (I will write more next week on the financial resources and needs of the Academy of Preachers.)
The endorsements of our Founding Partners is important: to us: we are new, with a fresh vision and some original programs, “the new kid on the block,” so to speak. We need the credibility that can come from the support of existing organizations; some of their legitimacy rubs off on us, so to speak.
Yesterday, I received an email from the Alliance for Christian Media. This Atlanta-based organization has been, for years, an initiative of the Episcopal Church in America. Their most well-known program is the radio network known now as Day1 (and formerly known as the Protestant Hour). Cannon Louis Schweddig is President and Executive Director.
“We’d be honored to serve as a Founding Partner,” wrote Day1 Vice President Peter Wallace. Wallace is host of the radio programs distributed to hundreds of stations around the country. He offered to create a new Key Voice presence on their web site for the Academy of Preachers. This is our first partnership with an Episcopal-related organization and we are glad to enter into this partnership with them.
In the coming weeks, other schools and organizations will write letters of endorsement and thus become Founding Partners of the Academy of Preachers. Each partner enlarges our circle of influence and expands our vision; each partner helps to make us the fresh, powerful voice we can be for young preachers in America, even as our support and encouragement of young preachers offers back to the Christian community a new generation of gifted and faithful leaders. God bless us all.