Louisville—To gauge just how significant a vocation preaching is, one need only look back at the 2008 presidential election.

The pastors of candidates Barack Obama and John McCain—Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee, respectively—“dominated the political discourse,” recalled Frankfort pastor Hershael York.

“People are scared to death of preachers—and they shoud be,” York said. “Preachers ought to be a dangerous lot.”

Now, York and others are helping to raise up the next generation of pulpiteers.

Nearly 100 young people between the ages of 16 and 28 gathered Jan. 7-9 in Louisville for the first-ever Festival of Young Preachers.

The event, held at St. Matthews Baptist Church, is the brainchild of Dwight Moody, executive director of the Academy of Prea-chers, an ecumenical initiative “designed to identify, network, inspire and support young people who sense a call to Christian preaching,” according to the group’s Web site.

“Preaching is so central to congregational life everywhere,” said Moody, former chapel dean at Georgetown College. “In every worship service in America every Sunday, there’s a sermon.”

Despite last week’s snow and frigid temperatures, 93 of the 96 registered participants made it to the event, although “supporting attendance” numbers—family, friends and church members—were less than anticipated, Moody said.

Participants’ denominational affiliations ran the gamut of the Christian faith, from Catholic to Nazarene to Presbyterian to Baptist, including 17 young preachers linked to a Kentucky Baptist-affiliated church or college.

Each participant was given the opportunity to preach a sermon of no more than 18 minutes on one of four topics: Jesus’ birth, ministry, death or resurrection. The young preachers also were required to have a mentor from their home churches to introduce them.

York introduced Devin Leitch, a 19-year-old student at Boyce College in Louisville whom York has seen grow up at Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort.

Leitch, leading off a Friday morning session, preached on who Jesus is from Mark 8:27-38. Afterward, he said his focus was to “glorify God” and “proclaim His gospel.”

He also said that preaching to a room of people who may not share the same theological viewpoint as he allowed him to deal with some “adversity” in the pulpit.

“Preaching through that and to those different groups of people with different thoughts, it’s a challenge for me, and I appreciated it,” he noted.

York said he was pleased to see Leitch step “outside of his comfort zone” and deliver a textual sermon, as well as hear from others with different perspectives.

“There’s a danger that we get intellectually lazy if we’re only around people who agree with us. We really fail to see the bigness of the world,” York explained. “So, it’s good for Devin to hear … different perspectives so that it makes him know why he believes what he believes.”

Meanwhile, J.C. Campbell described his festival experience as “a rush.”

A lifelong member of First Gethsemane Baptist Church in Louisville, Campbell was described by his mentor, pastor T. Vaughn Walker, as having “experience beyond his age.”

Campbell, a 21-year-old junior religion major at Georgetown College, preached about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane shortly before His betrayal. Campbell opened by reciting Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and asking the audience to close their eyes and imagine Gethsemane as he elaborately described the garden.

Walker said Campbell, who has been preaching since high school, “has a flair for the dramatic.”

Campbell agreed with his pastor, attributing his comfort “in the spotlight” with his high school performing-arts experience. However, the butterflies still were there, he said.

“I do get nervous when I get up there,” Campbell admitted. “But it’s about emptying yourself, just letting God do the work (and) letting God work through you.”

Although the festival and the academy still are considered mere pilot projects, Moody said the response to the event and the academy itself has been overwhelming.

“We have more opportunities than we can even handle right now,” he said. Schools in Atlanta want to hold a Festival of Young Preachers there, Moody added. The academy also is in the early stages of organizing a festival and scholarly conference with the Boston Theological Institute, an ecumenical consortium of nine seminaries and divinity schools in the Boston area.

“I am constantly surprised at how energized people get about this simple idea,” Moody said. “This enthusiasm runs across denominational boundaries because we’re not dealing with theology, ordination, liturgy, worship (or) any of those issues—it’s just preaching.”

Campbell said the Academy of Preachers sits at the “beginning of the transition of the generations.”

“There is a need for young preachers to really get out there and to really just preach the word of God, step to the forefront of these great churches, … and to do what God is calling them to do.”