Obama’s pastor heads convocation lineup

BANGOR – Sen. Barack Obama’s pastor is leading a worship service and lecture during Bangor Theological Seminary’s annual convocation being held today through Wednesday at Hammond Street Congregational Church.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Trinity Church, United Church of Christ, in Chicago, will lead closing worship at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, for the event. That same day, he also will lecture about preaching at 11 a.m. and lead a workshop on the subject at 1:30 p.m.

Wright is one of four ministers known for their preaching skills taking part in the three-day program that draws BTS alumni and pastors from throughout New England to Bangor for the event. Three seminary graduates also are preaching or lecturing during the program titled “Festival of Preaching.”

“Preaching has been at the center of my ministry,” seminary President the Rev. William Imes said last week of why this year’s event is focused on the subject. “I invited Rev. Wright long before Obama announced he was running for president because he’s one of the best preachers of our day. In fact, I invited the four best preachers I knew of.”

Wright also is a bit of an anomaly – a black minister in a liberal, predominantly white denomination. Under Wright’s 35 years of leadership, Trinity has grown from 87 members to 8,000. The church has “birthed” four new UCC congregations and ordained 38 seminary graduates. It also calls itself “Afro-centric” and has an outline of the African continent on the home page of its Web site.

Obama, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has credited Wright with leading him to Christ after the minister preached one Sunday about the sustaining power of hope.

“The questions I had did not magically disappear,” the Illinois senator wrote in his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” of the day when he made a formal commitment to the Christian faith. “But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.”

The Rev. Nancy S. Taylor is conducting the opening worship service at 11 a.m. and lecture at 3:30 p.m. today. Taylor is the first woman to be elected senior minister in the 355-year history of Old South Church in Boston. From 2001 to 2005, she served as president of the denominational conference in Massachusetts and was instrumental in the creation of a state law mandating clergy to report suspected child abuse.

The Rev. Mel Bringle and the Rev. John Kinney will speak and preach on Tuesday. A professor of philosophy and religious studies at Brevard College in Brevard, N.C., Bringle is an award-winning hymn writer and president elect of The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada. She will speak at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Her compositions will be featured in worship services, Imes said.

Kinney is the dean of the Virginia Union School of Theology in Richmond, Va., and pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Beaverdam, Va. He will lecture at 11 a.m., conduct a workshop at 1:30 p.m. and lead worship at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The Rev. Kate Braestrup, who graduated from the seminary three years ago, will discuss her best-selling book, “Here If You Need Me,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Spectacular Event Center in Bangor. An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, she is one of the first chaplains to be appointed to the Maine Warden Service. Her book, named by Time magazine as one of the best nonfiction works of 2007, chronicles her journey through widowhood and the seminary to her work in the Maine woods.

The Rev. Elaine Hewes, a 1997 BTS graduate and pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bangor, will lead worship at 9 a.m. Wednesday. A 1972 graduate, Ken Brookes of Newington, Conn., will lead worship at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Because the opening day of convocation falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, the Rev. John McCall, pastor of the First Congregational Church, UCC, of South Portland, is scheduled at 1:30 p.m. today to talk about his experience as a college student marching with King in Selma, Ala.

The public is invited to attend the worship services free of charge. Those who also want to attend lectures and workshops are asked to register. Registration fees are $50 for one day, $90 for two and $120 for three. On-site registration will be available.

For more information, call 942-6781 or visit www.bts.edu.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

990-8207