KINGSTON, Jamaica — Chairman of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Committee, Reverend Dr Stevenson Samuels, has announced that Reverend Dr Burchell Taylor, will be the speaker at the 2017 staging of the prayer breakfast.

Taylor, who is the pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Kingston, replaces Bishop Stanley Clarke who withdrew as speaker last week.

“Reverend Taylor has had a long and distinguished record of service to the church in Jamaica and to the wider Jamaican community. His record of service is complemented by a special capacity to provide inspired biblical preaching based on sound interpretation of scriptures and the application of the Bible to the human condition,” Samuels said on Monday.

He further noted that Taylor was the speaker at the very first National Leadership Prayer Breakfast held in January 1981.

Samuels and the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Committee are grateful to Dr Taylor for agreeing to serve at such short notice, the release stated.

Samuels also invited the church to support Taylor with their prayers as he prepares to speak to the church and the nation at this “challenging time”.

The National Leadership Prayer Breakfast will be held on Thursday, January 19, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel under the theme: “God-Empowered Intervention for Transformation”.