CHAIRMAN of the National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Committee Rev Dr Stevenson Samuels announced that Rev Dr Burchell Taylor, pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Kingston, will be the new speaker at the 2017 National Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

Dr Taylor replaces Moravian Bishop Stanley Clarke, who withdrew as speaker last week because of a sex scandal rocking his organisation.

“Rev 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,” Dr Samuels said yesterday.

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

The National Leadership Prayer Breakfast Committee said it is grateful to Dr Taylor for agreeing to serve at such short notice, and invited the church to support him 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 this Thursday at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, under the theme, “God-Empowered Intervention for Transformation”.