The 111-year-old gathering convenes June 2-5, 2025
The New Shiloh Baptist Church is delighted to announce that its pastor, the Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Jr. will begin serving as the president of the 111-year-old Hampton University Ministers’ Conference, Hampton, Virginia, on Monday, June 2. Carter was installed at the close of last year’s conference in June of 2024.
The conference, founded in 1914, has become one of our nation’s premier conferences for African-American clergy, choir directors, singers and musicians. The original intent 110 years ago was to serve as an opportunity for clergy to attain condensed seminary training, while being exposed to the nation’s leading pastors and/or Christian educators as models of preaching excellence, academia and pastoral leadership.
Carter has chosen the general focus of this year’s conference to be that of Christology, with the theme being,“An Ageless Christ for An Age that Still Needs Christ.” It is notable that among the mainstage presenters will be two Baltimoreans: Rev. Carmi Washington Flood, pastor of St. Timothy’s Christian Baptist Church, and Bishop Donte Hickman, pastor of the Southern Baptist Church. Video congratulatory greetings will be shared by Congressman Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., (Carter is Mfume’s pastor) and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
Across the years, national voices who’ve presented have included Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor and Dr. Carter Jr.’s parents, Dr. Harold A. Carter and Dr. Weptanomah W. Carter, who served as the conference’s first female speaker.
The conference’s average annual registration across recent years (with the exception of the COVID-19 pandemic years) has been 5,000, having started with 40. Dr. Carter Jr.’s vision is to continue to maintain the strong impetus for trained, informed and relevant clergy who can make the difference in their respective churches, ministries and communities through evangelism, missions, social justice and community development.
Dr. Harold Carter Jr. has been the pastor of the New Shiloh Baptist Church for 29 years.
SOURCE: New Shiloh Baptist Church