For immediate release
CAMPBELLSVILLE UNIVERSITY TO HOST HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST AT KHIPP EVENT SEPT. 28
By Adam Goodlett, student news writer
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – “Who is God to me?” This is a question the Rev. Paul Prather has asked himself many times throughout his life.
Prather, pastor of Bethesda Church in Mt. Sterling, Ky., and contributing columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, will speak at Campbellsville University’s Kentucky Heartland Institute on Public Policy (KHIPP) event at 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28 in the Banquet Hall of the Student Union Building located at 110 University Drive, Campbellsville.
Prather will be discussing “Evangelical Christians – The Intersection of Faith and Public Policy.”
“The goal of the KHIPP is to present the public with a greater awareness and understanding of the myriad issues confronting our culture,” said John Chowning, vice president for church and external relations and executive assistant to the president, who founded KHIPP. Chowning invites the public to the event, which is free.
Prather graduated from Campbellsville High School in 1974 and attended Campbellsville College from 1974 to 1975.
Prather’s father, L. Paul Prather, was the preacher of a local church in Campbellsville before moving to Mount Sterling in 1973 to take a full-time pastor position at the Reid Village Baptist Church, and in 1976 left the Baptist church to form an independent church known as Faith Full Gospel Church.
Prather met and married his wife, Renee Williams, a few years prior to becoming the pastor at Pentecostal Grace Church in 1982. That same year, he received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kentucky. The following year, Prather and his wife celebrated the birth of their son, John.
Prather received a master of arts in English in 1984 and began his quest for a Ph.D. in communications. He left his doctoral studies in 1988 to work for the Lexington Herald-Leader as a business journalist. By 1990 he became the newspaper’s religion writer.
In 1996 Faith Full Gospel Church and Pentecostal Grace combined to form Bethesda Church. In 1997 Prather quit writing full time for the Herald-Leader, and in 1999 he took over as full-time pastor of Bethesda Church. In 2002 he became a contributing columnist to the Herald-Leader’s Faith and Values section.
Prather lost his wife to a five-year battle with cancer in 2005, a struggle in which he has sometimes chronicled in his Herald-Leader columns.
Prather was not only a journalist, but he has also written and published three books: “Life’s a Dance: the John Michael Montgomery Story” in 1995; “Modern Day Miracles” in 1996, and “Back Porch Faith” in 1999.
Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Listed in U.S.News & World Report’s 2010 “America’s Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 23rd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South and fourth in “up-and-coming” schools in the south. CU has been ranked 17 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. The university has also been named to America’s Best Christian Colleges® and to G.I. Jobs magazine as a Military Friendly School. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his 11th year as president.
-30-