ORLANDO — A 31-year-old Mount Dora, Fla., pastor pored over more than 200 pages of notes and 600 Power Point slides as a cheerleading squad chanted and a handful of onlookers equipped with water guns squirted the exhausted man on stage.
His feat: 53 hours and 18 minutes of preaching 45 sermons from the Bible, which surpassed the current Guinness World Record for the Longest Speech Marathon.
Pastor Zach Zehnder of the Cross Mount Dora Church set out to break the record for longest speech of 48 hours and 31 minutes to raise money for a new nonprofit that offers free alcohol- and drug-addiction treatment services.
“Well, if we’re going to do a fundraiser, let’s think of something really creative,” Zehnder said recently. “We don’t want to do a car wash or a trivia night. Let’s do something really memorable.”
The event generated nearly $90,000 for Eustis, Fla.-based Powerhouse Recovery, which is operated by Hand in Hand of Lake County, an outgrowth ministry of the 250-member church on U.S. Highway 441.
“It’s probably the most upbeat thing I’ve ever been involved with,” said Hand in Hand’s executive director, David Douglas, who was on hand for about 50 hours of Zehnder’s preaching marathon. “For me, it was just overwhelming. I feel a whole lot better after getting some sleep.”
The attempt spanned the entire weekend of Nov. 7-9- 7 a.m. Friday to 12:18 p.m. Sunday. Zehnder said about 400 to 500 people, including four nurses from the church who took shifts monitoring his health, sat through his sermons.
“Doing the world record attempt isn’t something you do every day,” he said. “If I was going to go for it, I was going to go as long as I could.”
According to the rules, at least 10 people must be present during the entire attempt, along with two witnesses who are not affiliated with the church. Zehnder said he believes they complied and will submit the evidence, including pages of log books and notes, and hopes to hear back within a few months.
He was also allotted, according to the rules, five-minute breaks for every hour he spoke. He said he stockpiled those breaks and used them to take three longer rests and walks to re-energize.
“Because I’m out front, everyone knows my exact bathroom schedule,” he said jokingly. “I would literally run from the stage to the bathroom. I tried to save every minute I could.”
He added that his record for the shortest bathroom run was 49 seconds. During the first 23 hours, he said he took a total of only 14 minutes for breaks.
As he inched closer to the world record, he said more people showed up to cheer him on, including his wife, who stayed most of the time, and their two sons.
“I got to play off their energy and enthusiasm,” he said. “I was the one doing the speaking, but this was a record that many, many people were involved in.”
