E.K. Bailey Preaching Celebration

Truett Seminary and the Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching presents the E.K. Bailey Preaching Celebration to honor the life and ministry of the Rev. Dr. E.K. Bailey. 

Please join us on February 23-24, 2026, at Truett Seminary as we honor Warren H. Stewart, Sr. with the honoree award.

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Dr. Warren H. Stewart Sr. is a native of Coffeyville, Kansas where he was reared in an African American Christian family and church environment.  He was licensed to preach in the Twelfth Street Missionary Baptist Church in 1969 at age 17.  Dr. Stewart’s academic achievements include earning five degrees culminating in a Doctor of Ministry Degree from American Baptist Seminary of the West, Berkeley, California in 1982, under the mentorship of the late Dr. Henry H. Mitchell.  Another of his most significant mentors was the late Dr. Sandy F. Ray, Pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York, who he met at Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, two weeks before he graduated in 1973, and served under for four years while in seminary.

Dr. Stewart served as Senior Pastor of the First Institutional Baptist Church of Phoenix, Arizona from July 1977 through June 2025. His ministry is characterized by an unwavering commitment and Spirit-filled zeal to engage in evangelism and emancipation, meeting the needs of the whole person. He is also recognized by others as “a man of conscience, commitment and dedication to the cause of moral leadership, human rights and a soldier of justice and equality”.  Stewart has been cited as one of the most influential religious leaders in Arizona and the nation, and his ministry extends internationally. Dr. Stewart organized and led two broad-based coalitions—ARIZONANS FOR A MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. STATE HOLIDAY and VICTORY TOGETHER, Inc.--that campaigned for a Martin Luther King, Jr./Civil Rights Day in Arizona which was won by a historic vote of the people in the general election on November 3, 1992, after a decades-long fight. In 2015, he was inducted into the 30th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr. College of Clergy & Laity— Board of Preachers in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel, Atlanta, GA. Pastor Stewart is a husband, father and grandfather.  His first book is Interpreting God’s Word in Black Preaching and his latest is titled, VICTORY TOGETHER FOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: The Story of Dr. Warren H. Stewart, Sr., Governor Evan Mecham and the Historic Battle for a Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in Arizona.

Dr. Stewart was welcomed to the South Dallas church community and Bishop College by the late Dr. E.K. Bailey who, in 1971, was pastoring in the same neighborhood of his Dallas church home, Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church.