In some branches ofChristianity, especially Americanpentecostalism, children are occasionallypreachers, or evenordainedministers. The heyday of child preachers was in the 1920s and 1930s,[1] but a number of videos of modern-day child preachers can be seen on YouTube.[2]
One of the most prominent child preachers wasMarjoe Gortner, who was the subject of the 1972 documentaryMarjoe.
According toRandall Balmer, the appeal of having child preachers is in its novelty, making it "a kind of a carnival side-show".[1]
In 2012, when he was 11 years old,Ezekiel Stoddard was ordained as a minister in his family's non-denominational Fullness of Time Church, in Maryland.[3]
In 2011,National Geographic aired a documentary that featured a four-year-old preacher in theUnited Pentecostal Church International.[4][5]