Florida Pastor Preaches for More than 53 Hours Straight

A 31-year-old pastor from Mount Dora has broken the record for giving the longest speech.

Coming in at 53 hours, 18 minutes, Pastor Zach Zehnder’s diatribe far outlasted the current Guinness World Record for the Longest Speech Marathon, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Zehnder had more than 200 pages of notes, 600 Power Point slides, a cheerleading squad and audience armed with water guns to keep him going, the paper reported.

The previous record stood at 48 hours, 31 minutes.

Zehnder’s lengthy speech began at 7 a.m. Nov. 7 and was conducted as a fundraiser for his church, theCross Mount Dora, the event’s website stated. Money raised benefits the church’s Powerhouse Recovery Program that is designed to address all manner of addictions.

While Zehnder hit 48 hours, 31 minutes by Sunday morning, he kept going, Bay News 9 reported.

“All the support has been amazing and given me the energy to make it through,” the station quoted Zehnder as saying.

As of Sunday, a total of $90,000 had been raised for the recovery program.

Zehnder didn’t throw in the towel until just after noon on Sunday, the Sentinel reported.

Why go so far over the standing record?

“If I was going to go for it, I was going to go as long as I could,” the paper quoted Zehnder as saying.

Now, the church plans to submit evidence of Zehnder’s record-breaking attempt to Guinness for official confirmation. The final ruling could take up to eight weeks.

Photo Credit: Pastor Zach Zehnder/Facebook

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