A Friday to Remember

This past Friday night I presented a short film I’ve been working on for several months with good friend and video guru Sean Stockman. The film is being created for an important conference taking place at Lipscomb University in October. I’ll also be using the film during some teaching times at Rochester Church.

The conference I presented at on Friday was simply stunning. Black and White ministers from Churches of Christ gathered together to discuss Remembering 1968—a pivotal year in recent American history. The dialog was rich and powerful as I sat with ministers who marched with Dr. King and (white) ministers who were shunned because of their insistence that racism and segregation was an abomination to the way of Jesus. It was, for sure, a thin place—one of those rare moments when the story of Jesus collides with the ways of evil and darkness. Churches of Christ, though filled our own skeletons, boast a rich heritage of social involvement in issues of injustice and discrimination. These stories, however, rarely get told. We were teachers, historians, ministers, doctors, lawyers, social advocates—all came together in order to move our churches forward.

After my presentation, I went with Jimmy Hurd (a minister from the Detroit area) to the famous Bluebird Café in Green Hills. Four singer/songwriters captured our hearts for two plus hours. One of the performers is the author of the southern classic “The Gambler.”

My favorite song, offered by a well-known Nashville artist, was the last song. The chorus line went, “I was a burden . . . .’til the Lord . . . put his hand on me.”

That's my story.