Influences in my life

Writing my spiritual autobiography for a class and thinking about so many people who have helped make me who I am.

Thinking of a few right now:
Ruth Brown, Dr. David Warren, David Woodier. So many others. I will write more about each of these in the coming days.

Glory to God for such a cloud of witnesses.

Dr. Benjamin Mays

I am working on a project for my grad program on Dr. Benjamin Mays. I am learning so many interesting things about this man who was committed throughout his life to the training of men. It has been encouraging and inspiring.

Mays served for 27 years as the president of Morehouse College. He coined the phrase "Morehouse Men", which is still spoken with honor to this day. He impacted scores of leaders in politics, business, and ministers of the Gospel. Dr. King is probably his most famous student.

As I search, I find more and more that is intriguing about this man who grew up in poverty in South Carolina and went on to get his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Chicago.

These words tell of his perspective:
"I have never done anything for the purpose of being honored, to have my name on the front pages of the newspapers,I have done what I believe I was sent into the world to do: worship my God and serve my fellow man."

Julian Bond,Morehouse graduate and former president of the NAACP, summed him up by saying: "First he built himself, then he built Morehouse Men."

God uses people to impact people. But it starts with personal formation of ones character.

Christian Community

"Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together

To often, we frustrate ourselves with what "our church community" is not instead of marvelling at what it is: a display of the tapestry of God's grace.

Dreaming big

“THE TRAGEDY OF LIFE DOESN’T LIE IN NOT REACHING YOUR GOAL. THE TRAGEDY LIES IN HAVING NO GOAL TO REACH. IT ISN’T A CALAMITY TO DIE WITH DREAMS UNFILLED, BUT IT IS A CALAMITY NOT TO DREAM. IT IS NOT A DISGRACE NOT TO REACH THE STARS, BUT IT IS A DISGRACE TO HAVE NO STARS TO REACH FOR, NOT FAILURE, BUT LOW AIM, IS SIN.”

Dr. Benjamin Mays - ordained minister, educator, orator, mentor to Dr. King, and president of Morehouse College for 27 years

Repairer of broken walls

Thinking about Isaiah 58 today.

6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

I think of fasting as one of the spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are important to transformation. Does our fasting look like this?
Do our lives look like this? Do we care for our neighbors in this way?

Seeing Christ in Unexpected Places