let my people go

I had the privilege of worshiping this morning at Payne Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs.  The AME Church is a historically black church that grew out of the Free African Society in the late 18th century.  This Church has such a rich heritage and it and its members have made great contributions to modern America.  I was warmly welcomed.  It was an experience that all of us should step into.  We spend so much of our time remaining in 'the majority.'  Something valuable happens when one has the courage to be 'the minority.'  One amazing thing happened.  A young man who was a victim of a shooting last weekend in Colorado Springs where 2 others were killed went forward at the end of the service and gave his life to Christ.  With his arm in a cast, he embraced Pastor Brown for quite awhile as his mother sobbed in the pew.  He will be baptized next Sunday.  The Black Church in America lives much closer than white evangelicals do to the struggles of oppression and violence and poverty.  Thus, it can be argued, they live much closer to the story of the exodus and of Jesus' time in the wilderness.  We need to live close to those stories.  We need to learn to listen.  We need a miracle of the ear as we seek to overcome that which divides us: race and ethnicity, class and socioeconomic status, gender and sexuality.  My prayer is that we would become one.

Comments

[Shelly]

Amen brother - would have loved to been there with you!