Layin' it on the Line - 1960 and 2006

I've read two incredibly compelling tales of "walkin' the walk" in the past few days. First, Mike Exum on his blog gives a riveting account of taking the message of Jesus to the inner-city of Lubbock. If someone called me and said "hey, let's go have a communion service tomorrow night at midnight on Gang-bangers Drive" - I'd probably think the person was crazy - yet, that, in a nutshell, is what Mike is up to right now in his radical ministry. As I stated in a previous post - I seem to be wondering more frequently these days if Jesus' ministry and the actions of the 2006 church jive. Clearly Mike is about what Jesus was about 2,000 years ago.

And, I was incredibly moved by a story today in the Lufkin Daily News by contributing writer Jim Moore. I would love to meet Jim, a Houston lawyer who grew up in Lufkin, after reading this gripping story. As a young boy Jim's father, a local preacher, would get him up on Sundays and they would walk from a white part of Lufkin to one of Lufkin's inner-city black churches -Lubbock Street church of Christ, where Mr. Moore would preach. Almost incomprehensible to me that a white East Texas preacher from 1960 would have such a compassion for African Americans and the racial scourge going on at that time. I was very moved by Jim's article and would love to speak with him about it. The story, which is a short, but moving piece, is located here.