February 2013 – The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress

Pat Terry and the Eye of the Artist

If we learn to look at life with the eyes of the artist, we

will see an entire universe that is “a gift of mercy.”

Workshop — Pat pondering how to help a workshop participants song

It’s odd that a musical preacher who writes songs, cut his teeth and got called to ministry during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s would have met Pat Terry so late in life, but that’s the way life winds sometimes. I had heard of the Pat Terry group back when he was starting out—Pat is just a bit older than me. I heard his songs, but my musical journey got put on hold for a long time as marriage and children and years in graduate education and pastoral ministry took me in different directions. I continued listening to music and playing and singing, sometimes in church and mostly by myself for my own pleasure.

Pat Terry, meanwhile, was on a journey of his own, too. After many years, first in the very spontaneous and joyful Jesus Movement musical world, and then for a while in the increasingly industry-captivated contemporary Christian musical world, he moved on. He had a good, long run as a commercial songwriter in Nashville, with a string of songs for many well-known artists like John Anderson, Travis Tritt, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Tanya Tucker and the Oak Ridge Boys. He learned the Nashville craft and all the while continuing his own inner journey of writing from the heart.

So it was that a few years ago, Greg Womble, my friend and bandmate who plays the banjo publicly, and I, who play it out of earshot but love it, went to Atlanta to Continue reading Pat Terry and the Eye of the Artist

Standing Up for Children in Birmingham, Alabama

Several years ago, Dr. Penny Marler approached me about participating in a program where pastors might become

friends across differences—race, age, denomination—and learn from each other. Rev. Arthur Price and I decided to make that journey together. He is the pastor of historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where, 50 years ago this fall, people driven by hate and fear set off a bomb that killed four little girls who had just prayed together. The episode set off a national revulsion to the radical racists and helped put America in a new direction.

kthompson_PKDHAZ6R — Rev. Keith Thompson

Over the course of that few years, we became friends, Arthur much younger, a different personality, a native of the North, me a son of the South. It was one of the richest experiences of my life, and it is documented on the website of the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence. (For more information about the project Rev. Price and I did together, click HERE)

One of the side blessings of that friendship was connecting our churches. We visited each others’ deacons meetings, had our congregations together for fellowship, and continued our friendship by having breakfast together regularly over the years. Last year, we began to talk together about doing something positive that would mark this anniversary by affirming that we are in a new day and that the faith community is part of that. We were joined by another friend, Rev. Keith Thompson of First United Methodist Church downtown.

After the massacre at Newtown in December, our sense of commitment was heightened. Whatever strikes at our Continue reading Standing Up for Children in Birmingham, Alabama

Standing Next to Death

I have not posted here in a month. I took the month of January off in a period of “lying fallow,” if someone with as many hats as I wear can ever really “lie fallow.” Truth is, though, I ;have been learning to stop now and then, reassess and see how we’re all doing.

Mostly in this month I’ve been working hard. The church where I am Pastor had six deaths in about three weeks. All were friends (and that is becoming the most common description of who I funeralize now, since my 20^th anniversary is approaching) and two near my age were among that group. One, Steve Blackwelder, was an ex-Marine. I mean a REAL Marine, a tunnel rat in Viet Nam who saw death up close and personal. Yet in ;the life after that, while he suffered and struggled in many ways, he lived out kindness and care for others in every way that he could. He collected Beatles ties, and all the pallbearers and my associate Pastor wore one of Steve’s to the service. The next Sunday, I told the church about Steve coming over when I moved in in 1993 to fix some plumbing issues and then setting my backyard on fire by accident when he flicked a finished—but not extinguished—cigarette through the fence. We put it out, and now it was a laugh for us.

Then there was Bob Daily. He was a former deacon, Sunday School teacher, you name it volunteer, the guy who went to welcome anyone to the church with a cold call. He was my insurance agent and I ate breakfast with him weekly for 20 years, so pardon me for feeling a little vulnerable at the moment. Continue reading Standing Next to Death