Are you back? Great. Hope to see you at one of the zillions of work sites this Saturday.
Transform Dallas promises a number of benefits to those who serve as well as to those whom we serve. We’ll be cleaning and spiffing, playing and feeding, even sewing and writing and walking and praying. In thousands of ways, we will be sharing the love of Christ through practical service and warm compassion.
For many of us, this service day is a welcome opportunity to get up close and personal with people from other cultures and backgrounds. Everyone agrees that we learn from these experiences and we gain more than we give.
This year, Transform Dallas brings together volunteers from other churches (and businesses, too) to work together on the various projects. That means you may be working with friends from your Connect group, but you may find yourself shoulder to shoulder with folks from a crosstown church.
We recently read the book More Than Equals by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice. Our copy is the second edition, a 2000 update to the 1993 original. Spencer Perkins, a black man raised in segregated Mississippi, and Chris Rice, a Vermont Yankee, came together in the early 1980s through the Voice of Calvary mission in Jackson, Mississippi. More Than Equals tells their backstories, their remarkable friendship as “yokefellows,” and their passionate commitment to Christ’s call for racial reconciliation.
It’s a powerful book with a compelling message. One of the major points it makes is the importance of deliberately seeking out Christian brothers and sisters of a different racial background to know them as friends. Chris and Spencer’s experience is between black and white; they also commend connecting with people of Asian or Hispanic origins.
Transform Dallas, pairing up Christians from all kinds and colors of churches, lets people take steps in the right direction. We hope it’s just the first of many, many steps toward racial reconciliation.
Have fun serving the Kingdom on Transform Dallas Day. Then come back and check out More Than Equals.
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