Archive for worldview

Sep
8

Where Missional Discipleship Began

by newhope

Jesus went through cities and villages proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. He sat on rocks, walked up hills, sailed on boats, visited in homes, worshiped in synagogues, and traveled through wheat fields. He didn’t avoid the hard places, those where He was hated or misunderstood. He wasn’t fearful of the unknown. He didn’t hesitate to step off the beaten path or walk through the fruitful fields. With His heart overflowing with love for His Father and a burning urgency to accomplish His Father’s mission, He led the way to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even the farthest reaches of the world.

Jesus didn’t go alone. He took His disciples. He took some women whose lives he had redeemed. He took many others who contributed to His ministry. It’s hard for me to imagine this large contingency of people who left their homes to travel with a radical itinerant preacher. Yet, those of us who know Jesus realize He fed their hunger for truth and satisfied their thirst for righteousness.

Jesus could have traveled alone, or with a small select group. The large crowd who went with Him wasn’t accidental. Jesus’ plan was the intentional missional discipling of these men and women. He was equipping them to live in the same way He lived. They heard Him, watched Him, and then helped Him. They learned for themselves this radical new lifestyle.

To understand missional discipleship in today’s world I encourage you to read two new books: Live Sent by Jason Dukes and  Live Like a Missionary by Jeff Iorg. You, too, can live for God’s mission.

0 Categories : Blog
Aug
26

A Missional Worldview

by newhope

if someone asked you to explain your worldview, could you? You do have one, and whatever it is, your worldview will shape your life as well as the decisions you make along the way. If you are a Christ follower, then your worldview should be shaped by the worldview of biblical teaching and especially by what Jesus taught and modeled for his followers.

According to Christian Overman, we walk through life with assumptions about our lives and our world that “mold our thinking, shape our conclusions, and direct the decisions that lie behind our actions and attitudes.” Our assumptions control our life more than we realize. Many Christians segment their lives into “church” and “work” and “home,” not realizing that the Christian life is consistent and inclusive in all facets of living. Christians are called to be “on mission” in their homes, their workplaces, and through their churches. Yet, without a missional worldview, they may never connect their daily lives with ”God so loved the world.”

Jesus taught and modeled a missional worldview. In other words, all that He did was focused toward the fulfillment of God’s mission in the world. Jesus viewed the world and the community as places in need of Christian service and love. His concern was that God would be made known in both word and deed. He was “the love of  God” walking among the people.  According to Jesus, God’s love embraces family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and peoples living in distant places. For Christ followers, a missonal worldview commissions them to be God’s love in the places where they live and work, where human need and spiritual darkness persist.

How important is this? David Dockery writes that how we understand the world has cosmic implications, for “there is a great spiritual battle raging for the hearts and minds of men and women around the globe.”  Dockery’s words remind us of the ultimate result if God’s people remain locked in “assumptions” that restrict their ability to respond to the great spiritual and physical needs in the world.  Perhaps now more than ever, Christians need to know that God is still sovereign, has come in his Son, Jesus Christ, and has a plan for each individual, as well as mankind and the world in general.

As you are thinking on your worldview today, here are a few questions to consider.

  •  What assumptions are shaping what you do with your life?
  • What do you understand about the urgency of the gospel and the movement of the world’s people to urban areas?
  • How do you respond to the growing cultural diversity in our nation?
  • How are you involved in ending  institutions such as hunger, poverty, prejudice, corrupt political systems?

The goal of a missional worldview is always to know more of God and His love for the world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16). The gospel is global good news!

 

 

Christian Overman, Assumptions That Affect Our Lives(Christian Overman, 1996)

 

David S. Dockery, “Shaping a Christian Worldview” in Shaping a Christian Worldview, ed. David S. Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002)

 

0 Categories : Blog
Jul
2

The Radical Nature of the Gospel

by newhope


Today is the Salvation Army Founder’s Day, the anniversary of the first tent meeting at which William Booth preached on the Quaker Burial Ground in Whitechapel, London. His life is an example of the Christian pioneers mentioned in Hebrews 12 and reminds us of our accountability to live out the radical nature of the gospel in bringing Christ to the world.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. Hebrews 12:1–2, The Message

William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829. While working as an apprentice in a pawnbroker’s shop he became aware of the humiliation experienced by the poor. During his teenage years he became a Christian and spent much of his spare time trying to persuade other people to become Christians too.

After his marriage to Catherine Mumford in 1855 he spent several years as a Methodist minister, traveling all around the country, preaching, and sharing God’s word to all who would listen. Yet he felt that God wanted more from him, that he should be doing more to reach ordinary people. He returned to London with his family, having resigned his position as a Methodist minister.

One day in 1865 he found himself in the East End of London, preaching to crowds of people in the streets. Outside the Blind Beggar pub some missioners heard him speaking and were so impressed by his powerful preaching that they asked him to lead a series of meetings they were holding in a large tent. The date for the first meeting was set for July 2, 1865. To the poor and wretched of London’s East End, Booth brought the good news of Jesus Christ and his love for all men. Booth soon realized he had found his destiny. He formed his own movement, which he called “The Christian Mission.”

The work was hard and Booth would ‘stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue, often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck’, wrote his wife. Evening meetings were held in an old warehouse where urchins threw stones and fireworks through the window. It was not until 1878 when The Christian Mission changed its name to The Salvation Army that things began to happen. The impetus changed. The idea of an Army fighting sin caught the imagination of the people and the Army began to grow rapidly. Booth’s fiery sermons and sharp imagery drove the message home and more and more people found themselves willing to leave their past behind and start a new life as a soldier in The Salvation Army. By the time of Booth’s death in 1912 the Army was at work in 58 countries.

Booth’s heart is revealed in these words: “While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight-I’ll fight to the very end!”

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Jun
18

Jamoat (Community) in Uzbekistan

by newhope

As we consider discipleship this month on New Hope Digital, we can learn what discipleship includes through the ministry of missionaries in other countries. I asked to share this recent news from a mission servant in Uzbekistan. His report provides an excellent example discipleship, the approaches we can use, and the impact it can make on a life. I’ve included a reminder of the persecution believers face in Uzbekistan.

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Like anything with life, growth and change are inevitable. What we find God has for us today is very different than it was when I first came, and even very different than last year, or last week. It’s a constant effort to resist doing what we have always done and always ask the questions:

1. What is most needed in the Kingdom effort in our region?

2. What are we uniquely gifted to do?

3. What opportunities do we have to serve?

4. What roles and responsibilities do we have to maintain?

Most obvious for us is something that began in the spring of 2005. A Bible study with our teammates and a handful of Uzbek believers quickly morphed into a weekly fellowship. Jamoat as we refer to it, meaning “Community.”This fellowship has gone through many changes and currently meets in a home each Sunday doing a study through the book of James. The children have a story time and games or drawing connected to the day’s theme. There are now 3 families, a married woman with her 3 children and one single lady that come rather consistently. That gives us 12 adults and 6 children excluding our family.

We spend most of every Sunday together, having a meal after our gathering and sometimes going to a park or swimming on hot summer days. It’s more like a family than the traditional idea of a gathering. In addition to Sunday, a ladies’ prayer time has become standard each week with 4 or 5 ladies attending, including one all-nighter each month.

We have been part of a network of workers since 2000. We still maintain those relationships and have partnered to run seminary classes, a marriage retreat and a youth festival in recent years.

In our effort to train leaders locally we are restarting a seminary program which runs once a month for 2-3 days year round all in Uzbek without translation.

Last year we held our first marriage retreat with 10 Uzbek couples attending. That retreat was led by an Uzbek couple from Uzbekistan and turned out to address a real needy area. We followed up by gathering for Valentine’s Day this year and hope to further disciple marriages to forge Biblical marriages in the blossoming Uzbek believing community.

We also hosted a youth festival last summer, mostly coordinated by Uzbeks with one young pastor addressing the youth. Godly relationships among the youth are critical and finding those with a passion for that ministry was a delight.

A women’s prayer group has since grown to 2 groups meeting in various homes in the city. Many women come who can not attend weekly fellowships due to family pressure.

Another aspect of the network is shared resources. We have come into a rather large supply of books and videos, as well as audio materials. These are always made available to leaders in other villages or fellowships across the city. Currently our primary role in this task is CD and DVD duplication with literally thousands distributed. Over 100 cases of new Scripture portions also came in January which were promptly sent to 5 leaders for safe keeping and use in their own ministries.

We have a conviction that all brothers and sisters in this city and region are placed here by God, that we are ONE and that God intends us to work in cooperation for the furtherance of His Kingdom among all peoples.

One ministry is that of radio. Programs are written and recorded nearby for every language across Central Asia, including Uzbek. We have provided them with every resource we have in Uzbek so they have everything available at their fingertips should the need arise.

Last year while talking with a pastor in a village who has a great concern for the growing Uzbek believing community in his region he mentioned that they all have trouble providing for their families. That led to us giving a $1,000 interest free loan thru this pastor to buy a cow that could serve as additional income for an Uzbek man leading a house group in a nearby village.

Than another family came with a similar situation and we gave another loan for livestock. Then a loan for seed to plant in spring to a believing Kurdish family with no income. One turned out extremely well, one OK and I think one was a failure. We have learned from those experiences and now look for opportunities to give loans or partner with others to get them on their feet rather than the age old practice of handouts which have done so much damage.

We bought a fixer-upper last year and are now remodeling that house to resell. We go to the worksite almost every day, pray together and are learning how to seek each other’s good and even resolve differences, all under the constant view of our families and the 3 unbelieving Uzbek men who work for us.

We are seeing many advantages to this type of setup:

1 Getting our friends on their feet financially

2. Living and working together as a real life discipleship

3. Giving us a great witness before unbelieving workers

4. Giving us a presence in a new Uzbek neighborhood and already dozens of new friends.

5. Giving me another understandable identity as a businessman

 

With the understanding that as always, God is more concerned about growing us as His servants than about the work we do for Him, we constantly struggle to make time for a growing relationship with God. Growing in intimacy and developing habits that keep us moving in that direction is a priority.

0 Categories : Blog
Jun
8

Neighborliness

by newhope

God’s love enables us to be good neighbors. We need God’s love because we are often better at allowing our differences to become barriers to neighborliness than we are at seeing how much love we can offer to someone else. God’s love isn’t a request that we ignore the differences, but rather that we love because God loves us. Loving like God is difficult to achieve, and in fact, isn’t within our ability to give apart from God first giving it to us. The good news for us is that in Christ, we receive God’s love in abundance so that we might love others in return.

Jesus modeled God’s unconditional love when He stood beside a woman accused of adultery, when he went to the home of a tax collector, when He ate with sinners, when he touched lepers, and when He lived His life engaging person after person others considered unclean or undesirable. When Jesus led His disciples into Samaria they were slow to comprehend that the barriers of race, religion, and culture could not and should not stand in the way of God’s love. Jesus had modeled this for them often, but again He showed them how to love.

The first Christians had to come to terms with the unexpected outpouring of God’s love and Spirit on people they considered “different”. They discovered early on that they were not only to embrace the Jews, but also the Gentiles. When Peter went to the house of the Gentile Cornelius, he saw the Holy Spirit come upon Cornelius, his family, and his close friends. Then Paul reported that he was called to the Gentiles. These new believers could not deny what was happening, for they saw it with their own eyes. God’s love wasn’t exclusive, but rather inclusive.

 

God’s love compels us to cross barriers. Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation wrote in Compelled by Love, “The completing work of God’s love in our lives finds no border. It is pervasive in its influence upon us. As the life of Christ revolutionizes our lives, God’s love cycles us to love others so His presence can have more power over us.” Jason Dukes expresses it this way in his book, Live Sent. “His love, given completely because of who He is, not because of how lovable we were, made everything right between us and God. And now, that kind of compelling love, mysterious love, change-everything love transforms our very relationships, allowing us to see each person through the lens of the love that we have ‘in us’ rather than the feelings of impatience, frustration, woundedness, or bitterness that we might have toward them.”

In other words, God provides the love we need to be a good neighbor.

1 Categories : Blog
Jun
1

The Invention of the Phonograph and NewHopeDigital.com

by newhope

I recently stood on the lawn of Thomas Edison’s winter home in Fort Myers, Florida. As much as I marvel at his brilliance, I was most impressed with the reason for his inventions. He invented because he saw the needs of the world and wanted to meet those needs. From light bulbs to rubber plants, his goal was to help humanity.

One of the needs he addressed was that of making information accessible to every person in the world. This led to the invention of the phonograph. By 1888 he was producing phonographs for families to purchase for their homes. In an article for the North American Journal, he wrote, “The speeches of orators, the discourses of clergymen, can be had ‘on tap,’ in every house that owns a phonograph.”

Edison’s vision for  the phonograph was 10 years in the making. He believed a time was coming when words would be recorded and heard by people in every home in every nation. Even when he began to sell the phonograph he produced a standardized model to insure every country would be able to use it. He wrote, “a record put upon the machine in New York could be placed on another machine of the same pattern in China and speak exactly as it was spoken to on this continent.” In his article he gave example after example of ways the phonograph would change communication. As we know, it did exactly that.

Like Edison, Great Commission publishers hunger to find new ways to bring the transformational words of their authors to a world where every kind of content is accessible. The need for more Christian content is evident. Who would have dreamed of the proliferation of pornography and violence unavoidable except by complete disengagement from TV and the Web? Who would have imagined that our world would allow a new Web domain just for pornographic content? I suggest it is time for a new domain called .God. While I haven’t invented .God, I do have a vision for delivering Christ-inspired content where every heart and mind can choose to respond, where Christ is already at work making Himself known.

When we first began our journey that has led to NewHopeDigital.com we didn’t realize the ability of our staff and the shared vision of our authors to make this a reality. But when God gives the vision, He also provides everything needed to accomplish it. Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” The Bible states, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:11-12 ESV).

New Hope Digital is to the praise of His glory for it brings the needs of the world together with the God-given expertise, ministries, and messages of New Hope’s authors to create a global discussion and response. Our authors are not only writers, but Christ-followers actively involved in living out their faith.

Yesterday’s phonograph is today’s instant message. I believe God knew the spiritual needs of the world would require far more than phonographs in the twenty-first century. New Hope Publishers and our authors share a passion to make Christ known through every means we are capable of providing. We pray NewHopeDigital.com will inspire and encourage you as a Christ follower and that God will empower you to serve Him in your home, your community, and the world.

“Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it” (2 Corinthians 3:3 MSG).

All Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked MSG taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

0 Categories : Blog
Apr
11

The Two Greatest Institutions for Human Exploitation

by Andrea Mullins

In the past few years we have seen a huge increase in awareness and emphasis on ending sex trafficking and other forms of slavery. This past week I was involved in an event where an interactive display helped participants to understand human exploitation, and an exhibit area focused on organizations that work in the area of human exploitation. I was thrilled to see the number of organizations combating the abuse of women and children, families and communities. Some are involved in releasing the captives, and others are changing the institutions that place people in exploitive conditions.

So what are the institutions that create a climate for exploitation? Poverty is one, and is perhaps the second greatest institution that leads to exploitation. While ministering to women who dance in the nightclubs of Birmingham I quickly discovered poverty was a common cause for women going to work at a strip club. Poverty is also why they often feel they can’t afford to leave. Sadly, very few who are in positions to end poverty are interested in doing much to change the situation. Corrupt corporations and political systems are often partners in keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. Dishonest leaders with money and power, and societal customs handed down from one generation to the next, also reinforce poverty as the status quo, and hinder access to opportunties for the impoverished to find their way out.
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But the greatest exploitive institution is the sinful condition of mankind. Adam and Eve made the first decision that resulted in one human being misleading and misusing another. And only in Christ do we find enough selfless love to live in ways that do not exploit others. Fortunately, for many years, some of those in Christ have been working to give people the hope that God intended for every life. One of these people was a missionary working in Thailand. She began to look for ways to help women escape prostitution. She saw their beautiful needle work and the Christmas ornaments they made. In 1996 she asked WMU®, our parent company, to help provide these women with an income by selling their handcrafts. That was the beginning of WorldCraftssm. Since that time WorldCrafts has partnered with a growing number of groups around the world where women and children are susceptible to being trafficked, are already entrapped in prostitution and desperate to escape, or in danger of being sold into slavery.

Volunteers Selling WorldCrafts

 

Every product sold by WorldCrafts offers hope for a family. One purse may feed a family for a week. A piece of jewelry pays for rice on the table as well as the expansion of business. A Christmas ornament may provide education or medical care.  Best of all, your purchase helps provide a sustainable income so women and families may live with dignity and have hope for a better life. In Christ, you can help end poverty and human exploitation.

1 Categories : Blog
Mar
30

Compelled by Love Chosen for Doctrinal Study

by Andrea Mullins

Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation came to New Hope when they wrote Compelled by Love, The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living. It happened that the two of them had been teaching and preaching on this very subject.

I recently asked Philip to explain his personal feelings about writing Compelled by Love. In case you haven’t heard, Compelled by Love is the 2011 Baptist Doctrine Study and is available as both a discipleship kit and the book through Lifeway Christian Stores.

 

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Every movement begins with a reason. It could be a brand new idea that works against everything we have known previously. Sometimes it begins with a rebellion against the status quo. Or, it could be the desire to return to a preferred reality. The movement toward missional living is all of these things.

In 2008, New Hope Publishers asked Ed Stetzer and me to write a work focused on the reason behind a movement. With the reintroduction of the word “missional” into the vocabulary of church leadership, it was becoming the modifer du jour. Everything was missional. Missional church. Missional church planting. Missional believers. And, I’ve heard Ed joke about the missional lighting we use during worship. Because of the popularity of the word, exploring the motivation behind the movement seemed needful. Otherwise (to paraphrase an astute missiologist) when everything is missional then nothing is missional.

With Compelled by Love, there is a specific aim: to push the concept of missional out of the church leadership library and into the lives of everyday believers.

I believe that missional living is necessary. Even if saying missional church and missional Christian are phrases filled with redundancies. Perhaps that is why we wrote a book that found its origins in 2 Corinthians where the word missional is never used. (For that matter, missional is not a word ever found in scripture.) Instead, what we see from Paul and the believers in Corinth is a committed group of disciples seeking to live out their love for Christ by fulfilling His work. They were a living in and for the mission of God. To make it adverbial, they were missional.

As Paul described the greatness of Christ’s mission for the church, all sorts of motivators could be employed. Guilt, legalism, and the promise of reward are some of humanity’s favorites. But not Christ’s. He taught the Corinthians and us (through our fellow missionary Paul) that love must be the force that presses, pushes, and compels our mission.

Love is the new idea from the heart of God that challenges all we have known before.

It is the rebellious force that is determined to redeem believers and restore creation. And, in it, we find the desire to return to Eden, the preferred reality in which we ought to live.

For we the church to live as our Lord lives, love is a necessity. Compelled by His character that perfectly aligns love, justice, holiness, and glory, we live as new creations in front of neighbors, coworkers, and friends. Our lives play out differently because we see the world differently. Rather than a place to survive, it has become our vantage point to watch a people redeemed.

Compelled by Love is not a complex book fit for academics who like to toy around with ideas. Rather, I hope it is a work in which any believer can rediscover why to live with a passion for God’s glory among all people.

Philip Nation

0 Categories : Blog
Mar
21

New Hope Digital Coming Soon!

by Andrea Mullins

In case you missed the exciting announcement that New Hope Digital is coming in mid April, here is our press release. Visit the link and sign up to receive more information as well as our newsletter.

(Birmingham, Ala.)—March 9, 2011—As book publishing rapidly enters an exciting new era of connectivity, New Hope Publishers is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of NewHopeDigital.com this April. NewHopeDigital.com is an innovative Web venture, providing readers and retailers with fresh content from top authors in multiple digital formats.

NewHopeDigital.com will feature regularly updated magazine-style content—articles, columns, feature stories, podcasts, videos—from New Hope authors and other contributors. In addition to featuring the latest book releases, each month the site will have a specific theme, such as orphan care, human exploitation, the persecuted church, and missional living.

“New Hope authors are making an impact for Christ, and through New Hope Digital, readers and retailers will be able to read, listen, watch, and interact with them regarding relevant, contemporary issues all in one place,” says publisher Andrea Mullins. “We are praying that our unique approach will be transformational in the lives of believers and will be a tool that retailers can use to connect their customers to the books that will be most helpful in their spiritual journeys.”

The New Hope fold of authors has been very receptive to the concept. “NewHopeDigital.com will provide me an opportunity to go deeper and connect with readers and retailers in an exciting new venue,” says top-selling New Hope author Jennifer Kennedy Dean, best known for her Live a Praying Life resources. “Since most of us live a cyberlife, NewHopeDigital.com fits right into the flow of information that I value and look forward to.”

New Hope author Mark Russell (The Missional Entrepreneur) says, “The church needs a place to explore complex human issues, discover the comprehensive vision of God’s mission, and how these two realities can come together. I’m excited about New Hope Digital because it gives us a conversation space to learn from one another in our God-given mandate to love him and our global neighbor.”

To find out more and to sign up for a free monthly e-newsletter and receive a free download of iFaith by Daniel Darling on the Nook platform, please visit the promotional site at NewHopeDigital.com today.

0 Categories : Blog
Feb
20

My Grandfather Was a Slave

by Andrea Mullins

by Joyce Dinkins

Most people are amazed when I tell them my grandfather was a slave.

I was discussing my granddad’s generation with a co-worker. “I can’t imagine how slaves, sharecroppers . . . could endure everything that happened to them. How do people in horrible, degrading, dehumanizing situations retain the will to live?” were her questions. My answer comes from a lifetime of learning to look back, understand, and appreciate from where we’ve come.

I’ve never seen Millard F. Wheeler’s face but remember this description: he was a smaller, broken-toothed and quiet, humble man with special gifts. My dad characterized him, “one of the most honest of poor folks, even when it hurt. He was really hurt by slavery because he had such free desires he never got to exercise.” One favorite recollection is that granddad was in charge of tending the fireplaces that warmed his brother’s church before Sunday School (some of those churches are refurbished historical sites in northern Georgia).

Pondering our oral history since childhood has ingrained granddad in my memory. Though, much African-American history has been acknowledged broadly only recently with February commemorations. Some want to forget; I don’t. Knowing about and understanding people who have survived degradation yields rich answers.

Their lives speak precious truth to answer that “How?” The power my granddad and others had—faith—to survive, thrive, and encourage others with hope is a miracle from God. Longing to know them and understand their lifestyle, times, and endurance has been a catalyst for me to consider Him, in whom they trusted to deliver us.

When the Civil War officially began 150 years ago, in the spring, my grandfather and his brothers and sisters were youth longing for freedom. George Washington Wheeler (GW), the oldest of my grandfather’s siblings was an abolitionist, preacher, and a church planter. He stole his masters’ horses to carry the message of faith in a free future above bowed-down heads in Georgia’s cotton fields where he, his parents, brothers, sisters, and extended family of slaves toiled.

Not quite 40 years after emancipation, the US 12th census lists my grandfather, his wife, and nine of his children, tied to the land as sharecroppers. My father, born at the turn of the 20th century, became one of three more children working the fields. Dad also labored as a saddle maker, cook, chauffeur, butler, babysitter, and killer of wild dogs. Until he hitchhiked north to domestic work in the Chicago suburbs along with my mother. That’s where I was born a Negro, the youngest of my father’s eight offspring, far from yet close to their Georgian servitude.

I’m quite removed from much of what my great grandparents, grandparents, and parents survived. But their lives tell me what they discovered and retained about how to overcome. My experiences—and their stories—provoke me to faith. Nothing but the grace of God gives us our exceptional testimony.

Joyce Dinkins is the managing editor of New Hope Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama.

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