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[Dr. Evans' response to Rick Atchley's Apology]
EXCERPT FROM A SERMON BY RICK ATCHLEY, MINISTER OF THE
RICHLAND HILLS CHURCH OF CHRIST, RICHLAND HILLS, TEXAS
[TRANSCRIBED BY JACK EVANS, SR.]
TITLE: RECONCILIATION TO RECKON WITH
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2004
What I want to share with you tonight is specifically how that dream becomes more visible at the Richland Hills Church of Christ. Two and a half years ago I stood in this pulpit, and I shared with you three areas where I intend, intentionally, to pursue reconciliation. One area I mentioned was with the African-American community in Tarrant County. What’s happened since? Well, the first thing we did was we invited Dr. Ken Green to come and preach and to be the speaker at our men’s retreat. And that was a first step and a good first step. But we’ve got to go further than that. By the way, Ken Green is bringing some men to the men’s retreat this weekend, along with Chauncy Spencer, who is the minister of the Metropolitan Church of Christ here in Fort Worth, another black congregation, a man I’ve befriended, and he will be bringing his church here to a summit soon to worship with us and to preach to us. That’s the next step we are going to take. We have started here at the church a new racial, multi-cultural ministry to promote unity that grew out of the ladies’ day last fall. All those things are good. But I think we are such a visible church in the brotherhood of churches of Christ and that we can do more.
Here’s my dream. The truth of the matter is, historically in churches of Christ our African-American congregations have struggled with a lot of the legalism and sectarianism that some of us knew growing up. THEY STILL DO. AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCHES STILL OFTEN PREACH ‘THE-CHURCH-OF-CHRIST-IS-THE-ONLY-ONE-GOING-TO-HEAVEN’ kind of sermons. IT GRIEVES ME TO SAY THAT, BUT IT IS TRUE. Here’s what grieves me more: the reason that’s true is because for decades the Christian schools of churches of Christ denied African-American young men to come study. THE PREACHERS IN THOSE CHURCHES DIDN’T GET GOOD THEOLOGICAL TRAINING. It was in my own lifetime that that changed. I remember when I first started preaching a lot of the young black men that graduated from ACU with Bible degrees would come see me and say, ‘We don’t know what to do. We’ve learned to preach GRACE; the black churches won’t hire us, and the white churches won’t even talk to us. WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?’ In Atlanta I got cancelled by a black church. They said they wanted me to come because they had heard about people we were winning to Christ. And then the preacher called me up and said, "I hear you have a praise team. I hear you believe that people besides the church of Christ can go to heaven." And he cancelled me, not because he wasn’t willing to listen, but because he was afraid of what his preaching peers would say. AND THIS IS THE CULTURE IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCHES FOR YEARS...BUT; THERE’S A NEW GENERATION OF YOUNG, AFRICAN-AMERICAN PREACHERS THAT WANT TO BREAK FREE FROM THAT. They have started meeting. They formed their own retreat. They are getting together. And they need encouragement; because in black churches of Christ if you stand up and preach some of the things that we have been preaching in this pulpit for thirty years, you can still get into a lot of trouble. They need encouragement. So, I am going to their next retreat to encourage them. And I am going to invite them to come in 2005 here to this church and be encouraged and know that they have a future. And when this church models to our fellowship that we believe that there can be a new day of freedom and grace, that explodes in African-American churches across America, it will make a statement that needs to be made.
And so that’s my dream. And I know that you support it, but I want you to pray about it.
[Highlighted emphasis mine. -- Jack Evans, Sr.]
[Dr. Evans' response to Rick Atchley's Apology]
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