Remembering Dr. King 2023
Day 1
January 16th marks the first day of the third “Remembering Dr. King” event hosted by the Grow Center at Park Community Church. Authors, teachers, artists, pastors, and marketplace leaders shared their reflections commemorating Dr. King’s last speech: “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top”. Featured speakers included: Nona Jones (Head of North America Community Partnership & Faith Global at Meta and founder of Faith & Prejudice), Rodney Bullard (Executive Director at Chick-fil-A foundation), Dr. Karen Loritts (Speaker and Teacher), Lecrae (Founder of Reach Records), Jonathan Webb (Managing Partner of National Christian Foundation), Paul Ozinga (President of Ready Mix Concrete at Ozinga), and Dr. Crawford Loritts (Author, Speaker, and Teacher). Here are some key takeaways from the first day of the event:
Be faithful in the small things. Dr. King wasn’t pursuing the position of being a leader of the civil rights movement. He was offered what he had in the injustice that was within his grasp. A notable quote from Nona Jones: “Often times we see huge problems. God is not calling us to change the world, but the part of the world we touch”. Similarly, Rodney Bullard said, “You can always influence the three feet around you. When I think about our feet, they’re not all even. You can do what you can do in your space and your time”.
We all belong in the same house. In sharing his own analogy of the body of Christ, Bullard noted that, “If we belong in the same house, we have to treat each other as such. You won’t sit comfortably in one part of the house if another is ablaze.” There is an inescapable mutuality that we are more alike than we are different.
We maintain unity by starting with love, listening, lamenting, learning, and leveraging. In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”. Dr. Loritts provided five principles to apply unity that emphasizes the importance of loving from a place of knowing and being loved by God, being quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, lamenting and bearing one’s soul to God, having a learner mindset to know the story, own the story, and change the story, and lastly being active agents towards change.
There’s no way around it. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was persecuted, arrested 29 times, stabbed, and beaten. His house was firebombed with his wife and infant child. Yet, he preached and wrote about loving your enemies and those who are different. Jonathan Webb reminded us that love is transformational. “The answer to all issues that we face is love and it resides in all of us” said Webb.
Human retribution is nothing in the face of being obedient to defend His creation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led with the example of perseverance, prayer, persistence, love, peace, and power in doing God’s will. Yet, many of us still fear the retribution of men and the consequences of speaking up against injustice. In his message, Paul Ozinga pointed out we ought to learn from Dr. King to realign our posture to be fired up to defend justice above submitting to our fears.
Sacrifice is the currency of authentic transformation. To Dr. Crawford Loritts, commemorating Dr. King is to commemorate His submission to His life purpose. “The political spitting contests that we have right now. The re-entrenchment of racism. The legitimizing of it in our culture. It’s all a manifestation of self-preservation rather than seeing the dignity and value of one another, so if we’re going to see change, we can't just articulate change, quoting King in speeches, maybe showing up for events. It’s gonna have to be something that will shatter us away from our obsession with self-preservation in our place in life” said Dr. Loritts. Dr. Loritts left us with a thought-provoking question, “What are we willing to sacrifice for what is right?”
Day 2
Second day of the event took place on January 17th. Hosts and speakers of the second day included: Roy Patterson (Community Relations Director, Moody Bible Institute), Traci Blackwell (Senior Creative Executive of Targeted Content, Amazon Studios), Dr. Hannah Stolze (Executive Director of Center for Faith and Innovation at Wheaton College, Professor at Baylor University), Anne Snyder (Editor in Chief, Comment Magazine), Andy Crouch (Partner for Theology & Culture, Praxis), Bishop Claude Alexander (Senior Pastor, The Park Church), Dr, Theon Hill (Co-Director of Center for Faith and Innovation at Wheaton College, Associate Professor of Communication at Wheaton College), William Adjej (Sector Director, CBRE), Bob Doll (Chief Executive Investment Officer, Crossmark Global Investments), Skye Jethani (Author, Speaker and Co-host of of Holy Post Podcast), DG Elmore (Chairman, Elmore Companies), Dr. La Verne Tolbert (Vice President of Editorial, Urban Ministries, Inc.), Joyce Koo Dalrymple (Pastor, Speaker, and Podcast Host), Dr. Marshall E. Hatch (Senior Pastor, New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church), Rev. Naima Lett (Co-pastor, Hope in the Hills; Co-founder, 40/50 Project), Grace Egbo (Software Engineer, Meta/Facebook), Leslye Taylor (CEO, Plan A! Executive Coaching & Business Consultation). These are the key takeaways from the second day of the event:
The following quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the main theme quote of the event;
“But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”.
Unity is the place of humanity. Traci Blackwell started the second day of the event by reiterating the importance of humanity. Although we all come from different backgrounds and may have different opinions, as people who were called to serve the same Christ, humanity should exist everywhere. Traci Blackwell said, “God is going to ask how you have treated people”. This can be connected to the main teaching of Jesus; love your neighbor as yourselves. Humanity and compassion of Jesus towards everyone is what we should be reminded of.
We were all called to bring unity to this world by God. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. contributed to bringing unity in spite of division and adversity. Dr. King once said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” The value of unity is crucial in this world both in the past and in the present and bringing unity is an important calling of God’s children. Grace Egbo said, “In this world, where division seeks to pull us left and right, know that indeed as leaders, we do have the grace of God to unify the people”.
Love our neighbors as ourselves. A recurring theme from the speakers was the importance of love. Roy Patterson said, “Love is the currency that is necessary for us to obtain the kind of hope, peace, and joy that we all long for”. As God’s children, we were all called to bring unity to this world. Loving one another in spite of differences and disagreements is crucial to bring hope, peace, and joy to this world.
There still needs to be some more progress in this world. In fact, according to one of our speakers Joyce Koo Dalrymple, some of the problems became harder to deal with and solve than they were in the past. Dr. Naima Lett also said, “I believe that his exhortation today would be the same as what he said 55 years ago”. Conversation around disunity, injustice, and economic disparity are all remaining as ongoing issues both now as it was in the past. Dr. King’s exhortation and his life give us the guidance to make those necessary changes.
Dangerous unselfishness is the key principle to keep in our mind. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exhorted us about living with dangerous unselfishness. Dr. Laima Lett said that the question that we can ask in regards to dangerous unselfishness is “If I don’t help someone, how would that impact them?”. Throughout his life, Dr. King had given everything. According to Dr. Laima Lett, it is important for us to be intentional about the ways that we can help others and make decisions that can sustain life for everyone. Sacrificing our lives for others is an important teaching from Dr. King, which initially came from Jesus Christ as according to Joyce Koo Dalrymple, Dr. King showed witness to the gospel.