That They May All Be One

At the end of last week's blog I promised that I would fill you in on my efforts in the mid-to-late 1990s to help facilitate reconciliation within the local Christian community. To set the stage for this story, I must drop back even a couple more decades to the early 1970s.

I moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Northern Virginia over Labor Day weekend 1971. Within a few weeks, I had found a great place to hang out with other Christians, to hear God's Word preached with passion and to begin to build new friendships.

In hindsight, it's very clear that God led me to this group made up of late teen and early twenty-something believers. On Saturday evenings we met in the undercroft of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Va. We called ourselves “The House of Bread.” We met, we worshiped and we entered into the presence of God. Sometimes God's presence was so rich, so real that the entire roomful of people sat still, silent and worshipful, embraced by His Spirit and encompassed by His love.

Out of this group of Christians, many friendships remain in place to this day. And although I have made numerous good friends over the years, there will always be a unique bond with those folks from this season of my life. But one friendship in particular has shaped me more than any other.

Jump forward now to 1989. It is Memorial Day weekend and my wife's ladies' softball team is holding a Friday night practice at one of the fields behind what was then Marsteller Middle School on 234 across from the post office. While shagging fly balls in left field, I lost my footing, fell backwards and hit my head on the outfield turf. I became disoriented. My friends took me to the hospital. A CAT Scan was performed and it was determined that I suffered a concussion and was experiencing short term memory loss.

That night I got very little sleep and the next morning (Saturday) I told my wife that I wanted to see “my people.” I gave her the names of five friends to call. One of them was a friend from the old “House of Bread" days. Not long after that odd reunion, after my brain had returned to normal—some say it never has—I received a call from my old “House of Bread” friend. He told me that after a great deal of prayer over a several week period, he had heard God speak three words to him. Those words were, “Prepare to write.” This friend then asked me if I might be interested in helping him with some research for a book he planned to write. I said yes. That phone call led to five published novels and the rest of the story, which is about to follow. If you are curious, go to Amazon.com, place the “Search” window to "Books,” and type in my name and the word “Bloodlines.”

Bloodlines took nearly three years of work from conception to print. In researching the story, we came to the realization that American history had more unseemly parts than we had expected to find. The novel itself is a modern-day story with a pro-life theme. But intertwined throughout the tale is the secondary story of the Civil War. Writing the book, and then promoting it after publication, led us each to a burden about the state of the divided church. The term “divided” is best described by the phrase, “The most segregated hour of the week is 11:00 o'clock on Sunday morning.”

Our first novel was well along in its short lifespan, so we began work on a series of stories that we dubbed The Century War Chronicles. We crafted characters and story lines and laid out two, seven-book series on paper. Four books actually went into print, and then we just ran out of steam. We just plum tuckered out. In these stories, set in our nation's past, our main characters were white, black, and Native American teens. We desired to paint an honest picture of American history, portraying the good, the bad and the ugly.

In addition to our works of fiction, we also developed a musical presentation which included eleven songs that took the listener on a musical journey through American history. Our small band of performers included both whites and blacks. Those years provide me with some of my life's richest memories. For about a year, we also took one Sunday a month and visited a different African American congregation. Over the course of about three years we cultivated relationships with several pastors and church members from various African American churches. Our goal was to build bridges of reconciliation and extend the hand of friendship across racial lines.

We created a loosely organized group that we called HEAL. The letters of our four-word acronym stood for four character qualities needed in reconciliation: Humility, Endurance, Affirmation, Love. Our Scriptural basis was the verse I referenced last week, Revelation 5:9.

“And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation ...”

We even developed a bit of artwork to capture our ideas. The three worshipers in the 2nd image in the window above represent the three primary people groups found in our nation's history, each in a unique expression of worship.

Here's a quick overview of our core ideas from those days:

“HEAL was formed in 1995 with a call to help Christians humbly reexamine our nation's history and our own personal views of race, culture and denominationalism in light of Scripture. We believe God is giving his Church a fresh perspective on how our past shapes both our present and our future.

“HEAL was also formed to inspire Christians to reconcile with one another. We believe God is directing his Church to take leadership in healing the long standing wounds which have divided the Church and our nation for so many generations.

“In 1998 we discovered a third element to the healing process. In our generation, the Church struggles to have its testimony heard and its message understood. We came to believe that the process of reexamination and reconciliation would help to rehabilitate the Church's testimony in the land. We believe God desires his Church to be worthy of respect and in possession of genuine credibility.

So, when I recently took on the role of blogging on “religion” for Manassas Patch, I brought this history and experience with me into the arena of ideas here in the 21st century. These ideas still shape and guide me as I continue in my walk with Christ.

I also promised you an explanation on the reasons my wife and I chose to be a part of the local church where we belong. That story will have to wait.

Until we meet again ...