Delivered at Ames UCC
on May 22, 2016
©The Rev. Eileen Gebbie
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GO TO SEMINARY
There’s a pastor in Harlem named Michael Walrond. I first met him in seminary when he did a fireside chat about his church. Rev. Walrond had served as chaplain at Duke Divinity School, I think, but was called to bring First Corinthian Baptist Church back to life.
And he has. They have gone from a couple of hundred parishioners rattling around in a huge multi-floored sanctuary to multiple Sunday services with lines literally around the block.
I went into seminary with the death knoll of mainstream Protestantism ringing in my head, so I was eager to learn how Rev. Walrond had transformed that bell into peals of joy.
His message was simple: Take your people to seminary.
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