Remnant Communities

I've come to believe in remnant communities. I suppose that I fell into my first one in college. Guy Sayles, Mitch Wesley, Dr. George Shriver, Dr. Del Presley and this loose collection that hung around the Baptist Student Union were the first to push me towards looking at life differently. I recall that we were often in trouble.

In seminary it was Bill Berry, Claude Drouet, Beth Bell, Diane Reel, Michael Freeman, Cindy Weber, Chester, Sonny, Bruce and a crazy collection of people achieved something very different in Louisville, Kentucky. We kidnapped a church from the Southern Baptist Convention. Sunday School rooms were turned into apartments. The Baptismal Pool became a bathtub. The annual watching of "A Carlie Brown Christmas" somehow became the zenith of worship. Nothing was off limits to us and even Santa Claus was once put on trial for selling out Christmas to commercialism. We were liberal, conservative, gay, straight, black, white, poor...and we always seemed to be in some sort of trouble. For a few years, it was magic.

Then for the past two decades in Savannah there has been Union Mission. Diane Reel (again), Karen Jack, Julie Walsh, Lavanda Brown, Rodger Pack, Joe Bridges, and a thousand other names. Grace House was built. Then the Magdalene Project, Phoenix Place, Potters Place, the Hacienda, the Employment & Training Center, the J. C. Lewis Health Center, the Barnes Center, the Kole Center, the Brassler Dental Clinic, Parent & Child, the Behavioral Health Center and soon, Dutchtown. The volume of what has been accomplished for a small city is mind-boggling and Savannah is a much different place because of it. And we were often in trouble because of it.

So last night, I stood in a parking lot listening to Diane DeVore read the names of those who have died from AIDS. Perhaps a hundred people had gathered. A City Alderman was present. High School students. Lavanda had brought her son. Susan Alt of the Health Department was there with her husband Ron. A lot of Union Mission staff. A lot of homeless people. A few people simply walked up from the community. Candles were lit. Songs were sung.

Then Stephanie Dixon stood and talked. She oversees Union Mission's HIV programs. She spoke with passion and through tears and I was struck by the fact that she is a leader of the next generation of a remnant community. And I found great comfort in knowing that.

The Scriptures say that God will always raise another prophet. Last night I saw some taking shape and that is a gratifying and humbling thing.