My community service, as that term is typically defined, pales in comparison to the work of some of my colleagues, like Dr. Vernon Williams, whose recent work to refurbish the Dublin Rodeo Museum and involvement with the 306th Bomb Group are only a few of the ways he serves the local and historical communities, and my colleague and dear church friend Dr. Doug Foster, who weds his research and teaching interests to global conversations about racial and gender justice in a way that I find completely inspiring. I want to do more work like that, but I also recognize that I will probably have more time, energy, and connections that allow me to function in this way a bit later on in my career, and when I don’t have toddlers at home.
I did have a really fun opportunity to serve the local community with my history training when an eighth-grader in Boerne ISD contacted me and asked if she could film an interview with me about Mohandas Gandhi for a group project she was doing for the National History Day Fair. I agreed, and we met in my office during ACU Homecoming 2013, while her family was in town for some of the festivities. The student was delightfully bright and very precocious, and I can talk about Gandhi until I’m blue in the face, so we had great fun doing the interview. I’m eagerly awaiting 2017 to see if this student shows up here for school–I certainly hope she does. See our emails about the interview here: National-History-Day-Documentary-Project.
My family and I worship with two churches here in Abilene. At the Minter Lane church of Christ, we have a wonderful community of Christians who love God and God’s Word (and many can read it in its original languages), love their community, and are deeply committed to missions and justice. My son is growing up as part of a church where women and men, black and white, rich and poor people stand up and read God’s Word in the pulpit. And we even sing old hymns! It is impossible for me to explain how important Minter Lane is to me.
I serve there by teaching both adult and children’s Bible classes on a voluntary/rotating basis, helping in the nursery on rotation, serving and presiding at the Lord’s Supper from time to time, and serving on a worship planning team. Jeremy and I also prepare and clean up the congregation’s coffee each Sunday.
Our other church is a house church that originally grew out of the MRNA program. It contains about fifteen adults and four children, many of us of similar ages, backgrounds, and education levels. The great strength of house church is intimacy and vulnerability. We know each other very, very well, and so we are able to call each other to account and rejoice and mourn with each other in a way that is rare in more institutional church settings. In house church, Jeremy and I host regularly, lead discussion, and plan our semi-annual camping trips. And we all share a meal every Friday night, so we get to cook something for everyone each week, too–always one of my favorite ways to serve. At Kent Smith’s request, we hosted an All-House Church Gathering with four or five other groups at our home in the spring of 2015.