ACT Council Spotlight
On November 16 2020, in response to the Senior Pastor’s letter titled “A Time to ACT: Acknowledge, Confess, Transform” and the urgent and pervasive issues of injustice continuing to plague our country, community, and churches, the Deacons ACT Committee recommended to the Board of Deacons the establishment of an ACT Council. Subsequently, the Board of Deacons recommended to Broadway’s congregation the establishment of the ACT Council. The Broadway congregation sanctioned the creation of the ACT Council almost unanimously. On December 16, 2020, the ACT Council officially came into existence.
The Purpose of the ACT Council is seven-fold: review and expand Broadway’s mission statement; establish a permanent standing Justice Committee; research and provide a history of racism at Broadway; establish a Diversity Task Force; develop educational programming for adults and youth; identify and act upon ways for Broadway to become more racially diverse; amend Broadway’s bylaws.
The ACT Council wishes to actively engage the congregation with its mission. Beginning this month, the ACT Council will provide updates on the accomplishment of its commissioned objectives and spotlights involving educational topics that engage various ACT-related-issues. These updates and spotlights will publish on an alternating bi-monthly basis in The Window. We encourage you to follow along and treasure your prayers and support for this important undertaking as we at Broadway seek to love and serve God and our neighbors in the spirit of Christ.
The ACT Council will spotlight a person, issue, challenge, or cause that relates to its stated mission monthly. In this spotlight, the Council will engage and/or celebrate the focus as appropriate. This month we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born Michael Luther King, Jr., on January 15, 1929. He later changed his name to Martin. King graduated from high school at the age of fifteen. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he received a B.D. He received a Ph.D. in theological studies in 1955 from Boston University. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott. Coretta Scott King gave birth to two sons and two daughters.
In December 1955, as a leader in the NAACP, King helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott lasted 382 days. During the boycott, King was arrested and his home was bombed.
In 1957, King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In subsequent years, he led massive protests in Birmingham. On April 12, 1963, King got arrested for violating Alabama’s law against mass public demonstrations. While imprisoned, he penned the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. The Letter served as a manifesto of the Negro revolution. To this end, King planned drives in Alabama for the registration of Blacks voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his “l Have a Dream” address; he conferred with President John F. Kennedy; and he campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Time magazine named King Man of the Year in 1963. In 1964, at the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., became the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He donated the prize money, $54,123, to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.
If you can’t fly….
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Isaiah 40: 28-31
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.