To my fellow Americans, today is the day that we commemorate the prophetic calling of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin, while holding very great leadership positions in the public eye, had one role that is often overlooked. His calling to minister over a congregation of the Dexter Avenue Memorial Baptist Church was something that he held very near and dear to his heart. His leadership roles as a pastor were one of the most important aspects in his life and in who he was. Many people think of Dr King, Jr. as a social activist, a world figure, and many other great titles. But in his mind, I believe that he thought of himself first, as a Christian Preacher. In-fact, in his autobiography his very first lines were “Of course I was religious. I grew up in the church. My father was a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother is a preacher, my daddy’s brother is a preacher. So I didn’t have much of a choice.”
When King was 25 and finishing his Doctoral Dissertation at Boston University he took up his first job as a pastor at Dexter Avenue Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In many ways, King was carrying on the family business. His first day on the job, he had a great anxiety as he started to review his sermon. “I had never preached in a situation in which I was being considered for the pastorate of a church…How should I best impress the congregation? Should I attempt to interest it with a display of scholarship? Or should I preach just as I had always done, depending finally on the inspiration of God? I decided to follow the latter course” he concluded and to “Keep Martin Luther King in the back ground and God in the foreground”, The sermon he preached on January 24, 1954 titled The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life was well received. The congregation had now attained a preacher that would play a significant role in every life in America.
Martin Luther King Jr. served as the twentieth pastor at the church and even added a few of his own renditions to the church. Part of his “34 Point Recommendations” one of them was to add a pulpit in the church. It's that very same pulpit that Martin added that preachers still use to this day.
During this time in U.S. history-racial tensions were on the rise. About a year after his arrival in Montgomery, Rosa Park was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. King decided to speak out and started to lead peaceful protests. Gandhi had a heavy influence on Martin’s teachings. He writes “Gandhi was probably the first person to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.” Gandhi had a heavy influence on Martin’s works. He was fascinated with the “turn the other cheek” idea instituted in the Bible and the powerful effects of non-violent protests. He was able to recognize the difference of peacefully opposing evil and ignoring evil. Because Dr. King was so involved with the church, he was more able to be involved in the civil right efforts and could be a more effective advocate of God. The church gave him the freedom to break from the current American white system and he had his own individual source of income, his own support, and his own freedom to preach and to help lift the people to a higher calling. As King grew more and more as a civil rights advocate, he felt that he was neglecting his pastoral duties for the church. He often didn't have the time to engage in counseling, funerals, weddings, and other things that came naturally for the pastoral role. King often felt that he was neglecting the church.
In 1960, King resigned his pastoral roles and moved with his family to Atlanta. At this time in Greensboro, North Carolina, the lunch counter sit-in movement began. But he still wanted to maintain some sort of a pastoral duty. So he became an associate pastor at his father’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Not only was King a pastor at a local level, but he also felt that he was a pastor at a national level. He was very concerned about the redemption of the nation and the soul of the nation. King's famous speech known as the “I Had a Dream Speech” still echoes today across the nation today.
King’s legacy lives on. It lives through the church and the ministry of its pastors. It also lives through our memory and how far we have come as a nation. As King once said: "I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
