Howard C. Wilkinson - "A Word for the Adventurer" (March 4, 1962)
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| - | There is a sense of high adventure in the air today, | 0:13 |
| as perhaps there has never been before | 0:18 | |
| in the history of mankind. | 0:20 | |
| Less than two weeks ago, | 0:23 | |
| a human being was literally and physically vaulted clear out | 0:26 | |
| of this world. | 0:30 | |
| And for the first time in history, | 0:33 | |
| he made three complete orbits of the earth without being in | 0:35 | |
| the earth, being outside its gravitational pull, | 0:41 | |
| but with all the world looking and listening so that as he | 0:46 | |
| orbited the earth on the other side, | 0:51 | |
| all the people of one city could wish him well by turning on | 0:56 | |
| all their electric lights. | 1:02 | |
| And then after driving his space ship three times | 1:05 | |
| around the earth, he could by making a decision, | 1:10 | |
| bring it back to earth and land it at a predetermined area. | 1:15 | |
| This could be done successfully so that he could step out of | 1:21 | |
| his spaceship again, back on earth and say, | 1:25 | |
| "I am feeling fine." | 1:29 | |
| And encourage his fellow men to make the journey. | 1:31 | |
| Plans already are made | 1:36 | |
| for four other trips like this to be made this year | 1:38 | |
| and then for a much longer trip to be made | 1:43 | |
| before the year ends. | 1:48 | |
| Our nation is at the present time, | 1:50 | |
| challenging its young men to prepare themselves for careers | 1:52 | |
| in science and technology that will back up and make | 1:57 | |
| possible space exploration, | 2:02 | |
| challenging young people to prepare for careers | 2:04 | |
| as space men, not simply to orbit the earth | 2:08 | |
| outside the earth's atmosphere, | 2:13 | |
| but to make trips to the moon and back | 2:15 | |
| and to do other things which will be of exciting nature | 2:18 | |
| in the near future. | 2:23 | |
| This is not something that you read in a comic book, | 2:25 | |
| for the first time, | 2:28 | |
| this has happened within the past two weeks | 2:30 | |
| with everyone in the world | 2:33 | |
| being in position to know about it, | 2:36 | |
| to see aspects of it and to hear aspects of it. | 2:38 | |
| And this is a challenge which is before you today. | 2:42 | |
| Never before in the history of our nation, | 2:48 | |
| have we had a Peace Corps, | 2:51 | |
| which would make it possible for you and people like you | 2:55 | |
| to volunteer your services as representatives | 3:01 | |
| of your nation in other nations of the world, | 3:05 | |
| to teach them, to help build their schools, their hospitals, | 3:10 | |
| to repair their bridges, | 3:15 | |
| to teach them what they need to know about health | 3:17 | |
| that we have learned, to go out as representatives | 3:21 | |
| not of the armed forces, but of the peace forces of America. | 3:26 | |
| We offered this opportunity to the underdeveloped | 3:32 | |
| nations of the earth and the response was so terrific | 3:36 | |
| that for example, | 3:39 | |
| the call has come for 50,000 more school teachers | 3:41 | |
| than we are able to supply at the present time. | 3:45 | |
| The response in the other nations of the earth, | 3:49 | |
| whose friendship we want and need was so great that we had | 3:52 | |
| to call for many more persons than we have thus far been | 3:58 | |
| able to supply. | 4:02 | |
| The Peace Corps invites you to join it | 4:04 | |
| and to be a part of it | 4:08 | |
| and to give this service in the distant places of the earth. | 4:09 | |
| This is a thrilling challenge, | 4:14 | |
| which has not been offered before the students in America. | 4:16 | |
| And then there has been another new | 4:22 | |
| and from my point of view, | 4:26 | |
| even more exciting possibility that has opened up | 4:28 | |
| in recent years under the leadership | 4:30 | |
| of the Reverend James Robinson, a New York minister, | 4:32 | |
| who has organized what has been called | 4:36 | |
| the Operation Crossroads Africa. | 4:40 | |
| So that in the summertime college students, | 4:44 | |
| while pursuing their college careers may go as | 4:46 | |
| members of teams to the various nations of Africa | 4:51 | |
| to do something similar to what is done in the Peace Corps | 4:55 | |
| and yet to go beyond that, | 4:58 | |
| namely, to go there and not simply as hospital builders, | 5:00 | |
| as bridge menders, | 5:04 | |
| but as Christians to go in the name of Christ and to say, | 5:06 | |
| "This service, we perform for you at our own expense, | 5:10 | |
| or at least at the expense of the groups | 5:15 | |
| who are sponsoring us, to do something for the people | 5:17 | |
| over in Africa and with the people in Africa." | 5:22 | |
| This is not simply something that our students go over there | 5:25 | |
| and do for them but do with them shoulder to shoulder. | 5:29 | |
| Three Duke University students this year have responded | 5:35 | |
| to that appeal and Sucre, Betsy Gwyn and Al Reimer | 5:39 | |
| are three of the members of this | 5:44 | |
| present student body who will be in the | 5:46 | |
| Operation Crossroads Africa teams this coming summer. | 5:49 | |
| And then they will again be back in our student in the fall. | 5:54 | |
| This is high adventure. | 5:58 | |
| It isn't simply a thrilling adventure, | 6:00 | |
| but it is a great opportunity for service. | 6:02 | |
| Also planned on our campuses and other venture | 6:06 | |
| to Managua Nicaragua, | 6:09 | |
| which is being planned by Bob Hyatt | 6:12 | |
| of our Religious Life staff. | 6:14 | |
| And there are a number of Duke University students | 6:16 | |
| who are going down there this summer. | 6:19 | |
| Well, so it is that this thrill of high adventure | 6:22 | |
| is sweeping not simply the world today, | 6:28 | |
| but particularly our Duke Campus and people are being | 6:31 | |
| inspired to serve in far away places | 6:35 | |
| with strange sounding names all the way from outer space | 6:38 | |
| to the distant places on the face of the earth. | 6:43 | |
| This is great. This is good. | 6:47 | |
| Let no one say a word against this. | 6:50 | |
| However, there is something which we are inclined | 6:55 | |
| to forget as we are obsessed | 6:58 | |
| with these distant opportunities for service, | 7:03 | |
| which we should not forget | 7:06 | |
| and which if we do forget will rob the adventure | 7:09 | |
| of a great part of its unique distinction and greatness. | 7:14 | |
| We are in danger of forgetting that opportunities | 7:23 | |
| for service are about us now and here all the time, | 7:27 | |
| which are as demanding, as challenging and as great | 7:35 | |
| as any of these wonderful opportunities | 7:40 | |
| that beckoned us from outer space | 7:43 | |
| and from the other side of the earth. | 7:46 | |
| And therefore I believe that without in any way | 7:49 | |
| taking our vision away from the distant opportunities | 7:52 | |
| we should by means of a kind of bifocal vision look | 7:56 | |
| also at what is at hand. | 8:00 | |
| See what you can do at home for God, for mankind, | 8:05 | |
| for the kingdom of God. | 8:12 | |
| Now I am not thinking here particularly of Indianapolis, | 8:15 | |
| if Indianapolis is your home, | 8:18 | |
| I am thinking of Durham, because Durham is where you live, | 8:21 | |
| move and have your being at the present time. | 8:28 | |
| Durham, North Carolina, where you sit now | 8:32 | |
| and where I am standing, this is where we are. | 8:38 | |
| And today we are emphasizing a great opportunity | 8:45 | |
| for service here, | 8:48 | |
| known as the Edgemont Community Center, | 8:50 | |
| which is at a particular point in space | 8:54 | |
| known as 301 Elm street, Durham. | 8:59 | |
| There is a building there with walls and a floor and a roof | 9:06 | |
| boys and girls come to that building, | 9:11 | |
| a program is they're being carried on | 9:14 | |
| by people who represent this chapel | 9:17 | |
| and the Duke University Religious Council, | 9:21 | |
| the Duke YMCA and YWCA. | 9:25 | |
| We have specific organizations and committees set up | 9:29 | |
| to plan this work and to finance it. | 9:33 | |
| As you know, approximately 50 cents of every dollar | 9:37 | |
| that you put in the chapel offering Sunday after Sunday | 9:40 | |
| goes to support the Edgemont Community Center. | 9:43 | |
| 301 Elm street, Durham, North Carolina. | 9:47 | |
| Part of your dollar goes to help send | 9:53 | |
| our representatives to Africa, | 9:56 | |
| but a large part of it stays here for this service at hand. | 9:59 | |
| But the most important part of our service | 10:06 | |
| for the Edgemont Community Center is not what we put in | 10:09 | |
| the chapel offering plate | 10:12 | |
| but what we do in working at the Edgemont Community Center | 10:14 | |
| by offering our services to the committees of the Y's | 10:18 | |
| that are carrying on this work, and they need your help. | 10:22 | |
| They have the help of a good many of our students. | 10:27 | |
| From time to time, | 10:31 | |
| there are additional persons whose help is needed. | 10:32 | |
| Today we would like to single out for special emphasis, | 10:37 | |
| this project, which is not an outer space, | 10:41 | |
| it is not on the other side of the earth, | 10:43 | |
| it is here, where we study and where we live. | 10:45 | |
| You know it's an interesting thing that Jesus | 10:52 | |
| often challenged people to leave their homes, | 10:56 | |
| their fishing nets, their tax tables, | 10:59 | |
| their friends, and follow him to distant assignments. | 11:03 | |
| We remember these things because they're rather dramatic. | 11:07 | |
| What we are inclined to forget is the fact that Jesus also | 11:11 | |
| challenged a great many people to serve him where they were, | 11:14 | |
| where he found them, at home. | 11:17 | |
| In the fifth chapter of Mark for example, | 11:20 | |
| there was a man who was not in his right mind | 11:23 | |
| and he came to Jesus and Jesus | 11:25 | |
| restored him to sanity and health. | 11:27 | |
| And the man immediately made the same response | 11:30 | |
| that a great many other people hadn't had made | 11:33 | |
| in answering the call of Christ. | 11:35 | |
| He said, "Well, master, | 11:37 | |
| I want to be with you and I'll go with you anywhere you go." | 11:39 | |
| I imagine he was a little bit surprised when the Lord said | 11:44 | |
| to him, "Decapolis is the place where you are to serve. | 11:47 | |
| Tell your family and your friends and your fellow citizens, | 11:55 | |
| what the Lord has done for you, | 11:59 | |
| make your witness in Decapolis." | 12:03 | |
| And I can imagine that this man almost shouted, | 12:05 | |
| "Decapolis, that's where I live." | 12:08 | |
| And I can then imagine Jesus saying, "That's just the point. | 12:12 | |
| That's just the point." | 12:16 | |
| If we cannot make a witness where we are, | 12:19 | |
| we cannot make a witness where we are not. | 12:22 | |
| Jesus is saying to a great many people | 12:27 | |
| I think that he wants them to make a witness where they are. | 12:30 | |
| But in spite of that, | 12:35 | |
| we seem always to want to see the grass | 12:36 | |
| that is on the other side of the fence, | 12:41 | |
| imagining that it is greener than the grass, | 12:44 | |
| which is on our side of the fence, | 12:47 | |
| the grass which is beneath our feet. | 12:48 | |
| There seems to be a human tendency to minimize | 12:51 | |
| the opportunities for service and for greatness, | 12:54 | |
| which are at hand, | 12:56 | |
| and to emphasize the opportunities that are on the horizon | 12:58 | |
| and which we cannot see very clearly | 13:03 | |
| but we imagine if we were looking at them, | 13:06 | |
| we could see them with great clarity. | 13:09 | |
| What great can be done here? | 13:13 | |
| What is right here that is wonderful and outstanding? | 13:17 | |
| Let me give you an illustration, | 13:23 | |
| which I hope you will not forget. | 13:25 | |
| This illustration is all around you now where you sit, | 13:29 | |
| it is around many of you | 13:34 | |
| when you lie down to go to sleep at night. | 13:35 | |
| It surrounds many of you | 13:39 | |
| as you eat your food three times a day. | 13:41 | |
| Some of you perhaps have not read Professor Blackburn's book | 13:46 | |
| on the architecture of Duke University | 13:50 | |
| and may therefore not know the description | 13:53 | |
| which is contained in that book of the process | 13:56 | |
| by which the stone for Duke University was selected. | 13:59 | |
| Mr. James B. Duke | 14:05 | |
| was a great admirer of Princeton University, | 14:07 | |
| it's architecture, it's stone, it's colors. | 14:10 | |
| And so when the decision was made that a great west campus | 14:13 | |
| would be built here as Duke University should blossom | 14:16 | |
| and flower, he wanted the best stone that could be had. | 14:21 | |
| And he preferred that it'd be similar to that of Princeton. | 14:27 | |
| So he sent word to all of the great stone quarries | 14:32 | |
| of America that had stone anyone resembling that | 14:35 | |
| and asked them to send samples here to Durham. | 14:38 | |
| Dr. Frank C. Brown, | 14:42 | |
| the late controller of Duke University was asked to erect | 14:43 | |
| sample of walls of the various kinds of stone, | 14:46 | |
| which Mr. Duke had shipped here. | 14:49 | |
| He took a great interest in this very important project, | 14:51 | |
| went over to Raleigh to the state geological lab, | 14:55 | |
| conferred with them, | 14:59 | |
| saw an interesting sample of stone there, | 15:01 | |
| which had 14 different colors. | 15:04 | |
| He made inquiry about it and found that the laboratory | 15:08 | |
| in Raleigh considered this a very excellent building stone | 15:11 | |
| and felt that it would be very very durable. | 15:15 | |
| Upon tracing this stone down, | 15:19 | |
| It was discovered that it came from an abandoned quarry | 15:21 | |
| in Hillsborough, 13 miles away from Durham. | 15:24 | |
| And so without the Duke family or the trustees | 15:29 | |
| or the building committee knowing anything about | 15:32 | |
| where any of the stone came from, | 15:35 | |
| Mr. Brown erected these sample walls, | 15:36 | |
| and they came and looked at them | 15:40 | |
| and on the basis of the beauty of the stone | 15:42 | |
| and the durability of the various kinds of stone | 15:46 | |
| as tested out, not only in the state laboratory, | 15:49 | |
| but also in the federal laboratory, | 15:52 | |
| they picked this particular Cambrian stone | 15:54 | |
| and then they said, where does it come from? | 15:59 | |
| 13 miles away was the answer. | 16:03 | |
| And they did not let that fact keep them from choosing it. | 16:07 | |
| Many people would have been inclined to say, | 16:13 | |
| "Oh no, we'll not use this stone because | 16:16 | |
| it comes from our area. | 16:21 | |
| Let's get something that is from a great distance." | 16:25 | |
| But they built the university out of | 16:29 | |
| as it were hometown stuff. | 16:32 | |
| It is a university that is famous around the world, | 16:37 | |
| we say without false pride. | 16:40 | |
| The pictured stone of this building | 16:44 | |
| is carried around the earth proudly by many publications. | 16:48 | |
| Something great can come from where we are. | 16:54 | |
| Something great can be built out of the rock | 16:58 | |
| on which our feet stand, don't you ever forget it. | 17:01 | |
| I hope I will never forget it. | 17:07 | |
| We are inclined to forget it because of the human tendency | 17:09 | |
| to imagine that nothing really great can be where we are. | 17:12 | |
| Why do you suppose we did not see these opportunities | 17:20 | |
| for great service that are at our hand? | 17:23 | |
| This question has puzzled me at different times. | 17:26 | |
| I think the answer to that question is that we assume | 17:31 | |
| that nothing great can come from where we are | 17:39 | |
| and what an insult we give ourselves. | 17:47 | |
| If other people were to insult us to that extent, | 17:51 | |
| we would become enraged | 17:55 | |
| and would insult them in return, very likely. | 17:56 | |
| If someone were to say to me, | 18:00 | |
| "Now because your wife is your wife, | 18:02 | |
| she cannot be a fine person." | 18:05 | |
| I would be angry, | 18:07 | |
| but do I always assume | 18:09 | |
| that the possibilities of a great marriage are mine | 18:10 | |
| because she has married me? | 18:15 | |
| Can anything great come out of Duke University? | 18:18 | |
| Oh, it's my school, isn't it, of course not. | 18:20 | |
| If anyone else were to insult me this way, | 18:24 | |
| I would not allow it and yet from time to time, | 18:27 | |
| I'm willing to insult myself to this extent. | 18:30 | |
| This is a curious fact, but a fact, nevertheless, | 18:37 | |
| when Jesus Christ left the town of Nazareth | 18:42 | |
| and began his public ministry, he became famous. | 18:47 | |
| And within a short period of time, | 18:51 | |
| he was the most talked about man in Palestine, | 18:54 | |
| you would have thought that when he returned to his hometown | 18:58 | |
| and preached in his home synagogue, | 19:01 | |
| they would have been the first to say, | 19:05 | |
| "This man is the son of God." | 19:07 | |
| But what happened? | 19:11 | |
| You remember that when Jesus preached in the synagogue | 19:13 | |
| at first, they were thrilled and they said, | 19:17 | |
| "Never man spake as this man." | 19:19 | |
| And then mentally, they kind of pinched themselves | 19:24 | |
| and said this, "Is not this Joseph's son." | 19:28 | |
| And then they wrote him off. | 19:36 | |
| But what was wrong with his being Joseph's son? | 19:38 | |
| Just this, Joseph was one of the citizens of their town. | 19:41 | |
| They were saying, in other words, | 19:46 | |
| "Isn't he one of our boys, don't we know him? | 19:48 | |
| And if we know him and he is one of our boys, | 19:51 | |
| he cannot be the son of God. | 19:55 | |
| Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? | 19:57 | |
| Answer, no, because it's our town where we live." | 20:00 | |
| And so the people of Nazareth | 20:04 | |
| miss the opportunity to have the greatest thrill | 20:07 | |
| that any town in the world could have namely to realize | 20:10 | |
| that Jesus Christ, | 20:13 | |
| the son of almighty God was one of their hometown boys. | 20:14 | |
| They missed this because of the tendency to imagine that | 20:22 | |
| the grass is greener somewhere else, | 20:26 | |
| that nothing good can happen here because it is our place. | 20:28 | |
| And therefore no opportunity for serving God | 20:33 | |
| that is really worthwhile can be here. | 20:37 | |
| I think it's because we don't look for it where we are | 20:42 | |
| that we do not see it. | 20:45 | |
| JBIV, the former Merchant Prince of North Carolina | 20:50 | |
| so-called, had the hobby of raising flowers. | 20:54 | |
| Now he is where his specialty and every year | 20:59 | |
| at the Asheville Men's Flower Show, | 21:02 | |
| he would display a great many beautiful dahlias. | 21:04 | |
| Those of you who have seen Mr. IV's dahlias | 21:08 | |
| either in Charlotte or in Asheville | 21:11 | |
| will testify to the excellence of their beauty. | 21:12 | |
| He cultivated not simply flowers, | 21:17 | |
| but the art of raising flowers. | 21:19 | |
| And he knew what to do, how, and when, | 21:22 | |
| in order to make the flowers beautiful, | 21:25 | |
| he would rise before daylight every morning and go out | 21:28 | |
| and work his flowers. | 21:31 | |
| One year at the Asheville Men's Flower Show, | 21:34 | |
| a lady approached Mr. IV, she said, | 21:37 | |
| "I have come a long ways to see your dahlias | 21:40 | |
| because I have heard of their beauty and their excellence. | 21:44 | |
| I would like to know where you get your bulbs, | 21:48 | |
| because I would like to get some of the same kind of bulbs | 21:51 | |
| you have so that I could grow beautiful dahlias | 21:54 | |
| like you grow." | 21:57 | |
| He said, "Lady, the important thing | 21:59 | |
| is not where you get the bulbs, it's what you do with them | 22:01 | |
| when you plant them in your own soil." | 22:04 | |
| She said, "I know that that's important, | 22:08 | |
| but the most important thing surely must be | 22:09 | |
| the bulb that you have at the beginning. | 22:13 | |
| So please tell me where you get them if it's not a secret." | 22:17 | |
| He said, "It's no secret, | 22:20 | |
| but I have forgotten where I get them | 22:21 | |
| and if you'll give me your name and address, | 22:23 | |
| when I get back to my home in Charlotte, I'll write to you." | 22:24 | |
| She gave him her name and street address | 22:28 | |
| and while he was riding, | 22:32 | |
| she then added the city is Lebanon, Ohio. | 22:33 | |
| And he looked up from his writing then and said, | 22:37 | |
| "That reminds me, | 22:39 | |
| I order them from the Golden Rule Farm in Lebanon, Ohio." | 22:40 | |
| To which she exclaimed that nursery | 22:46 | |
| is just around the corner from where I live." | 22:49 | |
| Now, you see the reason she didn't see those bulbs | 22:52 | |
| at the Golden Rule Farm in Lebanon, Ohio, | 22:55 | |
| where she lived while she was not looking for anything | 22:58 | |
| in her hometown, | 23:01 | |
| with which she could develop into a beautiful garden. | 23:02 | |
| It was somewhere else, Asheville, | 23:09 | |
| if you get on the train and ride long enough, | 23:12 | |
| you'll get to a place where you can get | 23:14 | |
| some beautiful flowers. | 23:16 | |
| She did not realize that her best opportunity | 23:18 | |
| was where she was because she was not looking for it there. | 23:21 | |
| Now the relevance of this, so the matter before us is | 23:26 | |
| that we can do our best service in these distant places | 23:33 | |
| if we prepare ourselves first by serving where we are | 23:37 | |
| One of our great challenges today is | 23:46 | |
| to effect racial brotherhood in the world. | 23:49 | |
| A world that torn apart by racial brotherhood | 23:53 | |
| and on which sundering communism feeds | 23:59 | |
| needs men of goodwill to establish the bridges | 24:05 | |
| of racial brotherhood. | 24:08 | |
| Where are we going to do this, in Africa? | 24:11 | |
| Well, yes, but I understand the one of the first questions, | 24:14 | |
| which the people in Africa ask us when we get over there is | 24:20 | |
| "How are things in the town from which you came? | 24:23 | |
| In other words in Durham, how does it go?" | 24:28 | |
| Professor Robert Rankin, | 24:33 | |
| the Chairman of our own Political Science Department here | 24:35 | |
| at Duke gave an address to a civic club downtown | 24:37 | |
| just a few days ago, in which he said | 24:40 | |
| that as a member of the President's Commission | 24:43 | |
| on Civil Rights, | 24:45 | |
| he had gone over the country and had come to the conclusion | 24:46 | |
| that no city in the south had the possibilities for | 24:49 | |
| greatness and development in racial brotherhood | 24:53 | |
| which Durham has because of the excellence of the leadership | 24:56 | |
| in both the Negro race and the White race, | 24:59 | |
| which we have here, which many other cities do not have. | 25:01 | |
| And so he issued the challenge to us in Durham that we move | 25:06 | |
| forward in this area and make great progress in achieving | 25:09 | |
| racial brotherhood here, in order that when we go out from | 25:14 | |
| here to Africa or to other parts of the world, | 25:20 | |
| we may be prepared for the kind of service | 25:24 | |
| which will be effective there. | 25:27 | |
| We need to realize that we build upon the progress | 25:32 | |
| which we make today as we move into tomorrow. | 25:37 | |
| Dr. George Hester, | 25:42 | |
| who is professor of history at Southwestern University | 25:43 | |
| tells a rather amusing incident of something | 25:47 | |
| that happened in the US Patent Office | 25:49 | |
| back in the 19th century. | 25:51 | |
| The US Patent Office was operated in those days by one man. | 25:52 | |
| He did everything that was done by the Patent Office. | 25:58 | |
| And after he had been sitting there in his chair | 26:02 | |
| with his feet propped up on his table for several days, | 26:05 | |
| with nothing to do, | 26:08 | |
| he resigned and went into some other kinds of work | 26:09 | |
| because he said there was no future in the Patent Office. | 26:11 | |
| Everything has been invented, that's going to be invented. | 26:14 | |
| If that core soul could walk into | 26:18 | |
| the bureau of patents today, | 26:20 | |
| he would receive a mighty demonstration of the fact that | 26:23 | |
| what is invented yesterday makes possible | 26:26 | |
| more inventions today. | 26:29 | |
| And these in turn make possible | 26:30 | |
| additional inventions tomorrow that we build upon the past. | 26:32 | |
| And so instead of moving out of what was to become | 26:37 | |
| a tremendously booming business, | 26:42 | |
| he should have stayed there, | 26:45 | |
| but he thought that there was nothing great | 26:48 | |
| where he was sitting, no future. | 26:52 | |
| Not only do we look back and see how the people of Nazareth | 26:57 | |
| missed Christ, not only do we see how people have | 27:02 | |
| overlooked opportunities for beautiful gardens, | 27:08 | |
| we see how in our own lives, in our own time, | 27:14 | |
| on our own campus this month, | 27:19 | |
| we can miss great opportunities for serving Christ | 27:24 | |
| by concluding that since the Edgemont Community Center | 27:29 | |
| is just made up of boys and girls, just ordinary people, | 27:36 | |
| just folks who make mistakes, who do crazy things, | 27:43 | |
| people whose joys and sorrows are about like ours, | 27:49 | |
| that there's no possibility of doing anything | 27:54 | |
| great for God there. | 27:56 | |
| It looks rather drab and dismal at times. | 27:59 | |
| And by assuming that | 28:03 | |
| we would miss the greatness one day of hearing Jesus Christ | 28:07 | |
| say to us, "In as much as He did it | 28:11 | |
| onto one of the least of these, my brethren, | 28:18 | |
| He did it unto me." | 28:24 | |
| Jesus says to many of us today, what he said to that man, | 28:28 | |
| whom He restored long ago, when we asked him, | 28:33 | |
| "Good master, where shall we go to serve you?" | 28:39 | |
| " Right where you are, tell them, | 28:46 | |
| tell these people what the Lord has done for you | 28:51 | |
| and can do for them." | 28:55 | |
| Well, God, our heavenly father, | 29:03 | |
| who does call us to serve thee at all times, | 29:05 | |
| and in all places, grant onto us, | 29:11 | |
| the sharpness of vision that will enable us to see at hand | 29:14 | |
| the opportunities which we should take advantage of, | 29:20 | |
| which will give us the grace to put ourselves aside | 29:25 | |
| long enough to do it. | 29:29 | |
| May we not shirk our great worldwide task for Christ. | 29:33 | |
| May we not shirk the one which at hand and now may the grace | 29:39 | |
| of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, the father, | 29:44 | |
| the communion and fellowship of the holy spirit rest | 29:48 | |
| and abide with you now and evermore. | 29:51 |