October
27, 2014
Christ United Methodist Ministry
Center
“Christ in the Heart of San Diego”
3295 Meade Avenue - San Diego, CA 92116 - (619) 284-9205
Home
of
Exodus Parish
Pastorgraphs: “Dr. Jon McCoy”
I continue to be amazed, but no longer
surprised, by the providence of God. They are “God things” because there is no
way they are coincidences, but tangible evidence of God at work in our lives.
From the beginning, God has brought just
the right individuals, congregations and organizations into the fabric of what
is now Christ Ministry Center. It happened again last week.
A few weeks ago, the Rev. Dr. Jon McCoy,
pastor of Hinsdale UMC in Hinsdale, IL (a suburb of Chicago) called. He just
happened to be in his hometown of Yazoo City, MS visiting his father, a retired
pastor, when he read a story in the Yazoo Herald about Christ Ministry Center
and my trip to Sojourners. The more we talked, the more we realized how much we
have in common.
We did not know each other growing up. We
both graduated from Yazoo City High (two decades apart – me in the mid-60s and
Jon in the mid-80s) and went on to earn doctorates. Jon earned a Ph.D. from the
University of Illinois. He worked at Yazoo City’s radio station, WAZF. So did
I.
In addition to having the same small
hometown, Dr. McCoy and I became United Methodist elders. We both serve “cross
cultural” appointments (a Methodist term where the pastor’s ethnicity is
different from the majority of the congregation). Both our mothers were
faithful educators in the Yazoo City public school system. McCoy Elementary
School is named in honor of Dr. McCoy’s late mother. Dr. McCoy’s father still
lives in Yazoo City as does my mother. I’m sure there are other parallels, but
you see what I mean.
In his initial call, Rev. McCoy said he was
coming to San Diego in October to attend the “Sticky Teams 2014 Conference” at
North Coast Church in Vista and wanted to worship with us and learn more about
CMC and The Fount. Dr. McCoy and his wife, Robbye, (an OB-GYN physician at
Northwestern Hospital), attended worship at Exodus Church last week when Anita
and I were in Simi Valley. Last Monday night, Anita, Chris and I had the
pleasure of meeting Dr. McCoy for dinner. (Robbye had to return to Chicago.)
We immediately hit it off, sharing notes on
people we remember from Old Yazoo. Despite me being almost 20 years older, we
had some of the same high school teachers.
Oh yes, I’m now beginning to input data
into The Fount for the second major US metropolitan area. Guess where? Chicago,
of course! Plus, Dr. McCoy is familiar with the ministry established in Chicago
in the 1960s by Dr. Ray Bakke, pioneer and world-recognized authority on modern
urban ministry. (Dr. Bakke is now living in Seattle, and has communicated with
me about his interest in CMC and The Fount.)
By the time we got home, Jon had already
communicated with his Bishop in Chicago, who immediately replied and connected
me with Chicago’s Methodist urban ministry leaders. Pastor Owens of Exodus
Church is planning a family trip to Chicago next year and will reconnect with
Dr. McCoy. I foresee a trip to Chicago soon as well.
The way Jon McCoy and I connected after all
these years reminded me of Willie Morris who grew up in Yazoo City two decades
before me. Like Jon and me, he too graduated from Yazoo City High and worked at
WAZF. He was a Rhodes Scholar, became the youngest editor ever of Harper’s
Magazine, and won numerous literary awards for his books and short stories
about the Deep South, including his autobiographical book and movie, “My Dog
Skip”.
There is a theme in “My Dog Skip” where
Willie, as a young boy, idolizes his older neighbor Dink Jenkins, a local
sports hero who went off to fight in World War II.
In one scene, young Willie tells his best
buddy Sammy about Dink. “He's only the best ballplayer anywhere around here.
Ever.” Sammy replied, “Well, you haven't seen Waldo Grace.” The reason Willie
and Sammy never saw Dink, who was white, and Waldo, who was black, play in the
same game was because of 1940s segregation.
The story is a coming-of-age classic in
which Dink and Willie reconcile their broken relationship. Willie has to deal
with learning his hero Dink returned home a battlefield coward, not the sports
hero in his nine-year-old eyes. And in a touching scene at the end, Willie
finally gets to see Waldo Grace play baseball. By overcoming the cultural lines
that divided the races and the town, Willie connects with a new hero from the
other side of Yazoo.
I would like to think had Jon and I grown
up together we would have become friends much earlier, and experience divine
fellowship as Jon and I have now done.
In Christ’s Service, Bill Jenkins
From The
Quote Garden:
“The real challenge facing the world
is not geographic distance but cultural distance. I think of Jackson,
Mississippi as a father to Chicago, because a million and a half black people
from Mississippi came here. Poland is our mother, because 840,000 Poles came to
Chicago -- 100,000 more Poles than San Francisco has people. We have all kinds
of cultures in our cities. How are we going to live together and work
together?"
~ Ray Bakke, Fast Company magazine
(December 1998)
Links:
Photo
credit: Dr. Jon McCoy and Bill Jenkins with my book, “Mississippi Methodist
Churches: 200 Years of Heritage and Hope”.
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