Description
Book SynopsisThis immensely stirring work depicts the life, struggles, and hopes of a young African- American migrant worker. Bud grew up in a small Southern town with a vision to one day attend theological school and do Christian ministry in postmodern culture. History being partial to irony and surprise, this riveting story involves Bud and a close posse of friends, June Bug Anderson, Baby Junior Robinson, Thomas Conners, and Charles Lambert. Ministry Bound also describes the amazing true story of a Southern white man who saved Bud while swimming in a creek, when the laws of segregation prevented Black children from swimming with White children in the same pool. On the confessional level, the testimonies of the real people in this book reveal the extraordinary power and grace of God, poured into the lives of ordinary people of faith and prayer. On the socio-economic level, the stories also document some of the devastating disparities that African Americans and other minorities continue to face in the so-called land of the free and home of the brave. Bud''s journey as a migrant worker led him from the toils of the cotton and tomato fields to critical reflection on university and seminary campuses as a professor of social ethics in the global community. This book is appropriate for readers interested in African-American history, Christian ministry, and religious education.
Trade ReviewIt is more than a text for those who are called to ministry. It speaks to the heart, mind, body, and soul, the totality of our existence. Anyone who reads this text will be changed. -- Rev. Charles Scully Stikes, Ph.D., Professor Counseling and Sociology, Missouri Baptist University
...an inspiring vision of how the ordinary leads to the extraordinary when it encounters deep faith, and how greatness can be achieved through sheer determination and trust in God. This is a story to which both the common person and the scholar can relate, and one that stirs the soul toward a greater knowledge of the divinity within. -- Barbara C. Medley PhD, associate professor of sociology, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Table of ContentsPart 1 Preface Chapter 2 Roots of a Cottonpatch Theologian Chapter 3 Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick Chapter 4 Put God First Chapter 5 Exodus and Promise: From Earle to Sister Bay Chapter 6 "I Prayed My Way to College!" Chapter 7 The Boston Experience: Ministry Bound Chapter 8 The Eden Experience: Planting Flowers, Plucking Weeds Part 9 Epilogue
