Posted: 7/23/04
Chicago pastor urges church leaders
to leave markers for next generation to follow
SAN ANTONIO–Christian leaders need to leave “markers” so future generations will know “where the leadership stood” when God worked through them, Chicago Pastor Lacey Curry said during the African American Fellowship/Church Health and Growth Conference.
Citing the Old Testament story of Joshua telling the Israelites to leave stones marking where God parted the Jordan River, he said such markers tell others “this is where the Lord himself intervened and made possible some things that would not otherwise have been possible.”
| Pastor Lacey Curry of Chicago encourages African-American church leaders to leave markers for future generations. |
Markers help leaders begin correctly, added Curry, pastor emeritus of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Chicago.
“Many times, we're trying to build lives out of stuff that has no life in it,” he said. Markers help a leader “start with the right stuff.”
“Leave the markers so that the youngsters will have the right start,” he added.
Markers also help leaders know where they are after they have begun.
Because “a lot of things do get cloudy,” leaders can reflect on markers left before them and recognize when they are “trying to go somewhere halfway and call it the end,” he said.
Markers also help leaders know when they have arrived where they were going.
“I'm thinking that the main problem of this generation”–with its houses, cars and other material things–is that it “does not know when it has arrived,” Curry said.
Markers tell others, “This is where the successful folks stood when the storms of life were raging,” he noted.
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