by Doug Rehberg
On April 3, 1968, at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered the last speech of his life. It’s popularly named, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. The speech primarily concerns the Memphis sanitation strike and the injustice those sanitation workers were facing. Near the end of the speech, King begins to refer to threats he received against his life. It’s worth noting that, instead of focusing on himself, he used those threats to focus his hearers on something far greater. He focused them on the Lord and His call on their lives to advance the common good. Read how he ends it:
“Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life—longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up 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. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The next day he was shot dead.
What a contrast to the so-called movement leaders of our day, on all points of the political spectrum, who make it all about themselves.
When I came to Hebron 31 years ago, it was with a simple primary goal - to work my way out of a job. I sought to take the words of Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13 seriously:
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood…”
In the first months we began the “Tuesday Night Bible Study” in the book of I John. At first it was at Nellie Hayes’ home in Blackridge until the police came and shut us down because of all the cars. When we moved to the church parlor there were more than 60 people coming, all sitting in a circle with someone reading one verse at a time and me saying, “So what do you make of that?” It was the start of getting to know each other and growing by hearing what the Lord was saying through each of us. Some used to joke that good progress on an evening was making it through 3 verses.
Then, we asked Chuck Rosemeyer to come and lead all of the church officers and Sunday school teachers through a two-day story-boarding exercise to determine what we wanted to do to move forward. After 8 hours of work, we generated a list of over 500 items that were then assigned to various groups within the church. By the end of 1992 we had accomplished more than 75%; and people began saying with delight, “Wow! Things are really happening!”
After that, staff and leadership vision retreats became a regular part of moving Hebron forward. Every year we would measure our ministry progress against our 5-year vision, a vision that everyone participated in prayerfully creating.
I had never planned on staying at Hebron for 31 years, but the vision God put before us kept expanding. And the principle reason is because it was “we” and not “me”.
