With Week of Compassion kicking off this Sunday it feels like a coup to have the Rev. Brandon Gilvin (Week of Compassion’s Associate Director) as our guest preacher.
You’ll get to hear a full formal introduction of Brandon this coming Sunday in worship (or you can get a preview of it right here), but I wanted to say a little something else about Brandon in the Newsbrief this week.
You see, Brandon is one of my best friends from seminary. We went to Vanderbilt Divinity School together, were housemates together at the Disciples Divinity House in Nashville, and Brandon was a groomsman at my wedding.
Brandon was a year ahead of me in seminary. So by the time I graduated he was already serving his first church. On the Sunday afternoon when I was ordained at Vine Street Christian Church in Nashville, Brandon had spent the morning serving at his church (Central Christian in Lexington) before speeding down the highway in order to make it to my ordination (a wonderful and unexpected surprise, by the way; I had no idea he was coming!). When he pulled into the church parking lot he was about 15 minutes early. He came into the church, walked down the center aisle, and gave me a huge hug. Then, without missing a beat he said, “Okay, I gotta go back to the front door. On my way in they asked me hand out bulletins.”
And that is exactly what he did!
To a certain extent, it is what he still does. As the Associate Director for Week of Compassion, Brandon often finds himself rushing into town on behalf of the church and immediately getting to work.
Week of Compassion is the relief, refugee and development mission fund of our denomination. When the tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri last year Week of Compassion was there to respond. Here recently, in the last month alone Week of Compassion has been a part of disaster relief efforts ranging from fires in West Virginia to floods in Thailand, from emergency assistance in Ohio to cyclones in Mozambique. Their work is amazing, and I am proud that they do it on behalf of our church and all the churches of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
I am grateful for Week of Compassion, thankful for Brandon’s role in the leading it, and overjoyed to have him coming to our church on Sunday!
Just do me a favor. Don’t ask him to pass out bulletins. I’ve already given him a job for this Sunday!
Yours in the journey, Rev. Brian
Wish I could be there!!
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